1.
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men:
A COMMON EVIL
‘There is an evil … common among men.’
Ecclesiastes 6:1
I. Throughout this sixth chapter the Preacher is speaking of the lover of riches, not simply of the rich man; not against wealth, but against mistaking wealth for the chief good.—The man who trusts in riches is placed before us; and, that we may see him at his best, he has the riches in which he trusts. Unless some immortal provision be made for the immortal spirit, it will pine, and protest, and crave till all power of happily enjoying outward good be lost.
II. Look at your means and possessions.—Multiply them as you will, yet there are many reasons why, if you seek your chief good in them, they should prove vanity and breed vexation of spirit. (1) One is that beyond a certain point you cannot use or enjoy them. (2) Another reason is that it is hard, so hard as to be impossible, for you to know ‘what is good’ for you to have. That on which you had set your heart may prove to be an evil rather than a good when at last you get it. (3) A third reason is that the more you acquire, the more you must dispose of when you are called away from this life; and who can tell what shall be after him?
These are the Preacher’s arguments against love of riches.
Illustration
‘This section contains firstly the negative of the illustration relative to the nature of true wisdom, which forms the contents of the third discourse, or a censure of the vain and perverse efforts of those who seek that wisdom in the way of external and earthly happiness. In two clearly marked sections or strophes of equal length, the author first shows that all worldly blessings are of no avail to him who is not able to enjoy them ( Ecclesiastes 6:1-6), and then that this very incapability of enjoyment depends partly on the perception of the vanity of earthly things, and partly on the necessity, affecting all men, of depending on a totally dark and uncertain future, while dissatisfied with the present ( Ecclesiastes 6:7-12).’
2.
A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
3.
If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
4.
For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.
5.
Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other.
6.
Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?
7.
All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
8.
For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?
9.
Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit.
10.
That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.
11.
Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better?
12.
For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?