Ecclesiastes Chapter One, Wisdom, Madness, & Folly

Ecclesiastes 1:17 And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.

The preacher determines to know three things at the outset: he wishes to know wisdom first and foremost. The foundational wisdom the prudent Hebrew subscribed to was written in Proverbs. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding,” Proverbs 9:10.

To fear (reverence or worship) God is just the beginning of wisdom. Thus, by this definition, one may not be truly wise without this essential foundation. True, one may be worldly wise, but not wise in the sight of God. As for worldly wisdom, the Scripture states, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent,” Isaiah 29:14, 1 Corinthians 1:19. The wisdom and understanding the worldly wise profess is incongruent with godly wisdom; that is, wisdom that permits a person to consider life from the perspective of eternity. If we did consider it from such a perspective, we would do all in our power to know God, and be reconciled to Him by whatever means necessary. Everything and anything else done on earth in this life is, by contrast pointless or even counter productive for what is good for the individual.

Continuing to address wisdom separated from God, Paul writes, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe,” 1 Corinthians 1:20, 21. Perhaps then there is wisdom as to why the preacher couches the terms wisdom, madness  and folly together. Worldly wisdom deems the pursuit of the spiritual above all as foolishness, according to the gospel Paul preached. Genuine wisdom as given by God sees human effort divorced from God’s providential care as reckless, hopeless and vain. Moreover, earthly or worldly wisdom cannot discern God. One may not know God intuitively or purely experientially. One must know the Father through the word He has given, the Bible.

James further differentiates between worldly and godly wisdom. He informed his readership that if someone possessed real wisdom their actions would demonstrate its reality. Their works would be done in what he termed, “the meekness of wisdom,” James 3:13. The works may closely reflect the works others do through worldly wisdom, but one’s purpose transforms both into either humbly productive, glorifying God by serving man, or grasping after the wind by attaching temporal goals. When one feeds the starving, clothes the naked, houses the homeless, it is not evil, but it avoids and omits the truly necessary thing the hungry, naked and homeless need: God. The preacher later observes, “All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet his soul is not satisfied,” Ecclesiastes 6:7.

The Pharisees were notorious hypocrites that were outwardly godly, but inwardly sterile. Their wisdom was inherently worldly or as James would later write, “it is earthly, sensual, demonic,” James 3:15. The Pharisees strained out gnats and swallowed camels. They took care of the little things, foregoing the monumental things that are mankind’s responsibility. Their intentions, their motivations were not derived from godly wisdom but human achievement. Our Lord would elsewhere rhetorically inquire, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16:26. If our priority is to simply feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless without preaching Christ so that they may be saved, one may say that we are complicit to their spiritual ruin. “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin,” James 4:17.

Wisdom defines intention in action. Our works are truly folly and madness when built on the sand of temporal intentions. They are cyclical. The preacher’s first steps now involve the consideration of wisdom, and what appears to be its opposites: madness and folly. But the preacher may be denoting that the concept of wisdom under the sun is relative to indulging in madness, whose result is invariably folly. The Hebrew word for, “folly” is, “sik-looth,” a derivative of “saw-kal,” which means, “to be silly or done foolishly.” To be sure earthly wisdom can quickly descend into madness, resulting in subsequent folly. Recall what Festus said concerning Paul’s dialogue: “Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!” Acts 26:24. Paul’s wisdom is mistaken for madness in the ears of the unsaved. Conversely, worldly wisdom may well sound like lunacy in the ears of the saints.

Nonetheless the preacher retains godly wisdom throughout the book, a wisdom that is the lens through which he considers the actions and consequences of life under the sun. How does the preacher’s wisdom differ? Time is viewed from the perspective of eternity. What does his wisdom reveal to him concerning the affairs of humankind? That is the subject of the remainder of the book, which will soon systematically approach different lifestyles or choices that pretend to offer alternatives but lead to one end.