Ecclesiastes Chapter Two, One Fateful Event

Ecclesiastes 2:13 Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. [14] The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I perceived that the same event happens to them all.

The preacher makes a very great confession in this passage that reveals in not so many words the crux of his burden. He begins well, admitting that wisdom is better than folly. To practice folly of course is to play the fool. We read in Proverbs, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him,” Proverbs 26:4. Conversely, it is also written, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes,” Proverbs 26:5.

Our Lord spoke of the eye in regard to light and darkness, stating, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness,” Matthew 6:22, 23. The Bible has much to say about wisdom, light, and seeing. The preacher writes that a wise man has his eyes, “in his head.” This metaphor simply indicates that the wise man’s sight (symbolizing his wisdom) is utilized; whereas the fool’s sight is lacking, walking in darkness and not hearkening to conscience or counsel.

In the passages quoted from Proverbs, the first is a warning that anyone who engages a foolish person in their way of thinking will essentially stoop down to their level and be viewed like them for doing so. The very next passage, however, suggests that a wise man, to contest a fool’s folly and perhaps bring the light of wisdom into that darkness, ought to be willing to suffer such a possibility before the fool’s ignorance inoculates him from correction or remedy. It is truly a moment of pearls before swine, which we are cautioned to be wary of doing, Matthew 7:6. Of course the contrast in these verses when speaking of the wise, refers to godly wisdom, which begins with a righteous reverence of God. The pearls are Scriptural truths which the unsaved will not accept kindly because they walk as fools in spiritual darkness, as Proverbs 26:5 states, wise in their own eyes.

But we must return still to life under the sun, as the preacher restricts the search to that sphere. The wise then order their lives in a prudent and meticulous way. They conserve money, practice kindness, share excess, do not infract the law, and practice self-control, for instance. It may go to say that the fool, contrasted with the wise, does the opposite. The wise sees trouble and avoids it, while the fool plunges headlong into it. The wise looks ahead to his children’s children and conserves for their future; the fool cares about today, etc, etc. Then it may be that we could even use Jacob and Esau as the wise (Jacob) and the fool (Esau). Jacob was shrewd, considering the future and his blessing, while Esau was carnal, considering his rumbling stomach and today. And yes, Jacob in that instance, among numerous others, employed very worldly wisdom obtaining what he desired while Esau was the slave of his own fleshly wants that drove him from one lust to another.

Wisdom was light, and folly darkness. The one who practiced wisdom was said to be able to see; the one who practiced the other was essentially blind, smug in his self-righteousness, not realizing that he could not see because darkness was all he knew. One small nugget that may be gleaned in this passage is that the godly wise have a moral, God-given imperative to help those who walk in darkness. If you saw someone physically blind trying to cross a busy street heedlessly, and had the power to help them safely navigate their way across, would you not?

On surface inspection then the wise man has a distinct advantage over the fool. Yet the preacher was compelled to comment that he noticed that wise or fool, they both experienced the same event, as he calls it. So whether one practiced wisdom or exalted in folly, neither escaped encountering this singularity that was universal and impartial, since it occurred regardless of mental acumen or lack thereof. There is indeed a single, momentous event that happens to all men “under the sun,” that all must contend with in their own time, and the preacher turns his attention to this objective, factual common ground shortly.