Ecclesiastes Chapter Four, Parables & Reality

Ecclesiastes 4:13 Better a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who will be admonished no more. [14] For he comes out of prison to be king, although he was born poor in his kingdom. [15] I saw all the living who walk under the sun; they were with the second youth who stands in his place. [16] There was no end of all the people over whom he was made king; yet those who come afterward will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

It could be that the preacher is reflecting on himself in this passage as the old and foolish king that will no longer accept admonition, see 1 Kings 11:4-6, 10, 11. And indeed, God raised up not only enemies, but a successor in the form of Jeroboam who would lead away 10 of the tribes to northern Israel, which would later become Samaria.

Of this hypothetical pauper king, the preacher states that he emerged from prison to become king, despite the fact that he was born in poverty. Solomon’s father David, while not born in poverty, was born in relative obscurity until the day Samuel the prophet was commanded by God to anoint David king. This was done when David was quite young and Saul, the Benjamite, was yet king over Israel. But Saul, like Solomon in his latter years, had grown old and wandered far from the path of obedience. He tried to murder David, and when God refused to speak to him, he consulted a witch and her demon spirit.

In fact, just as Solomon was thwarted by Jeroboam and would be supplanted by both he and his own son, Rehoboam, David and King Saul also fit this descriptor. David won the affection of the people for his daring exploits; so much so that King Saul became murderously jealous of him, though David was merely a loyal servant of the king. It was Saul’s implacable and unreasonable petty envy that made David into an adversary, to his own ruination.

Of this young new king, the preacher informs his readership that he beheld all the living under the sun standing with the youth that replaced the old and foolish king. In other words, the contemporaries of the boy rallied with him, or behind him, and coalesced to make him their new ruler. This hearkens back to a previous verse in which the preacher writes, “Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness,” Ecclesiastes 2:13. David’s reign was great, yet Solomon’s was greater. David laid a foundation, and Solomon built upon it. The Rock they built upon was the Lord God Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel. As God promised Abraham concerning his progeny, Solomon reigned over a populous people. But more than this great king, our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, truly reigns over a people without number. And of Him it may be most truly said that “there was no end of all the people over whom he was made king.” Solomon was a type of Christ, whose brilliant and excellent reign at its peak was a foreshadow of the glories yet awaiting Israel.

Sadly, the preacher concludes this passage by saying that those who come after this youthful king will not rejoice in him, unlike his contemporaries that rallied behind him and wanted him to be crowned. Why? Because we have already been forewarned that those who follow after have the penchant for forgetting, perhaps willfully so, what preceded them. The past is irrelevant; all that matters is now, and this youthful king is past, so what does it matter to those alive today? The young king was made so to dethrone a silly old man that would no longer execute the duties of the title his crown represented, and by doing so the youth liberated the people oppressed by his myopia. His wisdom saved the kingdom, but since that was the past, it is of no importance to the living any longer. Of greater tragedy is the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Potentate. His sacrifice for humanity has been relegated to superstitious folklore that only fools would believe. “Science,” has somehow debunked it. “Reason” somehow exposes it as fraudulent. Of such shortsightedness and failure to recall and honor the past, the preacher names it for what it is: vanity, nonsense, or pointlessness and grasping for what can never be attained.