Ecclesiastes Chapter Eight, Reversing What Is Just

Ecclesiastes 8:14 There is a vanity which occurs on earth, that there are just men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

Once more the preacher tackles the noticeable and pointless disparity in human culture and society. Twice in a single verse the preacher calls this practice vanity, futility, pointlessness. There is no reason or rationality behind it; it simply is, and to make an effort to define or understand why is a labor in pointlessness. It is, because people are. I am unfair in some of my behavior. I have biases, preferences, and emotional turns that do nothing to commend logic, intelligence, or objective fairness. This is a part of being human and possessing a sin nature.

Note, however, that the preacher’s own biases are painfully showing in this passage. He uses the words “just, “wicked,” and “righteous,” without clearly defining them for his readership. Since his readership would largely be orthodox Judaists, it is clear why he did not need to broker the meaning of said terms. Paul in his time, when he spoke to the Athenian Stoics and Epicureans, arranged his sermon for the largest audience. He made it clear when he used terms such as God and righteousness that it was clear what frame of reference he was using. The playing field, as it were, wasn’t neutral. The various philosophical and religious groups present had various meanings for various religious terms, all defined differently. We call this theological terminology. Theology is the study of God and things pertaining to Him, through the singular medium of objective reference He deigned to give mankind: the Bible.

Reverting back to the preacher’s conversation, when he forces man to look only under the sun to things that happen in times and seasons, seemingly for no reason, it is difficult to ascertain what certain terms might mean. From a purely human perspective, righteousness and wickedness have a broad variety of definitions. In fact, some are so polarized that they could mean almost entirely different things to different people; such is the burden of language and meaning. The giver of the terms should be the definer of said terms. If I were to mention righteousness, then everyone who knows me and my beliefs will understand at once I mean Biblical righteousness, a righteousness bestowed upon men by a transcendent God entirely apart from human merit. But until terms are defined the conversation can be derailed and become entirely pointless as two factions speak seemingly identical words with entirely diametrical meanings

Expecting his readership to understand, he opines that the righteous who experience what he believes (informed by his religious convictions) the wicked ought to suffer, while the wicked enjoy what he thinks the righteous should attain. Everything is backward and upside down. The righteous are not safe; they are easily as at risk as the wicked, but perhaps for different reasons. First, we know that this world is Satan’s. Allow me to clarify. The Apostle John wrote that, “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one,” 1 John 5:19. The NASB renders this verse to be, “under the power of the evil one.” The idea is that the Devil, or Satan, controls this current world system. The religious man and the Atheist are subjects of the Devil, set to do his will. They are part of the system that rejects Christ as Savior of the world, and by doing so, rejects the only true God and Father who sent Him. Paul refers to Satan as, “the god of this age,” 2 Corinthians 4:4. The KJV renders the verse, “the god of this world.” Together, the NKJV and the KJV reveal that this statement means the world of this age, or the current system of government, culture, and religion that comprise human reason and logic. In short, it is demonically inspired. 

John records in Revelation that Satan, “deceiveth the whole world,” Revelation 12:9, KJV. It is therefore of paramount importance when addressing matters to clarify the terms engaged as part of the conversation. Words are boxes filled with meaning; when the speaker of the term presents such a box, it is not for us the hearer to determine what that word means, or assume ignorantly that we know. We must ask the speaker to clarify the point. Whether the word is righteousness, wickedness, justness, or God, if we doubt the definition of the word, we need to seek a clearer representation, or at least put forth our own understanding of the word so that when it is employed, the speaker and hearer are both clear that they do not share the same expression of that term. Satan, being the god of this present evil world, has distorted what many things mean by mingling half-truths with lies to beguile even the saints.

So what does the preacher mean when he uses these words? Thankfully he explained them plainly and recently. The just man fears before God, while the wicked man does not, Ecclesiastes 8:12, 13. Though the preacher does not use the term “just” in the previous passage, he does contrast the one who fears God with the one who does not, calling them wicked. It may be intimated, then, that the just man of verse 14 is the man who fears before God in verse 12. This is his sole criterion for being just; we must fear before God. If one does not fear before Him, they are wicked.

Yet now the preacher laments that the just suffer the wicked’s fate, while the wicked prosper as though God blessed them. This encapsulates a large portion of the conversation Job and his friends had during a large portion of his book. Why do the just suffer? Or, do the just suffer? Or if you are suffering, does that not prove you are in fact wicked and deceiving yourself? Mind you this is not absolute in its application, but it is universal. What I mean is that the preacher is observing specific cases of perceived injustice, while this is not the rule, it is world-wide in its application. A simple read through of the tragic Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is enough to accentuate the point. The preacher, having seen this disparity (as judged from his perspective) calls it vanity. 

The Hebrew word “vanity,” is “habel,” and literally means, “a breath.” It is expressed in the aforementioned Job this way, “Let me alone, for my days are but a breath (habel, vanity.),” Job 7:16. The OT sometimes refers to pagan idols as “habel,” translated, “vanity,” or “vanities.” The worship of a demon idol represents the absolute peak of what vanity can mean. There is absolutely no value in worshiping a piece of stone or block of wood; and it gets worse when one leans on the foul spirit represented by the worthless thing. Having a little bit of a clearer picture of what the preacher means when he uses the term, he refers to this unlucky norm in our society as such. The righteous ought to receive a righteous man’s reward, but do not. The wicked should suffer the fate their wickedness dictates on this earth; they often do not. His observation of this thing is just another vexation in his mounting contempt while he plods on in search of meaning under the sun.