Ecclesiastes Chapter Ten, Feasts, Wine, And Money

Ecclesiastes 10:19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes merry; but money answers everything.

We read just two verses prior that a feast is inappropriate for drunkenness amongst the land’s rulers. Two verses later, the preacher explains with some brevity the point of three different things, beginning with feasting. This of course refers to more than simply eating; when one eats a robust meal it can be referred to as feasting. But this type of feast is of course a party with eating, drinking, and music.

The purpose of a feast is to induce merriment; not laughter specifically, but to induce a mood in the feast-goers that produces a lightened heart and ensuing laughter. Note that the preacher is not commending or denouncing feasting; he simply explains in short order what its function is. In fact, it is still in line with verse 17, since laughter is a method of morale boosting, when princes throw a feast for strength. Now we observe from Ecclesiastes 7:3 that sorrow is superior to laughter; it cleanses the heart. Ecclesiastes 7:4 goes so far as to state that the heart of fools is in the house of mirth, earlier referred to as the house of feasting, Ecclesiastes 7:2.

Once again, the preacher is not commending a feast by stating its purpose: he merely says that a feast is made for laughter. It was designed to invoke it. Adding to this, he focuses on one of the activities that occurs at a feast, drinking. He states that wine makes the heart merry. The Bible is explicit in its denunciation of drunkenness, Proverbs 23:29-35. Paul writes of the matter, “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,” Ephesians 5:18. The RSV renders, “dissipation,” as, “debauchery.” The HCSB expands on the word, using the descriptive passage, “which leads to reckless actions,” choosing to expound on what happens when someone is under the influence. We become ten feet tall and bulletproof. Paul lists both drunkenness and revelries (or carousing, RSV) as works of the flesh, Galatians 5:21.

What is a work of the flesh? An act performed when we are not led by the Holy Spirit, but by the sin nature. We submit to, and are controlled by, one or the other in our lives as saints. For those who do not know God, there is only the sin nature, and so they are entirely subservient to it. We see the consequences of wine making merry in the person of Noah. When he planted a vineyard and drank of the wine, he lazed naked in his tent from its intoxicating effects, Genesis 9:21. Nonetheless, the preacher seeks to inform his readership that wine’s purpose is to make merry.

Finally, we find a very modern axiom in this passage: money answers everything. It is the privilege of the truly wealthy to be capable of addressing and correcting any issue or grief by throwing money at it. The preacher already demonstrated his pedigree and immense wealth in Ecclesiastes 1:1, 2:4-8. Here was a man who had assets to spare in gross abundance. Yet this same man was found writing a seemingly pessimistic, nihilistic, fatalistic book that dismantled the illusion of life and human purpose. If money could truly have brought transcendent or objective meaning into one’s life, then the preacher’s life was a testimony of unmitigated success. Neither can money purchase eternal life, as Simon the sorcerer discovered, Acts 8:18-23.

Paul, writing to Timothy, cautioned the young man about the temptation of wealth. He wrote, “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows,” 1 Timothy 6:9, 10. Not for the first time (and not the last, either) the preacher is being patronizing or facetious in what he is writing. From an entirely earthly perspective, there may seem to be a ring of truth to what was just said. From the perspective of the poor, having great wealth would feel like a dream come true and the end of all wants and worries. But this same preacher already attested that wealth does not deliver its owner from woes and peril, Ecclesiastes 5:10, 12. Likewise money may perish, leaving the owner and his lineage destitute and hopeless, Ecclesiastes 5:13-17.

The rich are expressly commanded not to trust in what Paul refers to as, “uncertain riches,” 1 Timothy 6:17. In the parable Jesus told, the rich man who continued to hoard his wealth and bartered spiritual riches for material accumulation was found utterly lacking when the day of death arrived, Luke 12:16-21. It is not having material wealth that is evil; it is worshiping that wealth that makes it so. The rich man’s goal was comfort; he wanted to, “eat, drink, and be merry,” much like our current verse, Luke 12:19. But money didn’t answer everything; and hoarding a wild excess when others around you go hungry demonstrates the sin nature at its finest. We see and recognize need and could easily meet it with little to no personal cost; and yet for all that we refuse. So to paraphrase, the final portion of this verse could be read, “But money answers everything the sin nature craves.”