Ecclesiastes Chapter Seven, Seeking The Truth

Ecclesiastes 7:23 All this I have proved by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise”; but it was far from me. [24] As for that which is far off and exceedingly deep, who can find it out? [25] I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. [26] And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her.

The preacher states that he proved or tested all of what he is conveying by wisdom. Of wisdom, he says that he would allow it to direct his life, but wisdom eluded him. Wisdom, like that which is exceedingly deep and far off, is beyond his apprehension. It may stand to reason that wisdom rests with the unknown truth that the preacher cannot, as of yet, attain. Paul, in Romans, says of humanity after rejecting the presence of God and therefore purpose, “Professing to be wise, they became fools,” Romans 1:22, NASB.

The finale of Romans chapter 1 is a descent into madness, as humanity, emancipated (so we think) from God’s jurisdiction, delves deep into the rabbit hole. Man refuses to worship the Creator and elevates the creation in His stead. We worship the stars, whether that means astrology and the Zodiac, or Darwinian Evolution and Carl Aagan’s worship of the heavenly bodies. We worship the earth as Mother Gaia. We celebrate hero worship by catapulting fellow human beings such as athletes, musicians and actors into deity-like status. We even worship at the throne of self, valuing self-love and self-acceptance as the standard of what is moral and right, though these “values” are entirely absent from Scripture and contrary to its message.

By the end of Romans 1, Paul records that God gave mankind over to a depraved, debased, or reprobate mind, Romans 1:28. Our thinking and reasoning faculties are, by our own eager consent, twisted beyond the capacity to rightly reflect what is genuinely good and consistently hold to a moral standard that is objectively true. The train wreck of sin created in us a will so contrary to God’s that we are desperate to reconcile what is evil with what we know in our most guarded thoughts to be good. Despite that, we champion fornication, abortion, easy divorce and teaching every successive generation that they came from nothing and life has no purpose. Then we stand in shock as that generation rends itself to pieces because their moral anchor or compass is entirely absent. When we teach people that they are nothing more than animals, why are we surprised when they behave accordingly?

The preacher laments that there is truth beyond his grasp, with his limited wisdom and resources. What is this something? Well, we know that as far as earthly experience went, the preacher, “did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,” Ecclesiastes 2:10. He was open to, and willingly, even aggressively explored every avenue of human experience conceivable. His avenues were broad in terms of their ultimate goal, but he delved into wisdom, pleasure, drunkenness, materialism, etc. However, some nebulous thing remained hidden from him. How hidden? He isn’t even sure what to call it, save that it is, “far off and exceedingly deep.”  This descriptor reminds me of Lazarus and the rich man. When the rich man’s spirit was in Hell, experiencing conscious agony, Lazarus was at peace across a vast gulf after death. This gulf, separating Hell from Abraham’s Bosom, was afar off and very deep, and no human device was capable of bridging this impassable distance, Luke 16:26.

The only one who could bridge such a gap is our Lord Jesus Christ. This He did when He, “set your prisoners free from the waterless pit,” Zechariah 9:11, NASB. It is also written, “He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives,” Ephesians 4:8, NASB. Only our Lord can span that gulf and bridge the depths our sin has created to bar us from God’s holiness. If sinful man in his present estate entered into the presence of a holy God without the intercession of Christ’s righteousness, it would be to our detriment and demise.

In verse 25 the preacher reiterates his intention for this letter, see Ecclesiastes 1:13. It says that the preacher applied his heart to know. He was intent on discerning wisdom, and through wisdom’s lens, to learn the reason of things. The LXX suggests that, as well as seeking an explanation for the state of existence man finds himself in, the preacher seeks this: “to know the folly and trouble and madness of the ungodly man.” His purpose, then, is to ascertain the depths of error man delves into to escape God’s presence and preserve our purported autonomy. We know that sinful man cannot please God. Further, we know that an unsaved man does not want to please God; our soul is bent in such a way that we are twisted into seeking only what self desires. This reflected in the drama of Eden, when even our first parents in innocence chose self over God. It really wasn’t a contest of choosing to bow the knee to Satan over God; it was Satan offering to man the same “gift” he offers to every generation: the deification of self through emancipation from God and total autonomy to choose what is good and right in their own eyes. It is no wonder that the preacher refers to man’s estate “under the sun” as foolishness and madness.

This foolishness and madness drives the ungodly man into the arms of a perverse woman, a harlot. The preacher employs the language of traps and snares regarding her; her vocation is to entice men into a carnal union that was once meant to symbolize and crown the marriage covenant that God loves, Malachi 2:11. The caveat given is that a man who pleases God (lit. rendered, He who is good before God) will escape her snare. We have learned from Romans 1 that mankind descended into all manner of depravity when he rejected God and set up his own standard of wisdom and righteousness. This perversion appeared to form most grotesquely in what we found normal or acceptable when it came to sex. Sex was no longer confined to marriage and the bedroom. It was no longer confined to the Scriptural man/woman relationship so clearly defined in Genesis and reaffirmed by our Lord, Matthew 19:4-6. Humanity burned with a lust for one another as the boundaries of what was acceptable became poorly defined, and eroded all together. The harlot is simply the personification of the institution and act that God set aside for a man and woman, in holy matrimony, to enjoy as the ultimate act of loving intimacy between husband and wife, turned upside down and inside out. Now it is for sale, a cheap and tawdry and vulgar thing for play when the whim strikes us. But the injunction still stands, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge,” Hebrews 13:4.