Ecclesiastes Chapter Eight, Nothing Is Better

Ecclesiastes 8:15 So I commended enjoyment, because a man has nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry; for this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life which God gives him under the sun.

The familiar phrase “under the sun” is used twice in this verse, just as “vanity” is employed twice in the last for added emphasis on the preacher’s current point of view. The preacher wants to emphasize the fact that he is viewing the reward or purpose of life from an entirely earthly perspective. His conclusion? To indulge in enjoyment.

The KJV renders “enjoyment,” as “mirth.” He actually defines what he means by this, continuing by saying that people should indulge the appetite and, “be merry.” The Hebrew word for “merry,” is, “”samach,” and means, “a spontaneous emotion or extreme happiness which is expressed in some visible and/or external manner. It does not normally represent an abiding state of well-being or feeling.” More interesting than this is that the preacher states that man has nothing better than to partake in this manner of indulgence.

That short phrase bears repetition. Man has nothing better. The preacher commonly compares one thing to another throughout this book, but he seldom employs the idea of nothing being better than what he currently is commending. This means that, from the preacher’s viewpoint, he has nothing more to offer his fellow man to sustain him for life under the sun than to indulge in revelry and momentary, carnal appeasement. Of course, we are still looking at life under the sun. The moment is all we have. The past is irrevocably gone and equally pointless. The future is a shifting, nebulous cloud that is utterly impenetrable to human foresight and conventional wisdom; it is a sticking point or point of contention for the preacher throughout his letter and is equally hopeless for man to find any solace in. That leaves the present, moment-by-moment, life that we each live. Fill it, says he, with food and drink and revelry.

Why? Such fare will remain with us all the days of earthly life that God has given mankind under the sun. Life is painfully finite. Whether we accept the Biblical revelation of man’s state, or are a devout Atheist and subscribe to Darwin’s theory, all can agree that life on earth is brief at best. Here today, gone tomorrow, as the saying goes. If all of man’s days are evil and filled with vexation, oppression, injustice, vanity and foolishness, then it would seem apropos that our best pursuit would be life in simplicity. Our appetite guides our will, to succumb to and placate momentary desire and revel in what pleasure can be wrought from it. It is, according to the preacher, an enduring thing that man will have all the days of his life. It will remain with him.

Christ our Lord explained that food was a basic human necessity, Matthew 6:31, 32. However, the preacher commends the notion of turning eating, drinking (implying alcoholic drink) and merriment into a crutch or substitute for purpose. In lieu of a reason why life is, and why man experiences it, just enjoy pleasure from momentary things as we plod through whatever work we end up involved in because it will ease the suffering of our labor. This is an OT maxim that we might modernly express as, “live it up!” When nothing else exists for the seeker except what is under the sun, then we may safely embrace the “any port in a storm,” ideology. Unfortunately, any ideology that is bound to an earthly, temporal explanation will leave the subscriber hungry for something that genuinely satisfies not the flesh, but the mind, or the soul of the seeker. Distraction cannot replace engagement, and the satisfaction of the senses for a brief time will never sate the human desire to understand the great questions of why man exists, and what exists beyond us. Why are we here, and from whence did we come? Why does man die, and where do we go when it happens? The preacher is attempting to demonstrate, verse by verse, that an earthbound search yields the most depressing results.