So Qoheleth, the Teacher who is the nominal author of the book (Ecclesiastes 1:1, 2, 12; 7:27; 12:8, 9, 10), proposes that perhaps this is the best anyone can do in this meaningless world: “Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do … Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (9:7-10).

Certainly many people today would agree with that assessment: find what enjoyment you can with work and food and family, because soon you will be gone. Possibly your death will come in a weary or miserable old age (12:1-7); maybe it will come in a sudden calamity (9:11-12); but either way, it comes to everyone, the saints and the sinners, the righteous and the wicked (9:2-3).

Yet this isn’t a happy ending; instead, it expresses deep anguish. There’s an echo of this in the New Testament, in Paul’s lament: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death!” (Romans 7:24). Paul had discovered that Jesus is the answer to that question; but for Qoheleth, who could not yet know that answer, the question holds a more haunting desperation.

And yet: as the book sums it all up, it ends with hope rather than despair. Even on his worst days, Qoheleth still had the insight to recognize that God is bigger than all of human wisdom (Ecclesiastes 8:17); that the purposes of God endure forever (3:14); and reverent trembling awe before God – the fear of the Lord – is what we all need: “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone” (12:13).

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Open our eyes to see clearly the emptiness and vanity of our existence, O Lord, when we try to live a life apart from you; and then open our hearts, that we may perceive your great goodness, and tremble with awe and joy before you.