The Bible

 

Ecclesiastes 1

Study

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

12 I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

15 That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Commentary

 

Wise

  

Like love, wisdom can come from many levels. Ultimately, though, all wisdom is a reflection of the perfect, infinite, divine wisdom that is the Lord's. At its heart, wisdom is love's imperative desire to take form. That's a tricky statement, but think of it this way: If you love someone, you are simultaneously filled with the desire to express that love. The desire for expression is so powerful and automatic that it is really part of the love itself. And that desire to express love is wisdom. Wisdom thus gives love form, and gives it tools so it can reach out and affect the world. Wisdom gathers knowledge so that from love it can form ideas and understanding of what it is to be good and how to be good. And sometimes, when the Bible talks of being wise, that's the kind of wisdom that is meant – a wisdom that seeks knowledge from a love of what is good, so it can use that knowledge for good. At other times, though, "wise" represents perversions of this, with knowledge twisted to other ends. A somewhat neutral example is the "wise men" of Egypt. They were people who had an extensive knowledge of the correspondences between spiritual things and natural things, but took an external view of them, using them for worldly knowledge instead of spiritual knowledge. A negative example is in Revelation 13:14, which says "here is wisdom" and offers 666 as the mark of the beast. There "wisdom" represents insanity, with knowledge twisted completely to evil ends.