Corruption of Wealth

I find it disturbingly ironic that the wealthiest king in the history of kingdoms hated wealth so much that he dedicated more page space to it than any other worldly pursuit of happiness in Ecclesiastes. Of all the things that Solomon could have pointed out as failures in attempt to reach the joy that only Christ can give, he spent the most time railing on wealth. The page space is ridiculously disproportionate.

Solomon even goes so far as to say, “When you see people being bribed and swayed by money to oppress others, don’t be surprised! If it gets them more profit, they’re going to do it.” In his actual words, it reads like this:

Ecclesiastes 4:8-9, “If you see oppression of the poor and perversion of justice and righteousness in the province, don’t be astonished at the situation, because one official protects another official, and higher officials protect them. The profit from the land is taken by all; the king is served by the field.”

And while I generally want to avoid talking about current times in an effort to make this blog friendly to all individuals and a break from the ridiculousness that is our world, there is no more perfect example than America’s current government. There really isn’t.

We’re dealing with judges who let rich kids get off easy for raping a girl after three months of jail time but sentence poor kids to years for a drug charge. We have a system designed to allow people to get away with murdering unborn children because it brings in more tax money. The upper government appears to be infested with a pedophile ring that covers for each other. (This is not a statement of my political affiliation or thoughts in any way, for the record. I will avoid stating any of that here. It’s merely a report of facts for the sake of proving Solomon’s point from Ecclesiastes.)

But really, you shouldn’t be surprised. We’ve been dealing with the wealthy and powerful breaking systems and taking advantage of others since the beginning of sin. Be righteously upset and work to end it, but don’t be surprised it’s happening. People will do anything for money, even though it never satisfies.

Verses 10-12 say, “The one who loves money is never satisfied with money, and whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with income. This too is futile. When good things increase, the ones who consume them multiply; what, then, is the profit to the owner, except to gaze at them with his eyes? The sleep of the worker is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich permits him no sleep.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. Those who love and have money will never be satisfied with it because it is empty. What is money but paper? What is wealth but metal coins? It can’t buy happiness. It can’t buy salvation. It might as well be useless. At some point, even, you may end up with so much wealth that you can’t buy enough to put a dent in your stockpile of cash. Then what good is it for but to stare at?

Interestingly enough, too, another conundrum around wealth appears from verse 11. The more money you have, the more you need to spend. Think about it this way: the more money you have, the more luxuries you can afford, but the more money it costs to keep those luxuries functional, so the more money you need. As a further example, say you’re married, and you desire to make enough money to have a child. Once you get there, it requires money to continue to raise that child. The more you get, the more wants you can have, but the more you need to satisfy the upkeep on those wants. It’s a fairly futile circle if your whole goal for money is to satisfy your desires.

Another point Solomon makes is the satisfaction of a hard worker in contrast to the despair of the rich, who likely no longer needs to really work to maintain his riches. That’s a pretty simple connection; the harder you work, the better you relax. If you never work, you’re always high strung, especially if part of your wealth goes towards the corruption and oppression of people.

I don’t know about y’all, but I always sleep better if I had a busy day working my body and mind. It keeps me from wasting time in bed overthinking and gets me right to dreaming, whereas a day of relaxation gives me time and energy for my mind to worry and obsess over problems, making the relaxation pretty difficult. That’s the concept Solomon was aiming for. If all your time is relaxation, is relaxation really relaxing?

Another thing that plagues the rich is the heartbreak and disaster that can come from mismanaging wealth.

Verses 13-14 say, “There is a sickening tragedy I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm. That wealth was lost in a bad venture, so when he fathered a son, he was empty-handed.”

A lot like the example of the prodigal son, mismanagement of wealth can be horribly detrimental, and many a wealthy person has found themselves without any money at all from a lack of discretion when it comes to spending.

Then Solomon attacks the popular Egyptian worldview of death again in verses 15-16:

“As he came from his mother’s womb, so he will go again, naked as he came; he will take nothing for his efforts that he can carry in his hands. This too is a sickening tragedy: exactly as he comes, so he will go. What does the one gain who struggles for the wind?”

The Egyptian idea of the afterlife was that anything you were buried with could be enjoyed in the next life, and this is a refuting of that idea. What is the point of hoarding your wealth? You can’t use it when you’re gone, and there’s no guarantee that your kids will manage it wisely either (not that this means you shouldn’t leave them something).

But the most powerful verse, to me, in this section of chapter 5 is verse 17:

“What is more, he eats in darkness all his days, with much sorrow, sickness, and anger.”

I could unpack this verse for a long time in a lot of detail, but suffice it to say that this is, once again, Solomon saying that without the joy of the Lord, everything is dark and futile, void of satisfaction. Literally speaking, if God is light, which He is, then believing that money is satisfaction and joy will literally leave you sitting in the darkness—that is, without God—living in sorrow, sickness, and anger at your lack of joy.

Solomon ends this section of his rant against wealth with a reminder that we shouldn’t take wealth or lack of wealth to extremes in verses 18-20:

“Here is what I have seen to be good: it is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life God has given him, because that is his reward. God has also given riches and wealth to every man, and He has allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward, and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.”

This is a great reminder that joy can only be found in God, but that He has also given us the opportunity to have some happiness in the things of this Earth. But we can only have fun with what’s here because we are not occupied with the existential dread that comes from worrying over wealth and other pursuit of this world.

Success and Companionship

The second part of Ecclesiastes chapter 4 in my personal Bible is titled “The Loneliness of Wealth,” and I don’t know about y’all, but that hits deep.

There’s a song by Brandon Heath titled “It’s No Good to be Alone,” and one of the lines from that song says, “You know it doesn’t matter how high you climb if no one’s there to share the ride when you get there.” (You can listen to this song down below.) To me, this sums up the pursuit of wealth as an ideal, and really, the pursuit of a lot of things on this Earth. Humans have a need for companionship, for socialization. God knew this at the beginning. It’s why he created Eve for Adam.

We were designed to have perfect companionship with God and other people, but sin entered the world and that perfection in companions was lost. Things like jealousy began to intervene as soon as Cain and Abel. It’s interesting to me that Solomon touches on that subject right off the bat when he starts talking about wealth in-depth.

Verse 4 says, “I saw that all labor and all skillful work is due to a man’s jealousy of his friend. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

Why do you want to be wealthy? I don’t think anyone says they want to be wealthy for a pure, selfless reason, though I admire anyone who can truthfully say that’s the case for them. Likely, the reason you want money is to satisfy your desire for what you’ve seen others have. You want that nice car, the big house, the boat for the lake, a new set of golf clubs, your own personal library, an in-ground swimming pool, a massive yard, the ability to fly to Hawaii for a week-long vacation, or even something as small or simple as your friend’s easy to use and fantastically clever coffee machine.

Regardless, the point is that you want something you don’t have. You’re jealous of someone else’s possessions, so you work to get what they have that you don’t. But obviously such a thing is futile because getting what they have won’t satisfy you. Speaking personally, I’ve bought things my friends had because I thought they were cool, and within two weeks I was bored of it completely. After a brief honeymoon period with that item, it just became a waste of money.

Verses 7-8 say, “Again, I saw futility under the sun: There is a person without a companion, without even a son or brother, and though there is no end to all his struggles, his eyes are still not content with his riches. ‘So who am I struggling for,’ he asks, ‘and depriving myself from good?’ This too is futile and a miserable task.”

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “It’s lonely at the top.” And that’s a pretty true standard in the world we live in. It’s cutthroat. To get to the top, you often have to cut others down and climb the mountain of metaphorical bodies to reach higher than those who lost to you. It’s a grim image, I know, but it’s a grim reality. When you strive solely for wealth and career, you have to give up everything else, including making relationships with other people.

As Solomon often does, he recommends a middle-of-the-line approach to this because extreme reactions in this area tend to not work well. Verses 5-6 say, “The fool folds his arms and consumes his own flesh. Better one handful with rest, than two handfuls with effort and pursuit of the wind.”

You should neither be lazy in the pursuit of wealth such that you rely totally on others to take care of you, and you should not pursue wealth so fervently that you do not take time apart from that ambition to spend in other areas.
Rest is important to us. Taking time away from our goals is important. All you achieve when you refuse to take breaks is stress and failure. To put it this way, a guy graduated my high school with a 5.2 GPA and got a full ride to Yale, but by graduation, he had given up hours and hours of sleep, likely a large portion of his social life, and created undue stress for himself to the point his hair was graying as a high school graduate. There’s no satisfaction in pushing yourself so hard that you hurt yourself.

A lot of this chapter actually leans towards a saying many of us have heard often: “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”

Verses 9-12 say, “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up. Also, if two lie down together, they can keep warm; but how can one person alone keep warm? And if somebody overpowers one person, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

It’s about how you achieve your goals. How you overcome your struggles. How you lean on God and your companions. This is why you need others by your side in this life. We’re not capable of doing this life on our own. We’re just not. There will be times when we are unable to stand under our own power, but by sharing our burdens with our friends, we can lift the weight pressing down on us. But if you don’t have anyone there when you’re being crushed by a burden, you’ll be saddled with that weight for good.

The cord example Solomon provides is actually such a great illustration even today. Let’s expand on it:

Now, I’m not the most knowledgeable when it comes to ropes and cords, but I do know that, essentially, the more strands a rope has, the stronger it is. That’s because, to break a cord made of three intertwined strands of rope, you have to create a force greater than the strength of all 3 strands combined, rather than just the individual strength of one strand because the strands compensate for each other and share the burden of weight. So, if one rope can hold ten pounds, then a cord with three strands that rope can hold 30 pounds, basically.

This works because of the distribution of force and tensile strength. I won’t get into a detailed explanation, but I’ll try to express the essence of it. A rope fails at a point that gets stretched too far for it to hold onto itself any longer. This weak point, however, can be negated, in a cord with multiple strands of rope. The multiple strands of rope work to distribute the force better such that the tensile strength of each individual strand increases. That weak point on each strand gets stronger because when one strand takes up too much force, it can pass some of that force on to the second and third strand.

So, bringing that back around to the comparison: where you would snap under the load, intertwining yourself with a companion or two will help you hold strong under weight you wouldn’t be able to carry alone. Now that I’ve beaten that horse six feet under, let’s move on.

One of the more important functions of companionship is the ability to have a somewhat objective view on decision making. Your friends serve as people whom you can and should be accountable to and who can help you see things from perspectives that you wouldn’t consider. This idea is all over the New Testament and within the Christian community, so I don’t need to touch on it too much, but Solomon mentions it here in verse 13, “Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer pays attention to warnings.”

It’s better to be have good friends who can advise you than it is to be wealthy and think the advice of others is beneath you. To broaden it a bit, it’s better to avoid thinking wealthier or more influential people are superior to others because of their lot in life. A poor man can be just as wise as a rich man. A mildly successful friend is just as good as a wildly successful friend.

But even more so, Solomon stresses the idea that recognition does not come from wealth. Verses 14-16 say, “For he came from prison to be king, even though he was born poor in his kingdom. I saw all the living who move about under the sun follow a second youth who succeeds him. There is no limit to all the people who were before them, yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

Even the most heroic stories of prevailing against unfortunate circumstances won’t get you true companionship by its own merits. As soon as one successful person is gone, another will rise up in their place and the people will jump on that bandwagon. That’s why good, loyal companions are more valuable than wealth. People who will never abandon you are a rock on which you can find strength, even if they aren’t the rock on which your foundation should be built. Wealth can be lost in a moment, but a good companion will stick by you through rich and poor.

Listen to It's No Good To Be Alone on Spotify. Brandon Heath · Song · 2011.