This is part two of the study I’m writing for Ecclesiastes. It is the remainder of chapter 1—verses 13-18—so if you haven’t read that one yet, please check it out under the article titled “Earth is Pointless.”
I like to group people into three standard categories of understanding when it comes to Ecclesiastes chapter 1. There are the ignorant, the knowledgeable, and the wise. This grouping comes from Ecclesiastes 1:15, “What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted,” and verse 18, “For with much wisdom is sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.”
In the first part of my study of Ecclesiastes, I talked about how we’re all searching for a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment for our lives. But, while you and I and many other Christians can put a finger on exactly what it is we’re searching for, a number of people can’t. Verse 15 refers to this. Every fully cognizant human knows we’re missing something. There’s a hole in our lives that we just can’t understand or fill no matter how hard we try.
The first grouping is the ignorant. These people are blissful because they don’t know about the hole they’re trying to fill yet. Most of the people in this group are children because their brains simply aren’t developed enough to understand, and better yet for those who already have faith in Jesus because their ignorance is blessed on top of being blissful.
The second grouping is the knowledgeable. They are those who know there is a hole, there is something missing, and they know they can find things that will temporarily cover the bottom of that hole, but have yet to find a solution to the feeling of missing something. Generally speaking, these are the nonbelievers. They’re the ones doing the pointless, useless, futile things like hoarding money, having sex, or any other number of things while looking for a solution.
And finally, the third grouping is the wise. These are the people who have come to the realization that Earth’s “satisfaction” is pointless and have found the one and only thing that can fill the hole in their lives. Generally speaking, these are the believers who know that Jesus is the only one who can satisfy and fulfill us and provide us with joy. They have seen past the knowledge of the world and have applied wisdom, which can only be found through God.
Let’s make this a metaphor, shall we. Picture a painting inside a frame hanging on a wall that is just ever-so-slightly tilted off level. Not a huge amount, but just enough that, were you to look at it, you’d raise one eyebrow and say, “that looks a little off,” to yourself.
In this metaphor, the ignorant group looks at the painting and just sees the pretty colors held within the frame. They don’t notice or care that the frame is slightly crooked. The picture looks nice, and that’s all that concerns them.
The knowledgeable group sees the frame and immediately makes that quizzical face, saying, “That’s a bit off.” Then, they reach up, grab the frame, and tilt it back towards level. However, they tilt it just a little too far, and now it’s off-kilter the other way. They step back, notice it’s crooked again, and reach up to tilt it once more. And they continue to do so in an infinite loop because they never get it quite right.
The wise group sees the frame and has the same initial reaction as the knowledgeable group. But instead of reaching up and trying to fix the frame, they go find a level, set it on top of the frame, and tilt it until it’s perfectly level. Then, they admire the painting for a few moments and move on.
Ecclesiastes describes the second group perfectly in verses 13-14, “I applied my mind to seek and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven. God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.” Attempting to level that frame by hand is a miserable task. You’ll only get more frustrated the longer you try and fail to fix it.
Solomon says it’s like pursuing the wind. Have you ever tried to chase the wind? First of all, it’s ridiculously fast, but that doesn’t even matter. Why? Because even if you could run faster than the wind, you can’t even capture it! It’ll slip right through your fingers every time you grab at it.
Now, this is all great, but why, then, is wisdom sorrow, as Ecclesiastes 1:18 says: “For with much wisdom is sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.” That’s actually pretty simple, in essence, because the sorrow doesn’t refer to yourself. Sorrow is something that can be felt for others just as much as yourself.
Remember the wise group in the metaphor that admired their paintings for a few moments and moved on? Well, that group now has the distinct displeasure of walking by every person in the knowledgeable group and watching them fiddle and fidget with their frames. That’s where the sorrow is. It’s sorrow for those who know they have a problem but can’t fix it. It’s sorrow for the grief those people experience as they tilt that frame back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
Strong’s Concordance has the word for grief in verse 18 as “makob” meaning “pain” or “suffering.” In other words, as the group with knowledge becomes more knowledgeable, tilting that frame back and forth, filling that hole, becomes more and more painful with each repetition. Each failure increases their suffering.
And this leads me to a point not detailed in chapter 1, but that I feel led to write down anyway. This is exactly why we are called to go out and make disciples of all nations, to show them to Christ. You, as someone with wisdom, are supposed to stop by each knowledgeable person you pass as they tilt their frame and introduce them to the level, to wisdom, to Christ. You should feel so much sorrow for them that you can’t help but stand by and show them how to end their suffering and find the satisfaction of fixing that frame and admiring that painting. Don’t let people suffer.