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What the Bible says about Knowing Madness and Folly
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18

The book's first eleven verses do not provide much in the way of hope for one's life, but Solomon is not yet ready to explain more fully. However, he is looking for some explanations because, unlike an animal, man is created in the likeness of God and has a spirit. A man, therefore, looks for meaning in order to have some direction for living his life. Unlike animals, man does not merely exist within the narrow parameters of instinct. Though his life is difficult, man has an inner, God-given drive that his life is going somewhere. Solomon will later provide further insight into this drive.

The first mention of God appears in verse 13, and Solomon directly states that He gave us the grievous task of living by wisdom. One thing that he clearly counsels us on, and also shows by his personal example, is that God does not want us to run from life's difficulties but to meet them and do our best to overcome them. The ultimate escape is through suicide, but some attempt to escape through various addictions, and others simply give up and let others take care of them, as some are now using the government.

Verse 15 contains one of those blunt facts of life that all need to deal with without allowing themselves to become cynical yet also remaining realistic. When Solomon states, "What is crooked cannot be made straight," he is referring, not to anything material like a piece of steel, but rather to the circumstances and events of communal life. An obvious example is that the past cannot be changed. An injustice might be resolved or an apology given, but many lasting effects remain.

The Living Bible paraphrases this verse as, "What is wrong cannot be righted; it is water over the dam; and there is no use thinking of what might have been." We must remember, though, that God has the power to straighten out what is twisted and to supply what is lacking, yet even He will not change the past. However, He can change the way the past affects us, which is most encouraging to those who believe.

We do not understand very much. Paul writes in I Corinthians 13:13: "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I am known." In Romans 8:28, in the same chapter in which he expounds on the futility of life, he says, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

Thus, by looking at it through the eyes of faith, we can know about life to some degree, but at this point in Ecclesiastes, Solomon is warning us that it contains a great deal of inequity, disappointment and discouragement, evil, apparent injustice, and pain. Nations enter into wars without our permission, governments and their systems are corrupt, the courts are unfair, and businessmen lie and steal—all clearly caused by the minds and hands of men. There is so much of this, he says, it is beyond count. God could easily stop these events, but He does not!

Is it any wonder Paul says in Galatians 1:4 that Christ "gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father"? One of the unwritten questions in Ecclesiastes is, "Why does God not stop these things?" It is not answered completely either, so verse 16 shows Solomon searching for where he might find it.

Sometimes, he seems remorseless in his effort to make us think, but even the wisdom of Solomon cannot break through on the basis of human reason. He sets his mind to study and meditate on resources that he already has on hand to further expand the possibilities of greater understanding.

When he writes in verse 17 that he set his heart "to know madness and folly," he means that he will search for answers by exploring the opposites of wisdom so that, he hopes, the contrast might reveal a deeper, clearer understanding of wisdom. The Hebrew term translated as "madness" is somewhat misleading because it is closer in meaning to "recklessness," indicating error in thinking. It is not the type of recklessness that would bring bodily injury, but it could mislead his search for factual truths.

Verse 18 shows that his efforts were not only unsuccessful but left him somewhat frustrated. Why? He does not give an answer because he has none, and he has none because he is searching under the sun. The truth is that some extremely important facets of this mystery of the ages that Solomon is investigating must be revealed from above the sun.

The conclusion to Ecclesiastes 1 should prove to us that wisdom and experience will not solve every problem in life. We must understand and live with the reality that God is not obligated to explain our problems to us. We are the sinners who chose, as Adam and Eve did, to accept Satan's deceitful offer that, if they would listen to him and eat the fruit, their eyes would be opened. They indeed gained a great deal of experiential knowledge, but their experiences also alienated them from God. We cannot expect any different result.

Life may seem monotonous and meaningless, but for those called by God, it need not be. Life now is a tremendous blessing. We must accept the reality, though, that we must live by faith in God's promises. Following His resurrection, Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed" (John 20:29). Jesus Christ is "the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (I Corinthians 1:24). In His mercy, He has miraculously broken into our lives to prepare us for His Kingdom. We must take up the challenges that He has presented, cease living our lives running in circles, and head straight for the Kingdom of God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and Christian Living (Part One)

Ecclesiastes 2:1-2

Ecclesiastes 2 records what Solomon experienced as a young man in the prime of his wealth and power. Because God inspired this narrative to be included in His Word, we can conclude that Solomon went through this for us so that we do not have to repeat it in our own lives—there is no need for us to keep reinventing the wheel. Solomon already lived the wild side, considered it deeply over the years, and reported on it. If we will listen to what he says, we can avoid all kinds of heartache.

The king of Israel writes in Ecclesiastes 2:1, "I said in my heart, 'Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure'; but surely, this also was vanity." He gives us his conclusion immediately so that, if this is all we read, we know the lesson of his attempt to satisfy himself through enjoyment. He describes it as "vanity," like grasping for the wind (see Ecclesiastes 1:17). It was futile, useless, and unprofitable. In the end, it left him with nothing. He was empty, with nothing to show for his time or expended energy.

He continues in Ecclesiastes 2:2, "I said of laughter—'Madness!' and of mirth, 'What does it accomplish?'" The "high life" that many young people think is so cool and worthwhile Solomon calls "madness"! Pursuing pleasure for pleasure's sake is insanity, mental illness! After he came to his senses, he looked around and realized he had accomplished nothing. It was a total waste of precious time!

Thus, he decided to do an experiment, using his life as a laboratory, to see if various pursuits would bring him lasting satisfaction and well-being. In verses 3-10, he lists all the activities he pursued with his wealth and power, covering the gamut of human experience.

He lived life to the hilt! He drank gallons of wine and partied until the cows came home. He did many foolish things. He spent money profligately on whatever came to mind. He planned, engineered, built, gardened, raised livestock, bought and sold, and acquired rare and novel items. Enjoying good music as his father did, he found the best singers and musicians and brought them to Jerusalem to perform for him. We know he collected wives and concubines by the hundreds! He lived life to the full, and there was no one to restrain him in pursuing any desire of his heart.

In verse 11, however, he takes a hard, cold look at where all his unrestrained living and frenzied labor had led him: "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

Even having all of the best of everything and being considered "great" by everyone near and far, when he looked at these accomplishments objectively, he found it all futile and useless. In the end, what had he gained? What advantages did he have in the things that really matter? It is as if he stood on a high place in Jerusalem and gazed on all the buildings he had built, all the gardens he had made, and all the unusual and excellent things he had collected, and concluded, shaking his head, "Whoop-dee-do! These things mean absolutely nothing."

Notice that Solomon reports that his wisdom remained with him while conducting his experiment in materialistic living. God must have worked this out so he could convey his conclusions to us. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand how he could have done all these things and retained his wisdom. God had given Solomon his understanding (I Kings 3:5-14), and He left it with him all of his life, no matter what Solomon did.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Wisdom for the Young (Part Three)

Ecclesiastes 7:25-27

Solomon makes clear that wisdom is found, not on the surface of events, but only by those willing to work, to dig, to study, and to analyze to uncover it. Truth and error are most often mixed together in the same problem, so they must be disentangled from each other. We are discovering in the current liberal bent of our nation that some forms of human evil are so bold and irrational that they almost defy description. By way of contrast, Satan was so subtle in deceiving Eve that he slid the lies right in front of her, and she, in her naïveté, missed seeing the trap altogether.

We cannot expect, then, to have wisdom and safety always clearly spelled out for us. Some evil does not collect its due until a long time has passed. For example, Adam and Eve did not die for many years. Solomon's phrasing at the end of verse 25 suggests that he is searching for the most vivid examples of the most painful aspects of evil that he can find.

Wisdom has two major elements. The Bible emphasizes practical wisdom, which, in actual usage, is skill in living. In the world, though, the emphasis is on sagacity, which is more intellectually slanted, but also has practicality in being helpful in giving or receiving counsel. Both of these elements are good, especially when enhanced with God's truths.

In this section, Solomon is weaving the two elements together, which is why he uses such strong terminology. He uses “folly,” “foolishness,” and “madness”—significant terms—as descriptors. He wants to grasp the full gamut of wisdom; he digs deeply. In one sense, this is a warning: Do not be fooled by initial feelings. Everything that is not truly wisdom never satisfies for long, but it inevitably becomes more difficult to bear and overcome. The folly and madness of sin, which is never wisdom, always eventually appears. Its fruit cannot be hidden.

We can deliberately hide from its folly, but it is there. A lack of wisdom is always destructive. The Hebrew terminology in verse 27 indicates that he carefully made this search and that he apparently wrote Ecclesiastes late in life.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and Christian Living (Part Thirteen): Confessions


 




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