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What the Bible says about Meaninglessness of this World
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Ecclesiastes 1:2-3

Vanity is a word that we are familiar with in another form. It appears early in the Bible as the name given to the second person born on earth, Abel. Adam named him "Vanity." In its simplest form, it signifies a breath, which is comparitively nothing. That is what it means—nothing.

A breath has a short existence. We breath in and breath out, and then we take another one. It lasts for just a second. When we carry out the application of this word, temporariness begins to come to the fore because a person's breath is very temporary and quickly replaced by another and another and another. Vanity describes something that is nothing, impermanent, temporary. But that hardly exhausts its meaning.

This phrase "vanity of vanities" is written in the Hebrewsuperlative form. It is similar in its application as "holy of holies." Another one is the "Song of Songs," sometimes called Canticles or Song of Solomon. Modern translators tend to translate vanity of vanities as "meaningless." A single breath has no meaning to it. Some have gone so far as to translate it "absurd." In a way, this fits the context of Ecclesiastes best because absurd means "irrational," an affront to reason, something that does not fit the order and purpose we seek from life.

That is what Solomon means: Life is absurd. Why do we live? All of our life, we spend working, playing, relating, and at its end, what does a person have to show for what he has done? It is absurd, irrational, meaningless.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and the Feast of Tabernacles (Part 1)

Ecclesiastes 2:26

Is it better to receive a gift from God or to work for it in the way Solomon did? The former is preferable. With our understanding and help—if we are "good in His sight"—God can turn what would normally be meaningless and absurd into something that is profitable for us, if we allow Him.

Solomon reaches an overall conclusion here: In reality, the evil people of the world are working for the benefit of the righteous. Eventually, all will come to those God considers good. We must look at this in its full scale. Who will inherit the earth—and not only the earth, but everything in it? The sons of God. Solomon is taking a long-range view of this. The wicked will eventually be seen to have been building and gathering for the work of the righteous. All their works are a vanity to them, but they are God's gift to the righteous.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and the Feast of Tabernacles (Part 2)

Hebrews 2:10

Where did this suffering come from? It came as a result of having to live in this world of despair that Solomon lived in and wrote about. He had to be subject to circumstances that were beyond His control. If everything had been under the control of a righteous person like Jesus Christ, many events would never have happened. But surrounded by sin and despite His righteousness, He was subject to the futility, vanity, and meaningless of this world.

What did He do? He rose above it because He believed and lived the principle that is found in Romans 8:28.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and the Feast of Tabernacles (Part 1)


 




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