Series: Old Testament Overview
Category: Core Seminars, Joy, Suffering, Wisdom, Marriage, The Problem of Evil, Sovereignty of God, Nature of Sin
Summary:
In many ways, these books function as commentary on Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Like Proverbs, the Song of Songs is a “how to” manual for the creation mandate Adam and Eve were given in Genesis 1 and 2. But whereas Proverbs focuses on the command to work and care for the Garden—wisdom for our “day jobs” within God’s kingdom, so to speak, the Song of Songs focuses on the other side, being fruitful. In many ways, the Song of Songs is all about Genesis 2:25—“the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” What does that union look like? Read the Song of Songs.
Now, if Proverbs and the Song of Songs in general give us wisdom for operating in the world that should be, the world of Genesis 2, Ecclesiastes is primarily commentary on the world of Genesis 3. The world of the fall. What does it look like to search for meaning in a world wracked by sin? That’s Ecclesiastes.
Detail:
Introduction
So far, we’ve worked our way through Israel’s history up through David and then side-stepped into the wisdom literature: Job, Psalms, and Proverbs—essentially the wisdom required by Israel’s kings to act as the rulers of God’s people on God’s behalf. This morning, we finish up the wisdom literature with Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs before we get back to the historical books with 1st and 2nd Kings next week.
As we get into these books, let me frame how you should think of them. In many ways, these books function as commentaries on Genesis 2 and 3. Like Proverbs, the Song of Songs is a “how to” manual for exercising dominion, as Adam and Eve were commanded to in Genesis 2. But whereas Proverbs focuses on the command to work and care for the Garden—wisdom for our “day jobs” within God’s kingdom, so to speak, the Song of Songs focuses on the other side of the creation mandate: being fruitful and increasing in number. In many ways, the Song of Songs is all about Genesis 2:25 —“the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed .” What does that union look like? Read the Song of Songs.
Now, if Proverbs and the Song of Songs in general give us wisdom for operating in the world that should be, the world of Genesis 2, Ecclesiastes is a commentary on the world of Genesis 3 - the world of the fall. What does it look like to search for meaning in a world wracked by sin? That’s Ecclesiastes.
That’s a key difference between these two books. One thing they have in common is how easy it is in both books to get lost in the twists and turns and miss the main message. That’s why Ecclesiastes and the Song are often mined for pithy quotes but rarely understood as whole books. So it’s our goal today to try to understand Solomon’s intent in writing, and the one point he’s trying to make in each book. It’s a big task, so let’s get started. We’ll begin with Ecclesiastes.
ECCLESIASTES
Context
First, some context. Chapter 1, verses 1 and 12 tell us that the author was a son of David[1] Which one? It could have been Solomon or a much later descendent. I’ll simply refer to him as Solomon. But with nothing historically to place him in the book ends up having a timeless presence among us, not dissimilar to Job. So how do we establish some context for this book within redemptive history?
A few thoughts for you. First, we can think of this book, as I mentioned before, as a how-to guide to life in a fallen world. In that sense, it sits atop the storyline of redemptive history, applicable to all time. Second, we can think of this book as it was used by the first compilers of the Old Testament. Though not inspired, this tradition is nonetheless informative. In that initial ordering, the ordering that Jesus would have been taught, Ecclesiastes sits near the end of the Bible with material written after the exile, between Esther and Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. In that sense, Ecclesiastes may have been positioned as an answer to the meaninglessness life in and after exile. It gets to the existential questions raised by a people who had lost their land, their temple, their nationhood, and as a result, their identity.
Well, with that as background, what is the message of this book?
Theme
Like Job, Ecclesiastes first poses a problem then gives the solution. The question sounds like this:
What is the meaning of life? Isn’t it all fleeting, empty, pointless, and vain since we are all just racing towards death anyway?
To quote chapter 1 , starting in verse 2 : “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? ” And skipping down to verse 11 : “There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after .”
Is everything meaningless? Is everything vanity? It’s a serious question. As Robert Gordis has written, “Whoever has dreamed great dreams in his youth and seen the vision flee, or has loved and lost or has beaten barehanded at the fortress of injustice and come back bleeding and broken, has passed [the Teacher’s] door, and tarried a while beneath the shadow of his roof.”[2]
So here’s a summary of this book’s answer:
Meaningful! Meaningful! All is meaningful because all is ordered by an eternal, sovereign, and purposeful God. Therefore, we should fear God and rejoice in what He has given us to do and to have.
Ecclesiastes confronts our attempt to find meaning in the creation apart from the Creator. It comes to the sobering conclusion that without a sovereign Creator God, all is vanity. But if the universe was created, and is now governed, by an eternal, sovereign, and purposeful God, then there is great meaning and value to life. Now, notice I didn’t just say that the universe has meaning simply because God has meaning. I said it has meaning because God has certain attributes. Eternal, sovereign, and purposeful. Not just any ol’ god will do. Only if God ordains all things that come to pass, and has the power to carry out His plans, can anything temporal, like our lives, have lasting, meaningful significance. The God of Ecclesiastes is a sovereign God, and so everything is significant because God does nothing without reason. Therefore, God is to be feared, and all things that He gives us are to be enjoyed. After all, He has good and meaningful reasons to give them to us. This includes our jobs and homes and families and so forth. But it also includes our troubles and afflictions. These too are meaningful and good. We may not understand how. But we are called to trust God, and believe that He’s not making any mistakes.
Now, I began with the first words of the book declaring everything meaningless. And I told you that the message of the book is that everything is meaningful under an eternal, sovereign, and purposeful God. How’d I get from point A to point B? Let me give you an overview of the book’s structure to explain.
Structure and Outline
The book begins with the section I was just reading with an introduction that essential works as an antithesis. All is vain. Incidentally, the skeptical honesty of this book is powerful and refreshing. This is how all of us sometimes feel. Praise God that he’s constructed a piece of his word to draw us from cynicism back to Christ and to faith. Flip your handout over and you can see how the book works its way out of cynicism.
Note that with this introduction completed, the book shifts from third-person—talking about the Teacher—to first person—the words of the Teacher. We’ll flip back to third-person in the last chapter for the epilog.
The next chapters go back and forth in answering this basic objection. We begin with proof in chapter 2 that all is indeed in vain: the Teacher has tried everything yet without meaning. And then at the end of chapter 2, we see the book’s thesis. All is meaningful if a sovereign God rules the universe. That thesis is defended, objected to, defended, and then finally we reach a conclusion in the epilog, chapter 12. What is the conclusion of the matter? Verse 13 . “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil .”
Let me walk you through this so you can see how this book makes its argument with a single flow of thought.
1:1-2:23
As I mentioned before, the opening two chapters are an exploration of what the meaning of life might be. With the intro behind us, the Teacher gives us a tour of his pursuit of meaning apart from God. That’s the rest of chapter 1 and most of chapter 2. He looks for significance in wisdom, wine, laughter, riches, delicacies, his work, his projects, sex, power, fame, and full material gluttony. If he wanted it, he got it. Chapter 2, verse 10 : “And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun .”
His quest for meaning was no more successful than an attempt to grab the wind.
And the effect of such a bleak outlook? Verse 17 tells us that the Teacher hated life . And no wonder! Even the worldly enjoyments he had all eventually came to an end. Everything ends; everything dies. It’s amazing anyone ever manages a smile!
Which brings us to verse 24 in chapter 2.
2:24-26
Now remember, the flow of thought is important. Nothing that man can do between birth and death has any lasting significance. Therefore it has no value. But now in verses 24 through 26 he’s going to lay out the solution to this apparent vanity of everything under the sun. “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind .”
What a change in outlook! We see words like “better” and “enjoyment” and “from the hand of God” and “knowledge” and “joy.” A long way from “vanity” and “striving after the wind.” What’s changed? Same facts, same life. But now a new perspective because now this is life with God.
Let’s read verse 24 again. “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God .” Notice he says that the best thing a man can do is to eat and drink and enjoy his work. I thought he just said that all that was vanity. Why does he now recommend work? How can he say there can be, and ought to be, satisfaction and joy in all of life? That’s what “eat and drink” means. It’s a metaphor to mean “everything one does,” for eating and drinking are the base of all activities. So you should live life, and be happy, and actually enjoy the labor of your hands. Can that really be what he’s saying? What’s the catch? Well the catch is in the rest of the verse. “This also , I saw, is from the hand of God.” Solomon has seen many things in chapters 1 and 2. But there is one other thing he has seen. That “eating and drinking,”--that is to say--“the living of life” comes from the hand of God . Well, this changes everything !
Before (that is, 1:1 through 2:23 ) Solomon looked at life through the lens of the natural man. And we can understand this. He was simply reporting what he’d seen. And when that was the only information-gathering instrument used, his conclusions were sound, though pessimistic. But, once he remembered the Creator , life then took on a different origin, purpose, means, and end. How can what was vanity now have meaning? Well, it’s because the origin of every activity one undertakes is from the very hand of an eternal and meaningful God. The only way something temporal, like our lives, can ever have eternal significance is if an eternal God orders them.; because He is a purposeful God who never does anything without reason or cause.
In verse 25 we’re asked a rhetorical question to back up this claim: “For apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment ?” Now, everyone eats, and many people find enjoyment without God. Just read Psalm 73. But it’s only the fleeting, vain enjoyment of the first verses of chapter 2 . It is passing, like a vapor. It will soon be gone. It has no weight; no significance. Unless…it’s from God [3] .
Now verse 26 makes sense. Those without this wisdom and knowledge and joy are left in the dark. They live “without Him.” So their days are subject to that vanity of working, gathering, and storing up wealth for someone else to inherit once they die. That is the vain life; attempting to live life apart from the Creator. But, thank God, to some he gives wisdom and knowledge and joy. So for them, everything has meaning since it comes from the hand of a purposeful God.
This idea becomes a common refrain in the book. Look at 3:12-14: “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him .” That is meaning in life. We read the essentially the same thing in 5:18-20 , 8:15 , and 9:7-10 .
Now this, my friends, is the gospel-on-ramp for our culture. Have you ever thought of Ecclesiastes as material for a good investigative Bible study? It might be fantastic! People are up to their eyeballs in this kind of nihilism. And in their attempts to escape the meaninglessness of life they are thrusting themselves into their jobs, and sexual exploits, and material hedonism at a breakneck pace. But in the end they still only come up with vanity. What’s so refreshing about the gospel is that it is an answer to such futility. So share the message of Ecclesiastes with your coworkers, friends, family, and acquaintances. They are ripe to hear it. We do have a message of hope in a hopeless world.
The rest of the book
Sadly, we don’t have time to go through the rest of the book. But you can use the outline on the back of your handout to see where it goes from there. Having explained God’s perfect timing for all things, the Teacher goes on to cite humanity’s main objection to God’s goodness and sovereignty starting in verse 16 of chapter 3 : the problem of evil. And he answers it in three parts. The first seven verses of chapter 5 give us the same answer to the problem of evil that God gave Job. To paraphrase, “shut up.” Who are you, created one, to challenge the creator? “God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few .” (5:2b ). The second part to this answer, through 7:14 , is a clear-headed assessment of prosperity in this world. Is lack of material things really a sign of God’s curse? Perhaps part of the problem of evil is a misunderstanding of what really is good. And a third answer, end of chapter 7: why do good people suffer? Silly question; there are no good people. 7:29 : “God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes .” Then we end with a lengthy section of application in chapters 8 and following: obey the king. Work hard. Enjoy your spouse. Seek wisdom. Remember your creator in the days of your youth.
As you use this book, the aphorism “missing the forest because of the trees” comes to mind. To understand any specific passage, you really need to keep the overall flow of thought in mind. But once you can put the whole thing together, what a marvelous treasure.
So use the book of Ecclesiastes. Use it when you’re feeling cynical, as an honest path back to faith. Use it in evangelism, to honor the meaninglessness your non-Christian friend is grappling with and then turn them to the gospel. And use it to highlight the treasure of the gospel in your own heart. The book of Ecclesiastes never explains the gospel. But it points to it. It tells us that God is sovereign and can be trusted. But what is the greatest evidence for his trustworthiness in seeming nihilism? A sovereign God who used the greatest tragedy in history, his son’s death on a cross, for our eternal benefit. Ecclesiastes says that all are wicked, and yet meaning comes to those who please God. How can the wicked please God? Through faith in Jesus’ sacrificial work on our behalf. Praise God for this little gem of a book.
[TAKE QUESTIONS]
THE SONG OF SOLOMON
Context
So that’s Ecclesiastes. Let’s turn now to The Song of Solomon. This time the author is clear, chapter one verse one: Solomon. Again, there is no strict historical context that we need to be aware of. But the book does have some important redemptive-historical context. There is a bit of a reenactment and inversion of Genesis 2 and 3 going on in the book. What I mean is that that beautiful relationship in the Garden of Eden between Adam and Eve was intended for God’s glory and their good. Now, this side of the fall, men and women are still to relate to each other in marriage, sexually, according to God’s perfect plan. If they do, it will again be to His glory and their good. That is, really to their good. But if they don’t, they will experience more of the same consequences that Adam and Eve did in Genesis 3: God will not be glorified and men and women will harm themselves and each other.
And beyond the immediate context of marriage, there’s something else going on. As Stephen Dempster has written in Dominion and Dynasty , “Shorn of its literary context, the song could be almost pornographic. But the context of the canon both restricts the meaning to the context of marriage and expands it to include the relationship between Yahweh and Israel.” (p. 207) This is a book about marriage. Pure and simple. But what is marriage? The Old Testament prophets used marriage as an image of God’s relationship with his covenant people Israel. Like Ecclesiastes, the Song was placed with the post-exilic literature in the Hebrew bible. Presumably, those editors put it there for a reason. Even in the judgment of exile, God was providing a graphic, passionate, and profound reminder of his love and faithfulness for his people. Think of Isaiah 62 : “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you .” (v. 5b ) That’s the other side of this Song.
So this book is at the same time commentary on what it looks like for the man and women to be “naked and not ashamed” and a celebration of God’s love for us.
Theme
We can summarize the Song of Solomon like this:
The Song of Solomon sings of the son of David, who is the ideal king of Israel, who is the seed of the woman, seed of the Abraham, seed of Judah, seed of David, who enjoys uninhibited, unashamed intimacy with his beloved, in a garden that belongs to him.
Being created in God’s image meant being created male and female. They were to image God’s glory through a harmonious and pure sexual relationship. Well, with the entrance of sin, it all fell apart. Now, after the fall, even with sinful natures, men and women are called to monogamy and sexual purity. This book extols the beauty and worth of living in such a relationship, and warns us not to create our own sexual agenda.
The book in many ways reads like a Shakespearian romance drama: the betrothed young woman and her beloved singing praises to each other about how fair and beautiful they each are; then they get married and live happily ever after. Unlike Shakespeare, there’s no murder and no one commits suicide.
The Song is split into three basic sections. The courtship, through 3:5 . The wedding ceremony and consummation, through 5:1 . And the marriage, through the end of chapter 8.
First, the courtship, whose theme is patience. Look at chapter 2, verse 7 : “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” The context to these verses is that the young woman and the young man aren’t yet married, and the young woman expresses her desire to remain chaste until the right time. And she calls other woman to the same resolve. She is saying, don’t rush what you think love is and what loving acts are, until the time is right. Then, in marriage, the sex will be beautiful, honoring to God, and healthy for the relationship. Prior to that, it will only reap disaster. These words are repeated in chapter 3, verse 5. This verse is actually the last words before the wedding in verse 6. So right up to the very end of singlehood, patience is extolled, and urged upon us all.
But then we come to the wedding itself in the rest of chapter 3, and a beautiful, graphic description of sex and sexuality in chapter 4, leading up to a final comment in chapter 5, verse 1 . “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love !” Many who have studied this think that this is the very voice of God. God is now putting His blessing on their sexual relationship. Sex isn’t just a dirty little necessity for the production of children, but a good and beautiful and God-honoring act between a married man and woman. Sex, just like marriage, was created by God for His glory and for His creatures’ good and health. And this book celebrates that fact.
Well, then, for the rest of the book, we see this couple’s married life. And in 8:4 , the refrain is heard again. “[Do not] stir up or awaken love until it pleases .” The married woman continues to plead with the young to be wise and wait for marriage, and not make a mess of things because they couldn’t wait.
I mentioned earlier that the book is meant to be understood as an inversion of part of the fall into sin. Turn back to Genesis 3:16 . When Adam and Eve fell into sin there were a number of consequences. One of them was that now their marriage relationship would be strained. No longer would it be harmonious and agreeable. Instead, the woman would desire to control the man and the man would abuse his authority and dominate her. With the introduction of sin, “to have and to hold” has turned into “to use and to dominate.” Selfishness, on both sides, will raise its head and steer both of them.
But it doesn’t have to be so. In that sense, sex in marriage is perhaps one of the purest visions we have of heaven, when all things will be restored to their Edenic glory, and beyond. Look at chapter 7 , verse 10 . “I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me.” That’s the self-giving love of Genesis 2, not the self-serving relationships of Genesis 3. Marriage as it ought to be. The woman is not seeking to control, and in turn being exploited by, the man. Instead the man is filling his creation role of loving leadership and desiring his wife.
Conclusion
From The Song of Solomon, we learn that marriage and sex occupy a very high place in God’s economy. Therefore, as His creatures, it’s imperative to keep the marriage bed pure: for unmarried persons to abstain from sex and married couples to love each other with it. If we abuse these gifts God has given us, disaster and frustration will be the only result, just as it was with the first sin in the garden.
And so this book is a wonderful guide to relationship and sex in marriage. But it’s also a beautiful description of God’s love for us, the passion of which can only be described by the passion in a marriage. This is the perfect marriage. And it is the love that God has for you. So whether or not you’re married, read this book with both of those in mind. This is a real marriage. And real marriage is a picture of God’s love for us in Christ. This is how much God has loved you.
[1] But “son of David” could refer to any descendent. And some aspects of the book, like where the king is referred to in the third person, sound decidedly unlike Solomon.
[2] Robert Gordis, Koheleth—The Man and His Word , vol. 19 of Text and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1955), 3.
[3] Nonetheless some try. They are the ones who find no enjoyment. They find nothing lasting under the sun. They find only vanity for they do not know this God. They do not acknowledge His lordship and His sovereignty. And this is because of the explanation we find in verse 26.
