40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Ecclesiastes 2:12-3:13 (Episode 422)

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

Does everyone face the same fate in the end? What happens when we apply too much pressure to things not designed to bear it? And for everything there is a season and a time, but is that good news? Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network Fundraiser! 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Available Now: Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin Pre-order: Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Available Now: Be Thou My Song by Kerri Tom More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Hello, 1517 Podcast listeners. This is Chad Bird, co-host of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament, with an announcement from the 1517 Podcast Network. Throughout the entire month of June, the Podcast Network at 1517 is launching a special fundraiser, and I need your help. Every dollar you contribute will be matched by two generous donors, doubling the impact of your generosity. The podcast network needs to raise $150,000 in an effort to support the ongoing creation and expansion of our shows. The funds raised will play a crucial role in expanding our network onto additional platforms, such as YouTube, and strategically reaching new audiences with the gospel. Your support isn't just a figurative donation. It's a tangible

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While you're over there, make sure that you see everything else that 1517 is doing. All the academies, the articles, the videos. And of course, we've got the podcast fundraiser going on. By the time this releases, it'll be drawn to a close. You've got to help us get to our goal.

You probably heard that ad at the beginning talking about we've got a match going on. Raising money, not just for this podcast but for the entire podcast network but certainly does keep this podcast going so if you are able to help out with that uh by becoming a supporter uh you could be reoccurring you could give one time to the to the fundraiser we would greatly appreciate it thank you so much to those of you who have done that chad we are continuing in ecclesiastes we are in chapter two uh solomon uh the author potentially probably uh if not the author the person the author's

talking about. Last episode, he said, come on, myself. Let's give some stuff a shot. He's talking to himself and telling himself to get after it. We're going to pursue pleasure. That's what we're going to do. I'm going to withhold nothing. Whatever my heart wants, that's what I'm going to do. Is it wine? I'm going to do it. Women? Going to do it. Wealth? Gardens? All kinds of things whatever whatever it is that would make my life more enjoyable that's what i'm gonna do and uh turns out that you know what he says that this is all vanity of course and that there's a striving that is taking place after the wind and there was nothing to be gained uh by any of this it's very uplifting yeah it's a very uplifting message he's given to us yeah you know you know

one of the things that's interesting is that like okay so like if you go do something fun if you and i went and did something and had a good time you know so we we went whatever it could be anything i don't know we went and visited someplace that was really cool and uh we went camping and ate a bunch of good food uh and then when it was all over we went home my response wouldn't be like well went and did this thing with chad and we tried to have as good a time as we could and i just came back realizing that it's all meaningless no i wouldn't think that i would probably go back and say oh it was a blast it was a great time great memories and then you know two years later i might be talking to you be like hey remember when we did this thing and you'd look back on it with fondness

and you're like oh yeah that's that was a really great time and uh and that's one of the things about ecclesiastes that's that's weird is that he'll do all this stuff and then just be like it's all meaningless and the reason that uh he does that i think is that the difference between if you and i went and did something really fun that we really enjoyed uh is that we wouldn't think that that was the meaning of life that was that was the thing that we found all our purpose in because if all our purpose was poured into like well me and chad just need to have the best experience ever and then that and then we find out like you know what that's actually pretty hollow when you apply that sort of pressure to it right like you can't withstand that kind of

pressure like hey i need you to be everything this experience needs to supply all the meaning and purpose and fulfillment as opposed to it just being what it is which is a good time a good thing Well, and this seems to be what Solomon is doing, is trying to say, can I remove myself from God and the ultimate purpose of my existence and find an alternate purpose? And he finds that nothing can bear up under that weight. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's treating everything with the utmost seriousness. I'm going to go have fun in a very serious sort of way. i'm gonna go enjoy women and sex and wine and parties and building in a very serious there's

no levity here there's no real pleasure yeah i mean you get the impression that he's drinking a lot of wine but he's just like really philosophizing as he's doing hmm is this the meaning of life and he's he's making love to women he's but he's not enjoying the pleasure it's just like hmm is this the meaning of life it's like he can't enjoy anything because he's he's asking like you said he's asking too much of these worldly sorts of things not worldly but things of this world yeah things that they can't by any means provide to him and i think there's another element here too you kind of get the impression that he is old yeah you know this is kind of the old man sitting on the porch and and he's reflecting back on those earlier days and in

of philosophical sort of way and and he can't he's like you know what just it really wasn't doing it for me because it couldn't give me the ultimate meaning and purpose well it turns out that only god can bear up under the weight of being god yeah you know we so we were just talking about this yesterday so we're recording this the monday after father's day so yesterday uh my wife and my daughter and i were sitting around we were i don't even know what brought this conversation we were just talking about how you know everything in life we can treasure things in life we can treasure our spouse and our good friends and our children of course and and all those things but when you invest ultimate value in them then you're setting yourself up for life being over if you

lose any of those things you know if you if all of a sudden now you're a widower widower or you're like me having a lost Luke you lose a child or children as some people have or whatever happens if you have like invested everything in that person or that relationship or that career or that you name it and it's gone it devastates you because it turns out that thing or that person that relationship whatever it is was not the ultimate you've kind of ultimatized that which is penultimate you've you've you've asked too much from something which is of earth and of course those things can never give you what god can give you yeah yeah well that that's a good way to sort of because as we were as i read this i sometimes think that like what what this guy's incapable of

enjoying good things right and it's like well yeah because because like you you make good thing when you make good things god things like they can't they're no longer enjoyable because they're you're Now, it's like taking a tool and trying to use it for something that wasn't made for. And, you know, you're like, why don't these pliers cut well? And you're like, well, because that's not, you're misusing them. Yeah, right. Why can't I cut my steak with this hammer? That's not really what it's made for.

So verse 12, word 212, pick it up there. He says, I turn to consider wisdom and madness and folly, or as i like to translate madness and folly just as really mad folly it's one of these uh where you have the and but really it's just two words joined together as one meaning and basically what's what he's going to do in these next uh uh three or four verses is to ask the question okay well is one better than the other i mean is is wisdom better than folly and he's going to ask that and sort of give an answer but then he's also going to kind of take his answer and look at it again and be like, yeah, but this too is

meaningless. So he starts out that way, turns to consider wisdom and mad folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. So this is kind of picking up this image of the king that he's brought up before and the one who comes after him. So this guy who comes after the king what's he going to be able to do but nothing nothing that's already nothing new you know there's nothing new under the sun he made that point uh thoroughly in chapter one then i saw verse 13 then i saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly as there is more gain in light than in darkness the wise person has his eyes in his head but the fool walks in darkness let's pause there for a minute so you know if you if you have a choice in life you know are you

going to choose wisdom or folly well wisdom is obviously better you know just choose light over darkness that that's better it's you know his the wise person has eyes in his head the fool walks in darkness in other words you know there's a lot less chance of you stumbling and falling and hurting yourself either literally or metaphorically in life if you're wise you're going to make a lot of really stupid decisions if you're a fool that are not going to result in good for you. It's going to make your life even worse than it already is. So if you've got a choice, well, choose wisdom, choose light. But then he's not done. So that's kind of

his, you know, he's comparing and contrasting. All right, this is better. But then he goes on, and yet I perceive that the same event happens to all of them. Then I said in my heart, what happens to the fool will happen to me also why then have i been so very wise and i said in my heart that this also was vanity for of the wise for for of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten the wise dies just like the fool and here's this depressing conclusion verse 17 so i hated life because of what is done under the sun was grievous to me for all this vanity and striving after the

wind you got to get this picture of him he's like banging the desk i hated life it's all all grievous all vanity because i mean his he's kind of thinking his way through this okay i got two choices well this is obviously better than the other one it's better to be wise and walk in the light and have eyes in your head but then he thinks ahead he's like well wait i'm just gonna die and this fool who's stumbling around he's just gonna die and in a generation or two nobody's gonna remember him or me so look at life and it's just like this is grievous i hate this it seems like all this vanity you know what he does is he does this thing so like obviously if someone said okay you have a choice. You can either be wise or a fool. What would you like to be? You're like,

well, I mean, I'd rather be wise than a fool. And Solomon says, like, yeah, that's, like, the obvious choice, of course. But it turns out that, like, the same event, which is death, of course, is going to happen to you both. And maybe being wise isn't the way, because you know what, like, the fool's not doing is sitting around thinking about this. Fool is not worried about these things he actually he actually probably is out there just like enjoying himself he's not like having these deep deep thoughts he's not having to uh he's not having to run these experiments like i can't even enjoy my life i'm too too wise to enjoy my life uh and and this goes back to something he said you know in the first chapter which is essentially that ignorance is bliss that

if like if it doesn't ultimately make any difference because death is just coming for you anyway, it might actually be better not to be that wise and to just go through life and not think about those things. The dude, right? The dude abides. Just roll on through, man. But instead, I'm over here

vexed beyond belief because I'm having these thoughts. In the state that he's in, the way that he's thinking through, that's the only logical conclusion. In the end, what difference does it matter just as well be of the fool and enjoy yourself rather than be the wise man and be

plagued by these thoughts of what the end is going to be constantly yeah so verse 18 uh he goes on with a little more hatred so i hated all my toil in which i toil under the sun of course he's talked a lot about that toil in the preceding section a lot of work he did but he hates it all seeing why, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool, yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it and this also

is vanity and a great evil what has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun for all his days are full of sorrow and his work is a vexation even in the night his heart does not rest this also is vanity now this is not only true just kind of universally as far as life under the sun. But this is very true if we hold to Solomon as the author. Because, okay, Solomon did all this. He was really wise, built all this stuff, did all this work. And who comes after him?

Who's on the throne after him? Rehoboam. And Rehoboam, if you remember from your first and second kings, your first king's history, Rehoboam was a young young guy who was full of himself he's the one who you know the people

after Solomon dies they approach Rehoboam and they're like hey guy hey new king your dad really taxed us pretty heavily so we're asking you to take away some of this taxation relieve the pressure and Rehoboam

consults the older counselors consults the guys he grew up with and uh the guys he grew up with are all like well you tell them if they thought they had it bad under your dad they ain't seen nothing yet so he goes back and he delivers this bombacious speech bombastic speech in which he tells them yeah you know i'm gonna be worse than my dad of course the result was the division of north and south and civil war for generations to come so all that Solomon did as far as reigning over the United Kingdom was for nothing, because his son ruined it all. And of course, Solomon had set this all up by his own decisions during the course of his

lifetime. But that repetition of a son ruining what his father has done, or a son just inheriting something his father worked hard to obtain, and the son spoiling it all, well, that's human history just over and over repeated. Yeah, I like that he says that when he's talking about this, that Like, basically, the way this is going to go is that you're going to work super hard, and you're going to apply all this wisdom, all this toil, and you're going to really build something. And then you're going to die, and it's all going to be taken by somebody who didn't do anything for it. And he says that that's a vanity, but not just a vanity. He says this is a great evil. Yeah.

That all my stuff goes to somebody else. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And boy, that probably a lot of our listeners either know personally or through some close situations that that is the case because people experience that all the time. You know, maybe it's not like the next, the second generation, but look what happens in the third or the fourth generation. i mean that's very very common where uh you know you you have one guy and maybe he worked himself up from nothing to acquire a lot he did that through wise decisions and just a lot of hard work he built his little empire you know for his family we'll say maybe he did it for all the right reasons and he passes it on to his son who didn't have to work for that and then the grandson or

maybe the great-grandson. Yeah, it doesn't take long for everything to kind of come crumbling around them. And I also love this, verse 23, All his days are full of sorrow, his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. Let's keep him awake at night just thinking about this. Oh, yeah, many of us have experienced that. Yeah, I mean, you go to bed and the mind won't shut off

because you're worried about this or that. And so when you think you're going to get rest is a kind of a payment for all your hard work. Even that doesn't happen. So what are we going to do? Well, verse 24 through the very end of the chapter is where this kind of leads. He says, there's nothing better for the 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 the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering collecting only to give it to one who pleases God and this

also is vanity and the striving after the wind it's kind of hard to follow his logic sometimes I'll be the first to because he seems to take away what he gives very often. Because it's like he's saying, you know what, we should do, let's just eat and drink and enjoy life. But then in the next couple of verses, he'll be like, you know what,

that's vanity too. Everything is vanity. There are these, it seems to me that what's going on here is he does have these occasional, I don't know what you want to call them, He's sort of teasing out some truth here in which he's saying, yeah, life is hard in many ways. There's a lot of things about it that I hate, but there are some things you can do in this life in which you can make the best of it. It's kind of the Hebrew version of seize the day, more or less. So seize the day.

Here's what you can do. You can eat, drink, and find enjoyment. You can at least do that, because this is from the hand of God. He gives you food, He gives you drink, He gives you a wife, a family, and you can enjoy that. And apart from Him, you're not going to receive any of His gifts anyway. So there is certainly truth in that. But He still hasn't got us to the bigger over-the-sun perspective. I think He's just still working kind of here with the under-the-sun perspective.

Yeah, I mean, this is from the hand of God is like the key part of this. And so it's like he lets you know the answer sort of in the middle, but then just turns right back around and says, oh, but we're not acknowledging God in this, so we have to go back. Because, yeah, if you acknowledge that all the things that you could enjoy, that you should eat and drink and find enjoyment, that these are all gifts from God, then you're not applying a pressure to them that they're not designed to bear, right?

You're acknowledging that they come from God. And this is sort of the secret to enjoying simple things in life by understanding that they're simple things and that they're gifts. But then he just turns right back around and says, yeah, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about life under the sun. I had a moment there where I peeked my head over the top of the sun and said, oh, that would be the secret, but now I'm going right back down here and saying,

actually, though, this is all vanity. Yeah, there'll be several times when we have these little glimpses of truth that pop up, and then he'll shift right back to more of a pessimistic perspective. But he's preparing us for really the final chapter where he's going to finally provide a bit of clarity. But yeah, along the way, he's going to say, you know what, in this hard life where everything can seem to be purposeless, there are some good things, some simple things from God that you can enjoy.

When you sit down at a meal with your family, enjoy that. When you have a glass of wine or whatever you like to drink, enjoy that. He'll say elsewhere, you know, enjoy whatever God has given you to do. Well, he says here, find enjoyment in your toil and your work. That's good. You can find a lot of pleasure in these gifts of God. But he doesn't stay there long. It's not like he has a long reflection upon finding joy in the normal things of life.

He just teases it out for a second, shifts back. If you think that eating and drinking and being merry are the purpose of life, that is going to be vanity. If you think that those are things given to you from God, then that's going to be a very different thing, right? So yes, if you think that the telos of your life is to eat, drink, find enjoyment, yeah, you're going to probably end up very frustrated and full of vexation. But in the midst of life, you think that God gives you these things? well that's a very different approach yeah it just goes to show that you can have two people who are engaging in the same activity and uh the way in which they engage in that the way they

think about it can be as different as night and day now you can have you can have say for instance you can have someone sit down and eat a meal and maybe they don't think this consciously but in their mind they're thinking we have this food because of everything that i've done and i've worked i've worked really hard to accomplish what uh what we have in the at this this meal at this table in this house and all the things that i've done and it's a very me-centered man-centered perspective or you can have the same kind of situation where a family sits down and they say a prayer they give thanks for for the food acknowledge that it's all a gift all the gift from God. And you can just

take that and amplify it across all kinds of human activities. People can engage in the same thing, and yet the way they think about it, and the impact it has on their lives, and the meaning they invest in it is going to be radically different from person to person,

depending on whether they have it under the sun or over the sun perspective. Imagine you're sat down, you've got some glorious steaks, and you've got potatoes, you've got all the things, you're sitting down for this meal. And so you're like, man, it's going to be a good time. We're going to have this big dinner, and it's going to be great. And the person that's putting this dinner on says, now listen,

everybody. I want you to take this very seriously, because this dinner is the meaning of life. This is all there is. This is the most important thing. This is what it all comes down to. This is the absolute purpose that you are here for is to enjoy this i think that you've now like eliminated any possibility of enjoying that like that you have applied a pressure to this that where you're like okay so this is what it's about this right me enjoying this meal is like if i this is what it's all about now you've turned a good a wonderful thing into something that is completely unenjoyable because uh you have misused it entirely yeah you've invested eternal significance in the temporary for sure all right so um here we are uh beginning of chapter three this

it's probably the most well-known section of ecclesiastes wouldn't you argue yeah they wrote a song when you think what's that they wrote a song about it you know so yeah Yeah, there's probably tons of both religious as well as non-religious songs and hymns that are in some way reflective of this. So I'll read the first eight verses and I'll stop, but I really shouldn't because here's the problem, and let me say this before I read it. Here's the problem with not just this text, but a lot of texts like this, is we take our little little pen knife you can picture this little pen knife we cut out that little section

and we uh we remove it from the preceding and the following context and we're like look this is look what this says isn't it isn't it perfect and if you look at this in the context of what has just been said and then what is going to be said immediately afterward i don't know where you're where you're at on this dan but from my perspective uh it darkens the color of this poem significantly yeah i think i think people take this i mean uh i mean i don't know you guys probably know the song like for everything there is a season turn turn turn they take this and this is supposed to be like they try to make it into something sort of beautiful and like and whatever it is you got going on in your life like there's for everything there's a time everything there's a season yeah

well that's nice and uh so if it's good like everything's not good forever it's bad it's not always bad forever but that's not really what he's doing here like this is not uh supposed to be i don't think uh encouraging no i don't either i think this is supposed to be uh in exact the same exactly the same vein as most of ecclesiastes is so oh yeah i'll read let me read it i mean people are familiar with this, but I'll read these eight verses. For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast

away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to seek, and a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to cast away, a time to tear, and a time to sow, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak, a time for war, a time to love, and a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace. So 14 of those pairs that you have here, these are, if you're into this kind of thing, this is a figure of speech known as a merism, which is where you just basically take two opposites as a way of expressing totality, you know, so day and night or a soul and body or life and death or whatever it is. So these are 14 different ways in which you're expressing totalities. And it goes through, I mean,

everything from emotions to, uh, national kind of things such as war to birth and death and lots of things lots of things in between but uh yeah we'll we'll talk about kind of where this fits into the uh the broader context in a minute but just reading it yeah it's whether some people think this was actually imported from another text that this was like something that the author of ecclesiastes borrowed well maybe he did maybe he maybe his original composition really doesn't matter but its purpose here is really uh what we're what we're at and on the surface it can be just a kind of beautiful poetry right there's everything in life happens at one time or another there's a time when i was born there's also going to be a time when i'm going to die and i think the

planting and the plucking what is planted are probably metaphors of that literal uh pronouncement So the idea of planting and then plucking up what is planted is analogous to being born and then dying. And then you have the emotional part of this, weeping and laughing and mourning and dancing. The only one of these pairs which has caused a lot of different speculations is verse five. So a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. so there's there's two dominant interpretations of that um one more literal one metaphorical so i'll do the the literal first some people think that casting away stones and gathering stones together is the idea that you you cast away stones when you are maybe uh putting them

on like you're clearing a space you know maybe you're going to plant something so you got to get all the rocks out of there you're casting those stones together and that's kind of a positive image and then gathering stones together maybe you're covering over a place and maybe you're wanting it to be you know where you can no longer plant there or something like that that's the way some people explain that uh now this goes back this other the metaphorical interpretation interpretation goes back to some early jewish ex-jesus where they understood this as a figure of speech for uh sexual intercourse the casting of stones so the casting of stones would be a metaphor for for intercourse and then gathering stones would be better for for for not not

engaging in intercourse and they did that because it's paired with embracing and refraining from embracing so they understood these to be paired paired together but whatever it means uh i think the whole poem or this whatever you want to call this collection of 14 different sayings is intended to kind of hit you as a totality and to be like yeah there's

you go through your life and there's ups and downs and there's wars and there's times of peace and you die and you're born and you die you're sick you're healed all of these aspects of life are woven into the existence that we all experience

and if that was all there was if you just had Ecclesiastes 3 1 through 8 then you could print that out put that in your refrigerator and have a nice little poem I just don't think this is meant to be a kind of thing where

obviously you have to take it in the context and so the context would not be I think I was encouraged when I realized just like the seasons that you know sometimes there's war and sometimes there's peace and uh there's sometimes you know sometimes there's a time to kill people uh then there's also a time you know to heal people and you just gotta figure out what time you're in and then that will help you make sense of it

i don't think it's that i think i think it's more like look all this stuff happens and there's not really anything you can do about it uh just any more than you can do anything about fall changing to winter, changing to spring, and that life is just this repetitive thing that happens to us all. You're born, you die, you're going to experience all these things. I feel like there's more like an inevitability about it, right? Which he doesn't mean to be some kind of balm to soothe you as you journey through life, but actually to say, does it feel like you have no control over any of the things that are going on?

Well, that's because you don't. That's precisely the message, in my opinion. Yeah, you look at life, and it's like, I have no control over all of this. I didn't have any control when I was going to be born. I'm not going to have any control when I'm going to die. Things that caused me to weep, I didn't ask for that, but here it comes. you know, and often laughter is the same way. So it's pulling together all these various events and experiences of life and saying, look at that. Isn't that depressing? Because all of this is

beyond your control. All of this are things that you have to experience. You have to endure. And the reason we say that is because when you look at what immediately follows this, he says this is verse 9 what gain has the worker from his from his toil and i i take that to be basically what are you going to get out of all the the work that you do in the life that you live in this life what what benefit what advantage is there going to be he says i've seen the business that god has given to the children of men to be busy with and earlier that's that by the way was quoted earlier in chapter 1 verse 13 and there he says it's an unhappy business that god has given to the children of man to be busy with or an evil business that god has given for us to be to be

busy with and that's his immediate follow-up to when he includes these 14 different pairs of experiences what's the what's the point of it all what's the gain what's what's the advantage now verse 11 which follows uh those opening couple of sentences is sometimes rendered he has made everything beautiful in its time it can be rendered that way i think probably a better way to render that hebrew would be he's ever he's made everything appropriate or suitable in its time making everything beautiful in its time just it puts a little bit too much that translation puts a little bit too much of a positive color oh it's just it's all of these things he just talked about everything it's it's beautiful in its own way well not really not what's beautiful about

weeping what's beautiful about dying what's what's beautiful about a time to kill yeah none of those are none of those are beautiful they're maybe fitting and appropriate in the way that god has ordered creation but it's not really something which is lovely and then he continues he says and this is also one of the more well-known verses in ecclesiastes he says also he has put eternity into man's heart but keep reading he's put eternity in man's heart yet so that he cannot find out what god has done from the beginning to to the end and what he seems to be communicating there is that it's kind of like there's a uh there's been implanted within us a kind of a an itch or a desire or a kind of a vague sense of something beyond the the temporary nature of our

life like i guess genesis one and two imagery were created in the image and likeness of god and yet we cannot find out what god has done from the beginning to the end it's it's kind of like you're sitting in the dining room and you can uh you you can hear somebody in the kitchen and they're cooking up something which is just smells amazing the aromas are wafting in there and yet you're never allowed to eat what's there it's like you catch this sense that the it there's something beyond, but it's more than just a mystery. You have no way of grasping what the eternal really is, even though you have this desire to do that. Yeah, there's this desire in man to live forever, of course, and God has placed this sort of, like, knowledge that

what is temporary, or at least this desire, or some sort of inkling into man's heart, that what is temporary is not all there is. However, he has placed that into man's heart, not into man's hands, so he cannot do anything with it. Yeah, one commentator I was reading said, it's like God is baiting or toying with his human creatures giving them a desire for something that is well beyond their their reach yeah so rather than eternity being in our hearts being something we can be like yes thanks be to god for that it's more like this is terribly frustrating yeah yeah you're like well that's it's almost that it seems like something's in here is that um there's a almost like a he believes a cruelty to it

yeah and then a couple more verses here to finish out this section 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 perceive that whatever god does endures forever nothing can be added to it or anything be taken away from it god has done it so that people may fear him that which is already has been with that which is to be already has been and god seeks what has been driven away again this is one of these little uh hints of a bigger a bigger perspective and i i think it does all kind of fit here together the sense that okay god has given eternity into our hearts and there is this longing for something which is

beyond our kin beyond our ability to grasp and for now god has given us these gifts like eating and drinking taking pleasure in our toil you know these are these are god's gifts to us but guess what there is something better there is something more but the only way you're going to get there is by talking more about god and getting yourself out of under the sun and and get yourself into into the the mind and the heart of god and that's really the only place in which you're finally going to be able to get beyond this vain and frustrating existence we have that seems to be nothing more than often a just a a random set of events like seeking and losing and keeping and casting away and loving and hating and war and and peace yeah it almost seems like he's saying

that he's acknowledging that God has sort of placed eternity in the heart of men, and if you spent all your time trying to deal with that and pursue that and trying to get your hands around that, that that would be a fruitless endeavor, so that he's perceived that there's nothing actually better for you to do, even though that's true, than actually do the simple things, which is be joyful and do good as long as you live and eat and drink can take pleasure in your toil, that this is actually what God's given you to do. This sort of longing of eternity, you actually can't really do anything with that. If you dwell on that too much, that will just be a hindrance to you.

Yeah, yeah. And I guess we're at the call it quits here, we're at our 40-minute mark, so pick up there on the next episode. Yeah, we are going to pick it back up, finish the chapter, and then we will get into the Guess what? Chapter 4, and we're going to talk about Life Under the Sun. It's not all joy, though. I'll tell you that. You might be able to find a meal here or there and find something to take pleasure in, but there's a lot of evil out there. So we'll pick that up next episode. Chad, I'll see you then. All right. See you then. Hello, 1517 Podcasts listeners. This is Caleb Keith, director of the 1517 Podcast Network, with a special announcement. Throughout the entire month of June, the Podcast Network at 1517 is hosting a special fundraiser.

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