Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Ecclesiastes 2:12-17
So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 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. And yet I perceived 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 is vanity. 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. How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. (ESV)
by Dale E. Rood
A few verses back, Solomon indicated the great responsibility wisdom carries with it. Now he considers the futility of it. Why struggle with all that responsibility when nothing will come of it? The wise man will die forgotten just the same as the fool. This does not mean that there is no value in pursuing wisdom or that one is better off being a fool. It means, rather, that the pursuit of wisdom as an end in itself has no meaning. Consider: are there circumstances when it would be meaningful to pursue wisdom?
Copyright Information
Daily Bible Meditations are taken from The Helping Hand,a Sabbath School student quarterly for youth and adults. Copyright © 2008, Seventh Day Baptist Board of Christian Education, Inc.
Scripture quotations marked "ESV" are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Text provided by the Crossway Bibles Web Service .
dbm