Book of Ecclesiastes Summary: A Complete Animated Overview

the book of ecclesiastes it's part of the Bible's  wisdom literature and it opens with this line   the words of qohelet the son of David King in  Jerusalem now in Hebrew the word qohelet means   someone who has gathered people together and in  this case it's to learn so it's often translated   in English as teacher and the teacher is said  to be a son or a descendant of King David and   so there are different views about who this figure  might have been many think that it refers to King   Solomon others - maybe one of the later kings  of David's line and still others think that it's   actually a later Israelite teacher who has adopted  a Solomon like persona as a teaching aid whichever   of these views is correct the key thing is to  recognize that the teacher is a character in the   book and is different than the author of the book  who remains anonymous so we do hear the teacher's   voice for most of the book but it's actually a  different voice the author who introduces us to   the teacher in the first sentence and then at  the end concludes the book by summarizing and   evaluating everything the teacher just said so the  author is someone who wants us to hear all that   the teacher has to say and then help us process  it and form our own conclusion so what does the   teacher have to say well the author summarizes the  teachers basic message at the beginning and right   at the end and it's heavily heavily everything is  utterly Hevel now most English Bibles translate   this word have alas meaningless but that doesn't  quite capture the heart of the idea in Hebrew   Hevel literally means vapor or smoke and the  teacher uses this word thirty-eight times in   the book as a metaphor to describe how life is  first of all temporary or fleeting like a wisp   of smoke but secondly also how life is an enigma  or a paradox like smoke it appears solid but when   you try and grab on to it there's nothing  there so there's so much beauty or goodness   in the world but just when you're enjoying it  tragedy strikes and it all seems to blow away   or we all have a strong sense of justice but all  the time bad things happen to good people so life   is constantly it's unpredictable it's unstable  or in the teachers words like chasing after the   wind Hevel now that's kind of a downer so why is  he saying all of this the author's basic goal is   to target all of the ways that we try to build  meaning and purpose in our lives apart from God   and he lets the teacher deconstruct these so the  author thinks we spend most of our time investing   energy and emotion in things that ultimately have  no lasting meaning or significance and he lets the   teacher give us a hard lesson in reality you can  see this most clearly in the opening and closing   poems which focus first of all on time and then  on death so the teacher says you can spend your   whole life working and achieving because you think  that makes your life meaningful you should really   stop and consider the march of time for all of  the human effort that takes place in the world   nothing really ever changes so short we develop  technology and we build nations that rise and   fall but go climb a mountain and see if it cares  it was there long before any of us and it will   be here long after I mean no one's even going  to remember you or anything you did 100 years   from now but that mountain it'll still be there  and the ocean will still be breaking on the beach   and the Sun will still rise and set and so time  will eventually erase you and me and everything   that we care about and if that's not disheartening  enough the teacher also can't stop talking about   death all the way through the book but especially  in this poem near the end he says death is the   great equalizer and it renders meaningless most  of our daily activities it devours the wise and   the fool the rich and the poor no matter who you  are what you've done good or bad we're all going   to die and it's inescapable so with these two  ideas in hand the teacher goes on to consider   all the activities and false hopes that we invest  our lives in to find meaning and significance like   wealth or career or social status or pleasure  so you think working hard is going to make life   worth it think about the stress and the toll  that that takes on you all the anxiety and the   sleepless nights and by the time you actually earn  some wealth you're going to be too old to enjoy   anyway and then by the time that you have to pass  it on to someone they may not even be someone who   cares about anything that you did or maybe you  think pleasure is going to make life worth it for   you go for it you know live for your vacations  live for the weekend party Monday always comes   Hevel Hevel everything is utterly Hevel so what  does the teacher advocate then that we become   pure hedonist or relativists well no that would be  level two the teacher acknowledges the ideas from   Proverbs that living by wisdom and the fear of the  Lord that these have real advantages on the whole   life will probably go better for you see but the  problem is that even living by wisdom and the fear   of the Lord they're heavily too because they don't  guarantee a good life good people die tragically   and horrible people live long and prosper there's  just too many exceptions and so even wisdom is a   Hethel again not meaningless but an enigma wisdom  doesn't work the way you think it should all of   the time so what's the way forward in the midst  of all this Hevel and here paradoxically the   teacher discovers the key to the true enjoyment  of life under the Sun it's accepting Hethel it's   acknowledging that everything in your life is  totally out of your control about six different   times at some of the bleakest moments in his  monologue the teacher talks about the gift of   God which is the enjoyment of simple good things  in life like friendship or family a good meal or a   sunny day you can't control these things you're  certainly not guaranteed them but that's their   beauty when I come to adopt a posture of total  trust in God it frees me to simply enjoy my life   as I actually experience it not as I think it  ought to be because even my expectations about   what life ought to be are ultimately Hevel Hevel  everything under the Sun is utterly Hevel and so   the teachers words come to a close right here at  the end the author speaks up again and he brings   it all to a conclusion he says the teachers words  are very important for us to hear he likens them   to a shepherd staff with a goad a pointy end  which might hurt when it pokes you but he says   the teacher is trying to poke you to get you to  move in the right direction towards greater wisdom   the author then warns us that you can actually  take the teachers words too far and you could   spend your whole life buried in books trying to  answer life's existential puzzles don't try he   says you'll never get there and so instead the  author offers his own conclusion and it's this   fear God and keep his Commandments this is the  whole duty of humans for God will bring every   deed into judgment every hidden thing whether  good or evil and so the author thinks it's good   to let the teacher challenge your false hopes and  remind you that time and death make most of life   completely out of your control but what gives  life true meaning is the hope of God's judgment   the hope that one day God will clear away all of  the Hevel and bring true justice to our world and   it's that hope that should fuel a life of honesty  and integrity before God despite the fact that I   remain puzzled by most of life's mysteries and  that's the wisdom of the book of Ecclesiastes

Channel: BibleProject

Views: 2,809,474

Keywords: Ecclesiastes, Bible, Bible Study, Bible Project, Wisdom, Wisdom literature, wisdom books, old testament, proverbs

Id: lrsQ1tc-2wk

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 10 2016