Solomon, the Teacher, claimed he had thoroughly investigated all the labor that is done under the sun, both the labor of nature and man’s occupation with it. His conclusion is that everything is meaningless, an effort in futility, a labor that strives after the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14). In other words, no matter what man does, no matter what he accomplishes, no matter how large or strong the empire or how great a man’s wealth, it simply will not be enough, nor will it last. He won’t be able to control it, nor will he be satisfied with what he has. Indeed, the labor is too much for him, and he cannot know it, for his life is too brief (Ecclesiastes 1:8). His eyes cannot fill themselves with an awareness of the potential of all that exists, nor could his ears be filled with understanding how it all works, or how to cause it to benefit him. Why is this so? It is because apart from God, i.e., being in rebellion against his Partner (Genesis 3:1-7; cp. 2:16-17), mankind is unable to image his Maker! Therefore, he cannot bring what the Lord had created completely under his authority (Genesis 1:27).
Solomon claimed: “What is crooked cannot be straightened…” (Ecclesiastes 1:15a). But, what did he mean? Certainly, a curved bar of steel could be straightened, and plastic could be molded into any shape one wishes, including making what was curved perfectly straight once more. Moreover, certainly a wise man would understand that in any generation, ancient or modern, such things could be done. Therefore, we must understand the Teacher’s words metaphorically. For example, one couldn’t make a lie the truth; nor could war be made to bring peace, or rebellion be molded into liberty, or theft bring true wealth. In other words, mankind could never be successful in trying to force God’s creation to do what the Lord hadn’t originally planned it to do. When an artist or an engineer completes a project and signs his name to it, he is saying what he did expresses his heart. In the beginning the whole of creation expressed the heart and spirit of God, including mankind. Nevertheless, when mankind rebelled, all of what God created became subject to behave in a manner that reflected the labor of men. Man was in authority over everything. Therefore, nature, itself, must now express the rebellion and chaos which had engulfed man’s own heart. How could anything meaningful come out of rebellion? If rebellion is the defining principle of a project, how could order or beauty be expressed in it? Beauty and order are contradictions of chaos. All of man’s labor within nature was bent toward chaos, which means that nature cannot be made to express the defining principle of its original Artist or Engineer. Mankind’s rebellion cannot be made straight.
Nor can “…what is lacking be counted” (Ecclesiastes 1:15b). If mankind divorced himself from the Lord, who created him, that is to say: if mankind cast the Lord out of his own creation (for that’s what rebellion does; it casts out the original authority from the place the rebel wishes to control), then mankind can no longer depend upon the power of the Lord, which was vested within creation, to work for him (for man). Man in rebellion has inherited a powerful universe that was created to act or image the authority it serves!
Thus, Solomon tells us that this is the conclusion he had drawn from his investigation of the present labor of nature, whose power mankind seeks to harness. Reminding us, that he has been gifted with unsurpassable wisdom, Solomon used it (wisdom) to understand wisdom, itself! In other words, the wise ruler, and the wise builder applied himself not only to understand the folly or the fool who seeks to benefit from the Lord’s creation, but also the madman, people like Hitler who use their authority for evil. In the end, Solomon realized that the culmination of their labors couldn’t change anything. No matter how great the good or how evil the labor, no, not even the accidental intentions of the fool could bring order into the chaos of mankind’s rebellion. All is vanity, and all of it strives after the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:16-17).
At the end of the day, the best of it all is that the wiser one becomes, the more frustration he has over the little he is able to change. Therefore, in all his increase of knowledge there is the added heartache and regret that change will not come (Ecclesiastes 1:18), because it cannot come with the tools of rebellion.
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