As he closes this part of his thesis, the Teacher tells us that he found out all these things through wisdom (Ecclesiastes 7:23). Nevertheless, “That which is…” was far from him (Ecclesiastes 7:23b-24), but what does he mean by “that which is…”? While we need to be careful about accepting what is written in the Apocrypha, it does often offer us the slant the scriptures take, similar to how we might use one of our commentaries on the Bible. They aren’t perfect, but at times they are quite useful in determining how we should understand the word of God. For example, what the Teacher tells us he found out through wisdom could be understood in the light of what is disclosed in the book of Wisdom in the Apocrypha:
For (God) gave me an unerring knowledge of the things that are, To know the constitution of the world, and the operation of the elements; The beginning and end and middle of times, The alternations of the solstices and the changes of seasons, The circuits of years and the positions of stars; The nature of living creatures and the raging of wild beasts, The violence of winds and the thoughts of men, The diversities of plants and the virtues of roots: All things that are either secret or manifest I learned, (Wisdom 7:17-21).
In other words, it was possible for the Teacher to know and understand “all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail that God has given the sons of man to be exercised therewith” (Ecclesiastes 1:13; cp. 3:1-8), but it was impossible for him to know how the Lord did these things and worked out his will for mankind through them. While he could know and appreciate the end product, he could not understand the process that accomplished it all (Ecclesiastes 7:23b-24; 3:11; cp. 2:10, 24; 3:13; 5:18-19; Job 28:12-22).
Verse-25 contains a pivotal thought: “I applied my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things …” and this sums up what is said in Ecclesiastes 7:23-24. The Teacher proved all things through the wisdom that he applied his heart to know. It was his choice, his chosen labor, to know and understand the secrets of life (cp. Ecclesiastes 1:13).
The second part of the verse: “(I applied my heart) …to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25), belongs to the rest of the chapter and points to verses-26 through 29. In other words, the Teacher not only wished to know wisdom, but he wanted to know that which makes wisdom what it is. Why is it wise to do good rather than evil? Well, one knows only because he investigates what evil is and what effect it has upon a man’s life and the society in which he lives. Then he understands the wisdom of doing good.
Some scholars believe the Teacher has a poor view of women, because of how he draws his conclusion about evil, saying it is caused by evil women whose hearts are full of snares and nets, which she uses to imprison folks who come to her (Ecclesiastes 7:26). Actually, the Teacher sees both wisdom (Proverbs 3:13-18) and its evil counterpart (Proverbs 9:13-18) as feminine in nature. Both are attractive according to the hearts of men (and women by the way). So, folly is personified as a woman, and the Teacher draws on this idea in order to show folks are actually tempted to do foolish things, because completing the act has an immediate reward, just as would be so, if one used the services of a prostitute. The rewards of wisdom aren’t immediate, just as the rewards of being faithful to one woman all one’s life are appreciated over the years, not hours. One has sex with a prostitute, but one has a relationship with his wife. The two are far from being the same thing, and one doesn’t reap the fruits of his labor with either in a similar timely fashion. This is what the Teacher wishes to show by contrasting Ecclesiastes 7:23-26a with 7:26b-29.
Earlier the Teacher described death as a ‘bitter’ thing, because one spends his whole life laboring, but whatever he accumulates is lost at death, because he is unable to enjoy anything in the grave. Nor is he able to control the distribution of his wealth from the grave. This was a bitter thing in the mind of the Teacher. Nevertheless, more bitter than this is the woman, whose heart is full of snares and nets, and whose hands are chains that bind folks who come to her (Ecclesiastes 7:26). Those who please God (viz. the wise) will escape her traps, but the sinner, or he who continues in his rebellion against God, will fall prey to her wiles.
The Teacher tells us he had kept a record (Ecclesiastes 7:27), and it is put in such a manner that I believe he was astonished by what he had found in his study of wisdom and folly. He says he found only one man in a thousand who was wise, and of all who were wise, not even one had been taken in by folly (Ecclesiastes 7:28), folly being personified as the woman in verse-26. He, therefore, concluded, based upon his study of wisdom and folly, as found in the labor in which the Lord had sentenced man to be occupied in (Ecclesiastes 1:13; cp. 3:1-8), that in the beginning God had made man upright, not evil. Nevertheless, men have chosen many ways, in which to corrupt what the Lord had originally made, seeking out many inventions/innovations, or new ways to sin etc. (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
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