A Commentary in Simple English on Ecclesiastes

Chapter 8 We do not know the future

We could say that Chapter 7 was about God’s work. So it will not surprise us if Chapter 8 is about man’s work. (See verse 16.) That is a good way to look at this next chapter. We shall find that if we look at man’s work it will help us to understand the Teacher here.

Some people think that what verse 7 says will help us to understand this chapter. We do not know what will happen in the future.

Verses 1-8 The wise man and the king

Verse 1 may just belong to the last chapter. Perhaps it is a verse all on its own. We have the picture of the wise man. No one else is quite like him. Someone asks questions and he is the man who gives the answer. Perhaps the wise man is the man whose face shines as he finds the answers to the questions. Perhaps the hard cruel look on his face becomes soft and kind then.

If we think that this verse belongs with verse 2, then there may be another way to read it. It may be the king whose face is dark, and hard or cruel. He is the man who asks the question. He wants an answer from the wise man. When the wise man gives the answer, the look on the king’s face changes. His face shines. He no longer looks hard and cruel. [8.1]

The work of the ‘wise man’ would often be to help the king. He would have to give the king good advice. Daniel 2 gives us a picture like this. So does Daniel 3. There were moments when Daniel’s king was wild with anger. The wise man would not say anything that would make him even more angry.

So in verse 2, the wise man is with the king. He must do what the king tells him to do. The ‘oath’ may be the wise man’s promise to serve the king. It may rather be the promise, which God gave to the king. (See Psalm 89:19-37, for example.) (Verse 3) If the wise man is not in his place, the king may think bad thoughts about him. (See 1 Samuel 20:24-31.) So the wise man will not go away. He may not be able to say anything. He will keep quiet. (Verse 4) He will let the king have his way.

Of course, not many countries have ‘kings’ now. Yet there are still men with a lot of power. Some of them are bad and cruel. A Christian who has to work with such people will not find it easy.

Verse 5 says three things to help the wise man. First, he should do what the king tells him. That seems rather weak. If a king tells us to do something that is quite wrong, we should say ‘No’. Second, the wise man will know that there is a right and wrong way to do his work. Then third, there is a right and a wrong time to speak. (See, for example, Nehemiah 2:1-3 and Esther 5:1-2 and 7:1-3.)

The first part of verse 6 says the same thing again. The wise man knows that there is a right time and way to do things. The second part of the verse is not easy. (a) Man’s ‘trouble’ or ‘misery’ might be death. (b) Or perhaps it means: ‘The wise man has enough trouble. He should not make more trouble. He would do this if he chose the wrong way or time to something.’ (c) Or perhaps it is the king who has trouble. The wise man watches him. He chooses the right time and way to get what he wants.

Still (verse 7), even though the wise man chooses the right time and way, he does not really know what will happen. We may be very careful in what we do. Yet often what happens is not what we tried to do. If we look again at 6:12, we can see that death is in the Teacher’s thoughts here. Of course, God does know what will be. Only God can ever tell us what will happen, and He hardly ever does.

Verse 8 clearly says that men have no control over death. People do not agree about the details of the words in this verse. Yet this does not change what the verse means. Jesus was different. See John 10:17-18. The last part of verse 8 gives us a new thought. A man may have power. He may do much that is very wrong. This does not mean that he will escape from death. He does wrong to others, but this will harm him too. We can see this at the end of verse 9.

Verses 9-15 Does God punish bad men?

The start of verse 9 seems to show that the Teacher’s thoughts are fresh ones now. The thought of the work that a man does is still here in these verses. Yet that thought is not very strong here. In verse 9, the Teacher seems first to look back over what he has already said. He looked at what men do ‘under the sun’. He tried to look at it all. He tried to find some meaning in it. Then in the second part of the verse, we have a picture of a man. He is not the king, but he is a ruler. He uses his power in a bad way. Sometimes he harms other people. In the end, he hurts himself.

In verse 10, the Teacher still thinks about people like that. He had seen what happened when people like that died. There was a service in the Temple. The dead man’s friends carried his body to the place of burial. Crowds of people were there. The people gave honour to the dead man. Yet the people did not think at all about the bad things that he did before he died. [8.2] This, says the Teacher, is empty. It does not fit in with the way in which you think that God should rule the world.

Verse 11 carries this thought on. The wicked man had ‘got away with it’. He did what was wrong. God did not punish him. Men did not punish him. People honoured him when he died. They forgot the wrong that he had done. So other people do what is wrong too. If God punished us quickly when we do wrong, we would do what is right. This bad way of life seems to pay! Peoples’ hearts or minds are fixed; they want to do what is wrong. The first half of verse 12 says the same thing again. People see that a bad man does what is wrong a hundred times. Yet he does not die. No one punishes him. He lives a long time.

In the second part of verse 12, and in verse 13, the Teacher tells us what he knows. It is not what he sees as he looks round him. What he does see does not seem to agree with what he knows. He feels that it ought to. This is the faith that he will not give up. He still believes that it will be better for men who fear God. Even if bad men do live a long time, their lives are only like shadows. Shadows are weak and they soon go away.

So all that is real in human life comes from God. It comes from the fear of God. It does not come from sin. We know that when real Christians die, they go to God. Sadly, the Teacher was not yet sure about this.

In verse 14 the Teacher says: ‘Yes, that is what I believe. Yet so often, when you look at life, it is not like that. Good men get the bad things which bad men ought to have. This is empty. It has no meaning for us. It does not help us to understand how God rules the world.’

So in verse 15, the Teacher seems to say again: ‘I cannot find the real answer to my question. Yet here is the best way to live with the problems of life.’ What he says is rather like what he said before in 2:24-26; 3:12-13; 3:22; and 5: 18-20. He says these things: -

1. Life is God’s gift to us. This is true whether life is short or long.

2. Work is not an enemy. We should find joy in our work.

3. We should eat our food and drink and be really happy.

4. This is all ‘under the sun’. The Teacher says this twice in one verse. If we look away beyond ‘the sun’ this answer will not be good enough for us. When we look to God in heaven, we want a much better answer. We have this answer in the Good News about Jesus.

Verses 16 and 17 Even wise men do not know

The Teacher brings three things together. We already know them well.

1. The Teacher used his mind to try to find ‘wisdom’.

2. Then he watched with care the work which men do ‘on earth’.

3. Then he saw the work that God has done.

He tried to fit these three things together.

At the end of verse 16, ‘day or night’ means ‘all the time’. What the Teacher says is ‘sleep was in his eyes’. This could just mean that the Teacher was so tired that he was sleepy. So he could not find the answer which he wanted. More likely it means that men work day and night and get no sleep.

The rest of the verse just says again: ‘I have failed’. The work of God and the work of men do not fit together. Some wise man may tell you that he knows what life means. But what he says will not be true.

We know that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Truth (John 14:6). He is the true way to life.