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Ecclesiastes 4.4
4Again, I saw that for all toil and every skillful work a man is envied by his neighbor. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.
The Story: Why do people “under the sun” go to work? Partly, we suspect, to find some meaning for their lives. But what our recent recession highlighted so clearly is that for most people work is primarily a way of making a living so that they can possess the good things of life. But then, what standards do people employ for determining how much “stuff” will make them happy? They look at the people next door. “Keeping up with the Joneses” is a way of life for many people. We have to own all the latest gadgets, or to live in just the right neighborhood and drive only the best cars if we want to be happy. We need more of this and that and everything else – just like the people with whom we associate – or we’ll be seen to be less than successful, less than happy. Thus we live in a kind of perpetual adolescence. Without eternal standards of value we get our values from one another and from the temper of the times. That, too, is vanity and striving after the wind.
The Structure:The deeper we get into Solomon’s meditations, the more contemporary and relevant they become. People stuck in the effects of the fall are not what they think they are. Because they are made in the image of God, though they deny this, something in them longs for meaning, happiness, fulfillment, and purpose. But everything about their environment discourages them from thinking they may know these in anything other than merely relativist terms. This verse is a kind of “section sub-heading” to the theme opened in verse 1. Solomon will follow this general statement about the vanity of comparing ourselves with others with additional thoughts about relationships – what they should be and what they actually are “under the sun.” His point is clear, although subtle: You have to deal with people, even “under the sun.” How will you do this?
How does advertising encourage us to find happiness by comparing ourselves with our neighbors? Do you see any of this tendency in yourself?
Each week’s studies in our Scriptorium column are available in a free PDF form, suitable for personal or group use. For this week’s study, “Frauds, Follies, and Fleeting Joys: Ecclesiastes 4,” simply click here.
T. M. Moore
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.