Ecclesiastes (16) Not one righteous

The book of Ecclesiastes tends to be neglected.
I must admit that I’ve been neglecting it myself.
So I come to this book with no preconceptions, except that a book found in the Old Testament must be intended to have a spiritual meaning. The people who compiled the canon were not in the business of collecting an anthology of “Hebrew literature.

The main theme of the early chapters has been that natural life and human life in the natural world do not go beyond a series of cycles of alternating events. Any apparent changes are discovered to be stages within these cycles, while the overall system itself does not change.

It is “vanity” for humans to look for anything beyond these things in the natural world, trying to transcend the system on their own. It is better, and the gift of God, for them to find their enjoyment in the world as it is, maintaining themselves in the way which God has provided.

Nevertheless, God has “put eternity into man’s mind”, in such a way that eternity cannot be known completely. Thus man is made aware of something greater than himself. “God has made it so, in order that men should fear before him.”

It seems that this nearly completes the central message of the book. Much of what follows looks like an assortment of “footnotes” under the general heading “other flaws noticeable in human life when God is disregarded”.

Ch7 vv20-29

V20; “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.”
Similarly Paul says “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans ch3 v10),, and we should remember that Paul himself is directly quoting Psalm 14. In other words, this is not a new teaching from Christian theologians, but firmly embedded in the Old Testament.

V21 “Do not give heed to all the things men say…”
Since none of us are righteous, it behoves us not to search too deeply into what others do at our expense. For example, if you start listening out for what people say, you may “hear your servant cursing you”, causing social friction which makes life awkward. “Your heart knows that many times you have yourself cursed others”, so it would be better to take the advice of Jesus and “forgive those who have trespassed against us”. Indeed, in the case of your servants, they may be cursing you precisely because you cursed them first. (“Di you hear what he called me when I spilt the soup? I nearly told him to go and jump in the lake.”)

The rest of the passage is dominated by the verb “find”.

Vv23-24 “I said ‘I will be wise’, but it was far from me… Who can find it out?”
He speaks of the great difficulty of getting to the bottom of wisdom. He must be grappling with the most puzzling issue of them all, namely the problem of human unrighteousness, and its relationship with “the problem of evil”. Of course that is the theme of the book of Job, which finds many echoes in these chapters.

V25. He turns his mind to seek wisdom, “and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness which is madness.” He is using these terms in the same way that they are used in Proverbs, which identifies “wisdom” with knowing God and righteousness, and “folly” with wickedness. Though he thinks that true wickedness deserves a stronger word than “folly”.

V26 “And I found more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets… He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.” Surely this is the “foolish woman” of Proverbs ch9 vv13-18, the personification of temptation, whose guests are “in the depths of Sheol”.

V27 “Behold, this is what I found…”
This declaration is followed by four more statements about finding and not finding things, but I think it really refers to the last in the series., the grand climax of the passage.

“Adding one thing to another to find the sum, which my mind has sought repeatedly, but I have not found.”
One thing he cannot find in his own strength is the sum total of knowledge, the final “answer” to the philosophical problem.

V28 “One man among a thousand I have found.” Presumably “one righteous”. The expression may be taken as the equivalent of the modern “one in a million”, meaning that such a man is very rare.

At the same time, anyone who knows the book of Job will remember the “one among a thousand” of Job ch33 v23, who declares righteousness to man, with the result that God says about man “Deliver him from going down into the pit, I have found a ransom.” Of course this reminds the Christian reader to think of Christ as the “one righteous” man.

“But a [righteous] woman among all these I have not found.”
I’ve been taking “one man among a thousand” to mean “one human among a thousand”, but this addition turns the verse into a comparison between the two genders. Before considering this comparison, we should remind ourselves of the warning in v20, that there is NO righteous human on earth.

If there is no such thing as a righteous human (with one exception), then he should not have been expecting to find a righteous woman. That result follows by natural logic.

And if there is no such thing as a righteous human (with one exception), then any claim to find righteousness in a literal 0.1 % of the male population would be wildly optimistic. So I don’t think we can rely on the implication that men are more righteous than women. It’s a subjective observation, at best.

V29 “Behold, this alone I found.”
He repeats the declaration of v27. Here is the sole important result of his quest for the sum total of knowledge.

On the one hand, “God made man upright”. That is, without sin.
On the other hand, “they have sought out many devices.” Since the second half of the statement is meant as a contrast to the first, it must mean that men have found many different ways to be sinful and fall away from God’s will.

So what we have here is the doctrine of Original Sin.
God made man righteous.
Man then made himself unrighteous.
And our thought comes back to the starting point;
“There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.”

a reply to: DISRAELI
So who, or what is Jesus to you in the light of these passages?
Is He revelation, or disinformation?

a reply to: DISRAELI

Thank you for this! This is such a phenomenal summary and study guide for me! Ecclesiastes is a rough book for me to get through. And I’m generally not at all interested in philosophical discussions and questions, so reading through these verses and really finding the core questions and answers, if you will, is something I’m pretty much not motivated to do (bad KansasGirl). So- thank you for this!

All of your threads are gems, DISRAELI!

There are No exceptions - Luke 18:19 Jesus said "Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God."

The text doesn't say Adam was born sinless. It says man is born sinless. Jews believe sin occurs after birth from a free will that strays from God.

a reply to: Lucius Driftwood
From the New Testament, I accept Jesus as revelation (and more), so I bring that understanding to my reading of this book.

a reply to: glend
I half-agree with the Jews, because I identify sin (including Adam's) as the free will that strays from God's will. I've presented that understanding of the Fall in several threads.
BUT I would also maintain that the "free will which strays from God" is there from birth, now built into the nature of human existence. Augustine argued that even babies are sinful, finding evidence in the way that babies defy and "disobey" their parents even before they can talk. My second-earliest memory backs that up, because it has me consciously "plotting" to get out of my cot by crying and attracting parental attention.

a reply to: KansasGirl
I'm glad to help. I'm also teaching myself at the same time, here, because i'm forcing myself to look closely at a book which I normally ignore.

a reply to: DISRAELI

"built into the nature of human existence" is a beautiful way of explaining it.

Thanks Disraeli for more detailed explanation.

a reply to: glend

What he did glend is stop short of addng the additional verse that gives it more clarity. Most false teachers do this.

Ecclesiastes 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

a reply to: ChesterJohn
Your reading skills are at fault again.
That verse was covered in the OP.
See below;

V29 “Behold, this alone I found.”
He repeats the declaration of v27. Here is the sole important result of his quest for the sum total of knowledge.

On the one hand, “God made man upright”. That is, without sin.
On the other hand, “they have sought out many devices.” Since the second half of the statement is meant as a contrast to the first, it must mean that men have found many different ways to be sinful and fall away from God’s will.

So what we have here is the doctrine of Original Sin.
God made man righteous.
Man then made himself unrighteous.
And our thought comes back to the starting point;
“There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.”

a reply to: DISRAELI

I apologize Dis, I literally missed it. My fault cause I am very busy here today. I quickly wrote down that observation without reading further.

However, your remark is wrong concerning MAN. the word Solomon used about God making man is plural and not man as a singular. The scripture is not speaking of his original MAN (Adam). All men were made sinners in ADAM even though they did not do anything to be unrighteousness. Unrighteous and sin nature are not the same thing you seem to have confused the two. As well as you confused upright and righteous. Things that are not the same are different. A man can be upright and not be righteous as a matter of fact a man may be upright but unless he is IN Christ they are not righteous. Notice I used they which indicates man is plural. The terms used in

vs 29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

I have a sin nature as we speak, but I am righteous in Christ because his righteousness was imputed me. I did nothing to earn it and I do nothing to keep it. That righteousness is God making this man upright. Solomon is not speaking of ADAM and for you to make it so is a huge error.

Also context of all scriptures gives us real insight to the Preacher, King Solomon which you failed to even notice. Which is a consequence of not having the indwelling of the Holy Ghost nor studying the way scriptures tells you or to follow the example of the word of God by comparing spiritual to spiritual.

So looking at the over all scriptures we know the total number of wives and concubines Solomon had was 1,000. So while Solomon could find one man among a 1,000 to be wise he failed to find one among 1,000 women. That is not to say women are not wise, smart or intelligent. But reflects on the fact of verse 26 were he says women are a snare. If you remember it was because of his wives he allowed them to build altars and to worship idols and false gods. Which was one of his failures.

a reply to: ChesterJohn
The English word "man" is also a collective noun, meaning "the human species". The translation is using the word in that sense. Nobody is trying to say "God made one man upright". We are actually in agreement here.

a reply to: DISRAELII apologized for my error and you did not accept it I see.

How ever the human species did not collectively sin. One man and one woman does not a species make.

Romans 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
Roms 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man((singular))sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

While it may be true that the sin nature was given us the sin itself was not the small to us all. Adam was figure of Christ where his sacrifice would cover any man who accepted it. Look at the difference between how a blanket of sin nature was spread over all men, but each man must personal believe on Christ finished work of the cross for himself. Christ work while done for all man God wont blanket give all men salvation without their belief. All are covered under Christs work but not all accept Christ work for themselves.

Beware about using Human Species, which gives evolutionist ammo for their ideas of mans origins. That makes it sound as if God did not create man but rather man evolved from some lower form. actually the current condition of man is a lower form than that of Adam before he sinned.

originally posted by: ChesterJohn
a reply to: DISRAELII apologized for my error and you did not accept it I see.

Oh, for heaven's sake! I just haven't got into the habit of using that particular verbal formula, "I accept".
I made a mental note that we were back on the same track, and didn't try to pursue any quarrels. Please don't get quarrelsome again.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The only mental notes you are not taking is How to Study according to the scriptures, and to take all scriptures as part of the context of the rest of the scriptures when trying to explain them

Explaining the one in a thousand is a clear indicator as to Solomon's reference.

If you want it to change you need to start following the scriptures and not your heart. But of course a heart not indwelled by the Holy Ghost is nothing more than a dead heart and cannot understand the spiritual aspects of Scriptures only fleshy aspects.

So the choice really lays on you.