Ecclesiastes 7:10-29 - Do not be over righteous

7:10-12

We can often think that the old days were better. The thing is that we forget the negative aspects of the past. Wisdom is good. Remember that despite all the negativity the Teachers never forgets what is truly good, Wisdom and knowledge are good, but not if we make an idol out of it. Likewise, money is good, but not if we worship it.

7:13,14

“Consider what God has done”. We cannot make sense of life if we discount God. \we cannot undo what He has done. So in a sense we need to accept the times we are in. If they are good we should be happy and enjoy them. But when times are difficult we need to accept that as well.

7:15-19

“In this meaningless life of mine”, Om Mr Cheerful!. He then explains his statement, He has seen the righteous die young, and the wicked live long. He then counsels us not to be over-righteous or over wise or overwicked. Instead we should avoid extremes. Why? Going to an extreme is a sign of making an idol of whatever extreme we are going to, it is also a sign that we think we can save ourselves. Indeed he says that avoiding extremes is a sign that we are fearing God.

7:20

The Teacher then extols the value of wisdom, wisdom can make us very powerful, wisdom is good. We then get a very true statement, “there is no one who is righteous. If only the Pharisees had grasped this they may have reacted differently to Jesus. Realising that we are not, and cannot be righteous is key to understanding the gospel.

7:21,22

Verse 20 is also valuable for treating others well. We are now advised not to listen to every word people say, for we may well hear something bad about ourselves, and if we are honest we know that we have either said, or at least thought, bad things about others.

7:23-25

The teacher then decided to test things by wisdom, and so to understand the stupidity of wickedness. The Teacher is then trying to understand

7:26-29

Proverbs warns about the folly of falling for immoral women, this is a snare. Part of the fruit of pleasing God is to avoid sexual sin. Sexual sin is a trap that can ensnare and ruin a man. The Teacher then sums up what he has learnt. There are very few upright men, but not one upright woman. Such a sentiment does not go down well in our age! God created us upright, but we have all gone astray.

A short talk on Ecclesiastes Chapter 4

Ecclesiates 7:1-9 Mourning is better than feasting!?

7:1 -6

“A good name is better than perfume”. The writer is brutally honest, but also does not discard wisdom entirely. Earlier he has said wisdom is better than folly, and here he stresses the value of a good reputation. But then some might think he spoils it by saying “the day of death is better than the day of birth”, and goes on to say several things in  the same vein. It is perhaps useful to remind ourselves of his general purpose. One is that life without God makes no sense, and he is not prepared to put up with any fairy tale nonsense. The book also proves the need for Christ. “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting”. Christmas is near!  Why does he say this? The clue is in the end of v2, “death is the destiny of everyone, the living should take this to heart”. In a “house of feasting” we may for a while forget our state, and live in fantasy. It is better to have an honest and realistic view of life. To live properly, indeed to live well, we need to face up to our mortality. Also facing up to the reality of the problems we face is also important. This can even be god for the heart. The rebuke of a wise person is better for us than the flattery of fools.

7:7

“Extortion turns a wise person into a fool and a bribe corrupts the heart” This is the sort of statement that would be at home in Proverbs. Financial sin has a deep effect on us, diminishing the person. 

7:8,9

More proverb-like statements. Anger is not good for us, and to act out of anger is usually a foolish way to go. Patience is far better, and we should not let pride rule our lives.

Ecclesiastes 6 - Wealth is not the answer

6:1-6 

Wealth can be good, it can do good,and can make life better. It is the love of money that is the problem. Yet some people have lots of possessions, but it does not bring them joy. Children and material goods are meant to be enjoyed.Otherwise life is meaningless, and the teacher adjudges that it is better not to have been born at all.

6:7-12

So what is the point of the teacher saying all this, what lesson is he trying to teach us? It is that nothing can take the place of God. Even good things are no substitute. In particular wealth does not mean we don’t need God, or that we can do without Him. We need to recognise the limitations of our humanity (6:11). We need God. 

We sometimes imagine that the patterns of life do not apply to us, or that we can overcome them, but no one can avoid death, we cannot do away with “boom and bust”. There is someone who is stronger than us, God. Though man often imagines that He is God, that we can control everything, we cannot. We need to trust the Lord, There is no other way to live life properly.

Ecclesiastes 5 - Having a realistic view of life.

5:1-7

The writer urges us to go to the house of God in order to listen. Likewise we should read the Bible in order to learn from God, rather than to tell God what He should think. There is a call for humility here. We need to learn from God, not the other way around. “Many words mark the speech of a fool”, how true! We need to recognise our position relative to the Lord.

We should also be careful about making vows, and if we do make a vow, we should be quick to fulfil it. An empty vow does not endear us to God. We should fear the Lord.

5:8-12

Injustice should not surprise us. There is a tendency for all officials to look after their own well-being. This is why revolutions usually make things worse. The new rulers are just another bunch of sinners and soon use their new found power for their own ends. In the words of the Who song, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” health can be a snare, and the fear of losing it and “permit no sleep”, true peace comes from trusting in the Lord.. “as goods increase, so do those who consume them”. This is a rather pessimistic view of economics, but we see it playing out. Health can increase without an increase in happiness.

5:13-17

Hoarding wealth does not always benefit you, for it can easily be lost. We come into the world with nothing, and leave it with nothing. We need to have a proper view of wealth. Wealth is not eternal.

5:18-20

We should enjoy life knowing that it is for a season only. If we can enjoy our possession, we should accept that as a gift from God.

Ecclesiastes chapter 4 - Better this than that

4:1-3

The world can look a very grim and unjust place, and this is what the writer draws our attention to now. The oppressed are in a very bad place and power seems to be on the side of the oppressor. The TEacher’s conclusion is that the dead are better off than the living, for  they will see no more suffering, better still are those not born, for they will experience no suffering. This is as bleak a view as you can get, but is where life without God leads to.

4:4-6

What about the things we do achieve, much of this is the product of envy. It is said that the financial markets are run by greed and fear. Booms are fuelled by greed, and busts by fear. However, idleness (folding of the hands) is no answer, it leads only to ruin. “Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil.” It is good to work hard, but we should be careful. To chase after something at all costs is foolishness.

4:7-12

It is better to be in partnership than to be alone. Work can be used as a substitute, but never brings contentment. We need to be with others. Life alone is meaningless. Two are better than one” Our rewards are then more satisfying and we can help each other and defend one another. We need each other. As it says in Genesis 2 It is not good for man to be alone.

4:13-16

The old may be wiser  than the young, but not always. Despite his cynicism, the teacher is consistent in believing that wisdom is better than folly. 

Ecclesiastes 3:15-22 - Make the best of life

3:15-21

In a sense there is nothing new under the sun, it can also seem that there is no justice in the world. Without God there is no ultimate justice, but one day He will judge all. In one sense we are like the animals, we are made of the same stuff and we all die, but there is a fundamental difference, we were made in the image of God. Life shows that we are different. But we cannot make sense of that difference without God. We cannot properly understand who we are without bringing God into the picture.

3:22

This verse gives the Teacher’s latest conclusion, we should enjoy our work, we should make the best of things.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 2 (video)

Ecclesiastes Chapter 2

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 : A time for this

3:1-8

We now come to perhaps the most famous passage in Ecclesiastes, “There is a time for everything ...”. Ecclesiastes can be viewed as being very pessimistic, but I think it is better to view it as being realistic, life without God, a worldview without God is futile. We need to recognise the time we are in. “There is a time for war and a time for peace”. There are some who will never support going to war, but sometimes it is necessary in order to prevent a greater evil. Conversely there are some who seem to delight in war, but war is terrible causing much suffering and destruction, and there is a time for peace.

3:9-14 

“He has set eternity in the human heart”. Man longs for something eternal, something that truly lasts. At heart we all recognise that there is something wrong with the world, that things could be so much better. At the same time there is something beautiful about the world and life,  things are not all bad. Yet without God we cannot make sense of the world. We should appreciate the good things that God gives us, and appreciate them as a gift from God. God has ordered the world so that men will seek Him (Acts 17:27).

Ecclesiastes Chapter 2

2:1-15

“Let us eat and drink,” you say, “for tomorrow we die!” (Is 22:13; 1 Cor 15:32) is presented as a resigned response of a person without faith, the teacher now looks at the approach to life of enjoying it as much as possible, but this too he found to be “meaningless”, or futile. He made a determined effort to cheer himself with wine and embraced folly. I.e. temporal enjoyment was all he concerned himself with.

Having decided that this approach was useless, he went to the opposite extreme, embarking on great projects. (This does sound like Solomon) building houses and gardens for himself. He also got many slaves. So humanly speaking his life was very important, and he did significant things, he acquired many riches, and he even delighted in his work. But at the end of it what had he actually achieved? Wisdom is indeed better than folly, but in the end death meets us all, both the wise and the foolish. For all his hard and wise work will be passed on to another, and that person may take good care of it, or may prove to be a complete fool, and ruin everything, not appreciating the great work.

This section comes to a conclusion,that “a person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?”. So we should make the best of life, but not making an idol out of it.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 1(video) - Everything is meaningless

Ecclesiastes Chapter 1 https://youtu.be/RW8nV0LYTiQ

Ecclesiastes - Introdution (video)

https://youtu.be/1mwIx6Z8iw8`

Ecclesiastes 1:4-18 - Meaningless, life just goes on

1:4-11

 His first observation is that things go on regardless, “Generations come and go”, "the sun rises and the sun sets”, nothing we do affects any of this. The wind keeps blowing, and the rivers flow into the sea, but the sea never fills up ( this is the hydrological cycle). The eye keeps seeing, but never has enough of seeing. Likewise          the ear never has enough of hearing., “there is nothing new under the sun”, “under the sun”, a phrase that recurs, essentially means “this life”. There is never anything genuinely new (except that God does a new thing). People live and die and are then forgotten.

1:12-18

`The Teacher applied his mind to wisdom to see if this could provide an answer, but this proved to be fruitless, yet we have this inbuilt urge to seek to understand.Solomon, or the teachers was a clever and wise man, but his wisdom got him nowhere, it only wore him out.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-3 - The teacher

1:1

Verse 1 is the internal evidence for the book having been written by Solomon, for he was the son of David and was a king. Ortlund is not forgotten. Reasons include that the style of Hebrew indicates a later date, also Solomon is never actually named. However he is not overly dogmatic about the issue.

1:2,3

Verse 2 gives us the famous statement “Meaningless!, Meaningless!” or “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”. See comments in the Introduction. Verse 3 gives us the issue that the writer grapples with, the apparent pointlessness of it all. Indeed part of his purpose seems to be to prove that making this life the be all and end all of life is not a sensible way to go.

Ecclesiastes - Introduction

Ecclesiastes is an odd book, indeed we may sometimes even wonder why it is in the Bible. For it seems rather negative at times. One approach is to try and treat it as  entirely positive, another is the opposite of this, i.e. to treat it as entirely negative. Neither of these seems right. Perhaps it is better to treat it as how to live in a fallen world, or a warning against finding perfect contentment purely within this world. This world is fallen and things will never be perfect here. The book is sometimes attributed to Solomon,  and there are verses that suggest this is the case, however, we have the character of “the teacher2, Qoheleth in Hebrew who is introduced in the text as the writer. A couple of phrases that recur in the text are “under the sun” and “meaningless” or “vanity”. Perhaps the book warns against making an idol out of things that are good, but become pointless or even dangerous if we make them the ultimate things, e.g. wisdom, pleasure etc. The NIV translates the Hebrew word Hebel as “meaningless”, older translations translate it as “vanity”, the commentary I am using (see below) reckons that the NIV has got it wrong here. The word elsewhere in the OT means “fleeting” or “breath”, implying a fleeting nature.

I am greatly indebted to the following commentary:

The Hodder Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes - Eric Ortlund (2024).

Ezra 10 - The matter is dealt with

10:1-4

Ezra made quite a show of his repentance, and a large crowd gathered. They too wept bitterly. Shekinah led the people and suggested that they send their foreign wives away and make a promise to the Lord. He encouraged Ezra to lead the people in this way.

10:5-44

Ezra agreed to this and led the people accordingly. Ezra continued fasting. A proclamation was sent out through all Israel calling them to assemble in Jerusalem. There were quite severe penalties for not obeying this call. All the people of Benjamin and Judah gathered. It was raining and all the people were distressed, perhaps having some idea of why they had been summoned.Ezra told the people how they had sinned.The people agreed, except for a few people. We then get a list of all those who had intermarried.

ezra 9:1-15 - wrong relationships

9:1-15

The leaders became aware that the people, even including the priest and the Levites  had taken foreign women as their wives. This was against the Law of Moses, we also see why. The foreign nations followed detestable practices, and would tend to lead the Israelites astray. In response they told Ezra. Ezra was distraught. He was appalled and was supported by other Israelites who feared the Lord. Ezra then prayed to the Lord. Note that he does not go with an attitude of self-righteousness, and refers to “our sins” rather than “their sins”. He repented on behalf of the nation.

Ezra 8 - protection on the return

8:1-36

We now get a list of the family heads who came up with Ezra from Babylon. Ezra organised people so that the temple duties could be carried out properly. Ezra proclaimed a fast for protection on part of the journey, He had told the king that God would protect them, and wanted the name of the Lord to be honoured.

They were indeed protected on their journey

Ezra 7 - The king supports the Law of God

7:1-10

We now get the first mention of Ezra, and various details about him.. The key thing is that he was well versed in the Law of Moses. The journey from Babylon took about four months. We are told that the Lord was with him, and that this was because  he had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord. So he was qualified to be a teacher of the Law.

7:11-28

Ezra had a letter from Artaxerxes. The king was concerned that Ezra should ensure that the people are following the Law properly. He was also to take silver and gold artefacts, and to make proper sacrifices. It is interesting that the pagan king was so keen that the Law of God be properly implemented. The king's attitude encouraged Ezra. We are used to our governments being anti-God, or at best lukewarm.  We should not be afraid to pray for a change of heart in our leaders.

Ezra 6:1-22 - Building work completed

6:1-7

Darius issued an order for the archives to be searched, and it was discovered that Darius had indeed issued a decree. So Tattenai and Shethar-Bozenai and other officials were told to stay away  and not to interfere with the work.The Jews were to be allowed to get on with the work.

6:8-22

Moreover they were to ensure that the JEws were supplied with all that they needed. There were to be severe consequences for disobeying the order. This was a decree of King Darius. The decree was carried out with diligence, So the work carried on, the ministry of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah continued to be important,and the work was completed.The Passover was then completed, and there was great celebration.

Ezra 5:1-17 - The work continues and a letter is sent to King Darius

5:1-17

Haggai and Zechariah are now mentioned. Their prophetic ministries played an important role in the rebuilding work. Zerubbabel and Joshua seem to have led the rebuilding work, and the two prophets supported them. Tattenai and Shethar-Bozenai went to see what was happening, but the work was not stopped. They wrote to King Darius and suggested that a search be made of the archivist to see if indeed Cyrus had decreed the rebuilding work. The Jews had told them that they were doing the work of God, and that Cyrus had decreed it, and had ordered the return of various artefacts.

Ezra Chapter 4 - Opposition and the work comes to a halt

4:1,2

There was opposition to the rebuilding, as Nehemaih also found when he set about rebuilding the walls. So there was opposition to their setting up a place of worship, and to their setting up defences. The enemies adopted subterfuge, pretending to be wanting to help worship the Lord. As Jesus said in Matt 7:21, “not everyone who says Lord, Lord....” We need to beware of those who claim to follow the Lord, but in reality do not.

4:3-8

Zerubbabel and Joshua were wise, and knew that these people were not really followers of the Lord. However, the enemies bribed officials  to frustrate the work. We can expect opposition, and of a harassing nature. When Xerxes succeeded Cyrus they took a more direct approach, lodging an accusation against Judah and Jerusalem.. In the days of Artazerxes they sent him a letter, written in Aramaic.

4:9-16

The letter claimed that the rebuild was part of a rebellious act. Israel has always suffered false accusations, as we have today in the October 7th war. The enemies claimed there would be no more taxes for the king. They urged the king to search the records to see how rebellious Judah was.

4:17-24

The king made a search and seemed to agree that Judah had a troublesome history, so he ordered the work to stop. So the rebuilding work came to a standstill.

Ezra Chapter 3 - rebuilding begins

3:1:1-6

The people first got settled in their towns, then they assembled in Jerusalem. Joshua and Zerubbabel began to build the altar of God. Sacrifices would be offered here in accordance with the Law of Moses. They lived in fear of the surrounding people, but continued to offer the sacrifices. Then they celebrated the festival of Tabernacles. Everything was done in accordance with the Law of Moses. We can perhaps appreciate why, in Jesus’ time, so much importance was attached to the Law of Moses. The temple had not been rebuilt at this stage, indeed work had not even started on it.

3:7-13

After the sacrifices had been put in order, work began on rebuilding the temple. Money was given to the masons and carpenters. Levites were appointed to manage the work. Praise was given to the Lord. All the people gave a great shout when the foundation stone was laid. There were some who remembered the original temple, and the situation was particularly emotional for them, and they wept aloud. There was a lot of noise.

Ezra chapter 2 0 Lists!

2:1-70

We now get back to my favourite lists, in this case lists of returnees, this list parallels that in Neh 7:6-73. There are differences, particularly in the numbers, probably due to copying errors. The “province” is probably Judah. Joshua is the same Joshua as in Hag 1:1. The Nehemiah is  probably not the Nehemiah of the book. “Parosh” in 2:3 means “flea”, it was common for Israelites to be named after insects and animals. From 2:36 onwards the names are grouped by temple function.