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.
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