Ecclesiasteschapter 2
26 verses · BSBEcclesiastes book hub →
Speaks with:Ecclesiastes 1×9Ecclesiastes 7×3Ecclesiastes 9×3Ecclesiastes 2×3Ecclesiastes 3×4Ecclesiastes 6×2
Summary
Chapter summary
The experiment at full scale: laughter, wine, great works, houses, vineyards, gardens, servants, silver and gold, singers: 'whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them.' Then the audit: 'all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.' Wisdom excels folly as light darkness, yet one event happeneth to them both. And a man must leave his labor to one who comes after, wise or fool. The first glimmer: nothing better than to eat, drink, and make the soul enjoy good: 'this also I saw, that it is from the hand of God.'
Context
Poetry · Solomon — Ecclesiastes overview
- A. 1–11 I Made Me Great Works, and Behold, All Was Vanity
- B. 12–17 One Event Happeneth to the Wise Man and the Fool
- C. 18–26 I Hated My Labor, For I Must Leave It to the Man After Me
The outline
A.I Made Me Great Works, and Behold, All Was Vanityvv. 1 to 11
Read vv. 1 to 11 →B.One Event Happeneth to the Wise Man and the Foolvv. 12 to 17
Read vv. 12 to 17 →C.I Hated My Labor, For I Must Leave It to the Man After Mevv. 18 to 26
Read vv. 18 to 26 →
The world behind this chapter
Ecclesiastes 2The history
This is an inventory of an ancient king's greatness, and it matches what the histories say Solomon actually did: houses, vineyards, gardens, orchards planted with every kind of fruit tree, and "pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees." Royal parks with irrigation systems were the standard boast of Near Eastern monarchs — Assyrian kings recorded theirs in detail. South of Bethlehem there are large reservoirs long known as the Pools of Solomon, though the stonework standing there today is from later centuries.
"Servants born in my house" describes a permanent household staff, not purchased labourers — people whose parents had served the same estate. "Great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me" is the ancient measure of wealth, since herds were the capital that reproduced.
"Silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces" refers to tribute — the payments that came in from subject territories and trading partners, which the records of Solomon's reign describe arriving by the shipload.
"Men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men" covers court musicians and the royal household of wives and concubines. Every item on this list is something an ancient king would have carved on a monument. Here it is being listed in order to be dismissed.
What it meant to them
The hearers were being told, by the one man in the world qualified to say it, that the experiment had been run at full budget. "Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them" — and the verdict was still vapour.
The sting for them was the inheritance question: "I shall leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?" Solomon's own son Rehoboam would answer that within a few years, and the kingdom would split.
Sources cited
- Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ecclesiastes 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.