Bible Men: King Solomon: Notes On the Meaning of Vanity

All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. Ecc 6:7 

The Peril of a Full Stomach

In the old world there were major feasts and even worship rites surrounding food and fertility. The climax invariably boiled over to some form of debauchery.

To be fat was celebrated. To be thin was frowned upon and even regarded as reactionary, as Shakespeare knew.

CAESAR: Antonius!

ANTONY: Caesar?

            CAESAR: Let me have men about me that are fat;

Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o'nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

ANTONY: Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman, and well given.

CAESAR: Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:

 My mother used to chide: Humbira nda wahuna! Cover your stomach when you are full. She is a church woman of the Tukundereza fame, and that was her way of shielding us from being vain and falling under the wrath of God. “When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.  Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God…” (Deu 8:10-17).    

A full stomach is a good thing but it is a poor teacher. It makes a man reckless. It dims the mind and lifts the flesh.

Now Solomon was magnificently glorious, even by Christ’s admission. The lilies may have surpassed him in beauty but men (and women) were drawn to him like a moth to the light. His God given wisdom held kings in awe (1Ki 4:34).  

But that also became his snare. It is easier for the world to change a believer than a believer to change the world.  That’s how the king multiplied horses, wives, silver and gold. From there the lure of full stomach came naturally to him. He had to because he had 1000 women to keep happy.

And Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal, Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer, and fatted fowl. 1Ki 4:22-23 

The Burden of “I” “Me” “Mine” and “Myself”

In chapter 2 of Ecclesiastes alone the number of times the letter “I” appears is 36. “Me” appears 12 times. “Mine” appears 4 times. “My” 8 times and “Myself” 3 times. “I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards… So I was great… And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy” (Ecc 2:4-10). 

That is the preamble. But the conclusion is disheartening. “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun…Therefore I hated life…” (Ecc 2:11,17). 

Desire is a good thing, for we wouldn’t be able to wake, breath, and move, without it. So we desire God, and it is then we hunger for him like a deer in a desert.

But some desires can end in tears, like the social media. It is a parade of everything we lack in life, and that’s a race a man cannot win. It is a race especially a believer does well not to be engaged in because he will never be happy that way.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Rom 8:5-6  

The heart is like a well in a quiet place. Desire is like sand, and when a lot of it falls into the well, that well eventually runs dry.

Solomon choked on his desires. It is that emptiness which informs his raving in Ecclesiastes. The modern man’s reaction is worse. He keeps silent.

The miser in parable of Luke 12 makes an interesting reading. He was rich, and the rich are susceptible to some of the most novel tragedies.

And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:  And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?  And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? Luk 12:16-20  

If you consider it critically, God, in his graciousness, was really saving this man from his impending misery.

Prayer: The Famished Road of Life

Solomon had forgot God. He had become vain. But God in his mercy saved him. “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love” (Son 2:4).  

Should we point a finger at him? no. Because that is where we too were. Like him, we have been saved by grace.

For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.  But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,  Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Tit 3:3-5 

Solomon became a good teacher, so should we. It is the purpose of life.

Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.  For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.  For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.  He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live. Pro 4:1-4 

In religion it is not by way of a full stomach that we usually reach the mountain top, but more often it is by the famished road of prayer, sweat and tears. If that is where you are right now fellow believer don’t give up. Keep climbing.

 

 Bible Men: King Solomon: Notes On the Meaning of Vanity

All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me. Ecc 7:23  

The Problem Solomon Presents to Modern Believers

I once had a very good Christian friend. But she was unapologetically critical. She believed all other denominations (including mine) are worldly and we will never see God. According to her we are Great Babylon.

We debated a lot. We argued a lot. But there’s one Bible name she couldn’t stand, Solomon. She insisted he wasn’t a believer but a castaway. However that friendship petered out because we had very few subjects we agreed on. My argument was that Solomon departed from his faith, but he changed. Her argument was that Solomon never changed.  

But this is why I believe Solomon changed. Immediately after introducing himself in his Ecclesiastes, Solomon fires his first salvo. NIV reads even better: “‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’”

I believe it takes a radical to start off like that. In his Ecclesiastes the words vanity, vanities, and vain (meaningless) appear about 40 times. You jump from one vanity chapter to another.  Such a confessional book couldn’t have been written if the writer had not met his turning point.

I think part of my friend’s problem is that she couldn’t see Solomon’s repentance with her own eyes. In David we can see his Psalm 51. In Solomon you search for his “Psalm 51” moment but in vain. In the Old Testament we saw the repentant wearing sackcloth and ashes. But in Solomon it does not seem like he tore his soft raiment. Rather he seems to have gotten away quite free, and still he kept his wives.

However it is startling that the people who get stung most by God’s grace are sometimes the believers themselves. I believe my friend was caught up in that dilemma most believers find themselves in but they don’t admit. Her anger was not with Solomon, her anger was with God. “All these years I have been with you dad?” Her lament is the lament of the elder brother.

Nonetheless it can be argued that Solomon here comes across more as a philosopher than an evangelical preacher, that being his time. He is bluntly realistic. Sometimes you feel the note of a fatalist or a stoic wrapped up in his musings. He sinned. But should a man live forever in sorrow over empty ashes? So he lays bare all the facts of his life as bare facts deserve. It hurts but it sets a man free.

Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Ecc 9:7 

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecc 9:9  

The Peril of an Easy Life

Solomon had too much time in his hands. For a man of 700 wives and 300 concubines he must have had time.

David had Saul who gave him sleepless nights. Jacob had Laban who kept him busy and Hannah had Peninnah. Samson had the Philistines and Delilah. Isaac dug his wells relentlessly but in quiet fortitude. In contrast Solomon was born in a palace. God visited him in his sleep with a blank cheque. He had gold and silver for toys. He had peace and one doubts he ever saw blood with his own eyes. 

Whereas David wrestled in the wilderness with real giants, Solomon’s struggle was that of a man who had too much and gained nothing from it. “What does it profit a man?” asked Christ. Then Solomon broke every commandment God had placed before him concerning the kings of Israel. He made God angry, and that is the most vexatious sore of them all.

But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. 1Ki 11:1-2  

And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice. 1Ki 11:9 

Wherefore the LORD said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant.  Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. 1Ki 11:11-12   

Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s repentant note. It might not satisfy our flesh but let’s remember “Salvation is of the LORD.”

There’s a Better Hope

Unlike Solomon who lacked the gospel’s eternal hope, comfort and joy of life, God has given us himself, the greatest possession of all, which is Christ. He had no earthly possessions but he has made the whole world rich by his grace. “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (Joh 4:14).  

The old prophet cried, “Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?” But today life can no longer be vain for one who is in Christ. “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psa 16:11).  

There is a Season for Everything

Change happens. When Solomon was young he behaved vainly. But now he was old (though we fight strenuously not to arrive there, but we do). Change set for Solomon. Has it set for you?

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Pro 3:13-15 

So at last Solomon changed. All indications are that he died happy. “How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!” (Son 4:10). 

What love! what a feeling!