Scripture Daily

Context No. 2020 of 4322 · Ecclesiastes

Context · Reflection

Ecclesiastes 8:9-17: in context

9All this I have seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt. 10So I saw the wicked buried. Indeed they came also from holiness. They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is vanity. 11Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 12Though a sinner commits crimes a hundred times, and lives long, yet surely I know that it will be better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. 13But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he lengthen days like a shadow, because he doesn’t fear God. 14There is a vanity which is done on the earth, that there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked. Again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. 15Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun than to eat, to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life which God has given him under the sun. 16When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth (even though eyes see no sleep day or night), 17then I saw all the work of God, that man can’t find out the work that is done under the sun, because however much a man labors to seek it out, yet he won’t find it. Yes even though a wise man thinks he can comprehend it, he won’t be able to find it.

The Preacher wrestles with the tangled workings of the world: the wicked prospering, the righteous suffering what the wicked deserve, judgment delayed. And after all his searching he reaches an honest conclusion about the limits of understanding. When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business done on the earth, he says, then I saw all the work of God, that no one can find out the work that is done under the sun. However much a person labors to seek it out, he will not find it; even a wise man who thinks he can comprehend it will not be able to.

The Preacher's conclusion is a humbling one: we cannot fully comprehend the work of God. He had labored to understand, applied his heart, given himself sleepless nights to searching out the meaning of what happens under the sun. And his honest finding is that it cannot be fully grasped, that however hard we labor to figure out God's ways, we come to the end of our understanding and find it exceeds us. Even the wise, who think they can comprehend it, cannot. This is not despair but humility: an honest acknowledgment that God's work is beyond our full understanding, that we will not figure it all out. There is wisdom in accepting this. We often demand to understand, to make sense of everything that happens, to grasp why God does what he does and permits what he permits; and when we cannot, we can grow frustrated, even resentful, as though our inability to comprehend were a fault in God rather than a limit in us. The Preacher counsels a humbler posture: to accept that God's work exceeds our understanding, that we cannot find it all out, and to rest in that rather than demanding a comprehension we were never promised. The secret things belong to the LORD our God, Moses says; the things revealed belong to us. There is much we are given to know, and much we are not; and wisdom accepts the limit. As the heavens are higher than the earth, God says through Isaiah, so are my ways higher than your ways. This frees us as much as it humbles us. If we cannot fully comprehend God's work, then we are freed from the burden of having to, freed from the demand to make sense of everything before we can trust. We can trust God where we cannot understand him, resting in his goodness and wisdom even when his ways exceed our grasp. The Preacher labored to find out the work of God and could not; and his honest conclusion invites us to a humble trust, accepting that God's ways are higher than ours, and leaning on him where we cannot comprehend, rather than demanding an understanding that will always exceed us.

Do I demand to fully understand God's ways, growing frustrated or resentful when I cannot make sense of what he does or permits, or can I accept with the Preacher that no one can find out the whole work of God however hard we labor, and rest in a humble trust that leans on God's goodness and wisdom where his ways are higher than mine and exceed my grasp?

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