Ecclesiastes 1:2

Vanity

- Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. -

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If you know anything about Ecclesiastes, you know this verse.

It’s difficult for me not to jump ahead. The rest of the book in some way is proving this thesis.

Today, instead of providing the arguments for why the phrase is true, I’m just going to focus on what it means.

Two things you need to know before we continue unpacking it: 1) it’s true and 2) it can be overcome.

That is an amazing truth and only possible with the gospel!

Okay back to the verse. Vanity of vanities, despite its poetry, means exactly what it says. Out of all the vanities in life, Solomon wants to teach us the chief of them all.

All is vanity. Your marriage? Meaningless. Your career? Pointless. Your children? Hopeless.

Now this doesn’t prove the point, but if we believe our Bible, the wisest man ever to walk the face of the earth is telling us there is no point to our lives, no higher purpose to live for.

This verse, left by its own, is strange in a religious text. Is it not a common critique that religion is a happy story used by the powerful to control the weak? Karl Marx called it the opium of the masses.

How strange it is then at more or less the center of the Bible, its followers are taught that life has no meaning?

I think some other translations here are helpful.

The CSB translates the verse, “‘Absolute futility,’ says the Teacher. ‘Absolute futility. Everything is futile.’”

Adam Clarke, President of the Methodist Conference several times during the 1800’s, writes in his commentary that the phrase can be translated “Emptiness of emptinesses [sic].”

Now, the Hebrew word here for vanity is “hebel” which when used as a name translates as Abel.

A few qualifiers here: I’m no scholar in Hebrew, and I do not know what happens to a word when it becomes a proper name. Does it lose all its original context? Should we hear the meaning of the noun in the name?

With all that said, there is a connection, even if it’s just the fact the word becomes Abel.

Now, tell me the life more futile than Abel’s. He served God faithfully, got recognized in front of the whole world by God for his sacrifices, and his reward? He got murdered by his own flesh and blood due to jealousy.

Job? Yeah, he definitely comes close, but he got to see the other end of his suffering. Abel had his head dashed to pieces, maybe even before he knew it was Cain attacking him.

Like filthy rags, that’s what our righteous deeds amount to. Solomon is wanting us to understand this truth explicitly, and he’ll use the rest of the book to convince us.

Now, why should you learn anymore about this depressing topic?

Well, it is in your Bible and if you believe in the good bits, you should definitely know the bad bits too.

Also, you need to know, especially given our modern cozy lives, just exactly what we have been saved from.

Stand firm in the shoes of peace; we’re just getting started.