Ecclesiastes 1:9-11

History is just one thing after another

- What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after. -

The Man of Steel

Three verses! I know, so much value.

I feel as if this is another common phrase taken from Ecclesiastes. Like Vanity, we’ve all probably heard, “History repeats itself.”

Let’s dig in.

I think the context surrounding this verse is often misunderstood. We obviously have new things that those in previous ages didn’t have access to. iPhones, apps, medicine, birth control, etc.

Have these fundamentally changed our lives? Well, that’s where things get tricky.

Wonder why your computer course in college was called Information Systems 101? That’s because their primary operation is just that, storing and sharing information.

Grubhub? You punch in an order, it’s sent to the store, and your food is delivered.

All that’s changed here is the speed of this transaction. Remember walking into a fast-food restaurant? It’s the same interaction, just there are people moving the data.

What Solomon is making us aware of is that the things underlying the human condition do not change.

People still want to know where they came from, what’s their purpose for being here, and does anything they do matter?

Not to mention that those in power will both abuse and respect it, mankind will continue to be filled with both heroes and villains, and kids are going to be sweet angels and little devils for the rest of time.

What will we do? Will we reach back into the past and learn? Will we sit down among those with gray heads who have gone before us?

Nope. We’re just going to forget.

Facism is the boogey man of our age. The holocaust is one of the darkest stains on humanity’s history.

But why don’t we treat Communism with the same abhorrence?

I’ve spent some time studying Communist regimes, particularly in Russia. Here’s my one big takeaway from looking at these dictatorships.

Any system that engineers sloping concrete floors to make the executions easier to clean up is bad.

Facists? They had sloping floors. Communists? They had sloping floors. Both are bad.

You don’t need to think on this long. Think of the engineering and planning that has to go into killing a million people?

If that doesn’t make you sick to your stomach, I don’t know what can.

What am I trying to say? It seems in both that the murders were not a bug but a feature, but it seems our memory is broken. Do we not know that giving power to a king is dangerous? Is history not full of those who have committed genocide based on their whims?

What do we do? Remember. Look back and see what has been. Don’t be silent and share with those around us.

Listen to those older than you. They may not clearly see the problem of the day, but they have the wisdom of the past.

In that past is the guidance for today.

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Reading Recommendation:

If you want a horrible description of what happened in Nazi Germany, pick up Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning. I don’t suggest it lightly, but the lesson of how you or anyone else you love could become a part of the Nazi murder machine is priceless.

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