UNROLL
Dusk in a narrow stone lane: one plain door stands open on lamplight, sandals in a row on the step, two women sitting just inside with their heads bent, another coming up the lane.

What wisdom can and can’t do

Ecclesiastes 7

When did a hard day teach you more than a good one?

29 verses≈ 4 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

  1. 1Everything is futileThe Teacher states his case
  2. 2–6The searchPleasure, work, time, power, wealth
  3. 7–8What wisdom can and can't doNo one can find out what is comingChapter 7
  4. 9–11Live while you liveDeath comes to all, so take the gift
  5. 12Remember your CreatorFear God and keep His commandments

The Value of Wisdom

The Teacher
The Teacher

A good name is better than fine perfume,

and one’s day of death is better than his day of birth.

It is better to enter a house of mourning

than a house of feasting,

since death is the end of every man,

and the living should take this to heart.

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Sorrow is better than laughter, for a sad countenance is good for the heart.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

It is better to heed a wise man’s rebuke

than to listen to the song of fools.

A blackened clay cooking pot on three stones over a thin fire of thornbrush in open country, a fierce gust just arriving, sparks and ash streaming flat.

For like the crackling of thorns under the pot,

so is the laughter of the fool. This too is futile.

The Teacher
At a stone bench inside a town gateway, one man's hand slides a small tied leather purse under the fold of a seated elder's cloak while the elder looks away.

Sayings

What keeps you wise

  1. Money

    A bribe bends the wise

    Surely extortion turns a wise man into a fool,

    and a bribe corrupts the heart.

  2. Patience

    Finish better than you began

    The end of a matter is better than the beginning,

    and a patient spirit is better than a proud one.

  3. Anger

    Slow to anger

    Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,

    for anger settles in the lap of a fool.

  4. Time

    Pining for the old days

    Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”

    For it is unwise of you to ask about this.

  5. Wisdom

    Wisdom as an inheritance

    Wisdom, like an inheritance, is good,

    and it benefits those who see the sun.

  6. Wisdom as a shelter

    For wisdom, like money, is a shelter,

    and the advantage of knowledge

    is that wisdom preserves the life of its owner.

The Teacher
An old olive tree on a stony slope, its trunk bent nearly flat and twisted around a rock, still in leaf.

Consider the work of God:

Who can straighten what He has bent?

In the day of prosperity, be joyful,

but in the day of adversity, consider this:

God has made one of these along with the other,

so that a man cannot discover

anything that will come after him.

0:16

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Reflect

Sit with this

What is bent in your life that you have been trying to straighten? What would it mean to accept it from God’s hand and trust Him there?

The Limits of Human Wisdom

The Teacher
On a hill road far off, four men carry a covered bier with a few mourners behind; near the camera an old rich man sits eating in the shade of his courtyard wall, not looking up.

In my futile life I have seen both of these:

A righteous man perishing in his righteousness,

and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.

Do not be overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Do not be excessively wicked, and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let the other slip from your hand. For he who fears God will follow both warnings.

The Teacher

Wisdom makes the wise man

stronger than ten rulers in a city.

Surely there is no righteous man on earth

who does good and never sins.

Ecclesiastes 7:20

Question

Quick question

One line, and it covers everyone.

Who does verse 20 leave out?

The Teacher
The Teacher

Do not pay attention to every word that is spoken, or you may hear your servant cursing you. For you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.

Looking straight down a deep, narrow stone-lined well from its rim, rope grooves worn in the lip, the shaft falling into blackness.

All this I tested by wisdom, saying, “I resolve to be wise.” But it was beyond me. What exists is out of reach and very deep. Who can fathom it?

I directed my mind to understand, to explore, to search out wisdom and explanations, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the folly of madness. And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared.

The Teacher
The Teacher

“Behold,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find an explanation. While my soul was still searching but not finding, among a thousand I have found one upright man, but among all these I have not found one such woman.

Only this have I found: I have discovered that God made mankind upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”

You’ve experienced

Ecclesiastes 7

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A verse to carry with you

Surely there is no righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Ecclesiastes 7:20

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