Wisdom Under the Sun is a Chump's Game
Introduction: The Idol of the Egghead
We live in an age that worships at the altar of the expert. Our culture is convinced that if we can just gather enough data, fund enough studies, and convene enough panels of PhDs, we can solve any problem that vexes us. We believe that human reason, untethered from the dusty superstitions of the past, is our savior. We are laboring under the grand delusion that knowledge is not just power, but salvation. This is the high religion of secular humanism, and its central creed is that man, by his own intellect, can chart a course out of the darkness and into a glorious, man-made utopia.
This is a noble-sounding project, full of promise and progress. But it is a fool's errand, a chasing after the wind. And we know this because the ultimate test case has already been run. The experiment has been completed, the data has been analyzed, and the lab report has been written. The chief investigator was a man with more wisdom, more wealth, more power, and more time than any modern academic could ever dream of. His name was Solomon, the Preacher, the king in Jerusalem. And his conclusion, written here in the inspired pages of Ecclesiastes, is a devastating demolition of the entire humanist project.
Solomon is about to take us on a tour of his magnificent, state-of-the-art laboratory. He is going to show us the results of his grand experiment to find meaning and purpose "under the sun." This phrase, "under the sun," is the key to the whole book. It is the control for the experiment. It means looking at the world from a purely horizontal perspective, trying to make sense of the creation without any reference to the Creator. Solomon is about to show us what happens when the smartest man in the world tries to live as though God is irrelevant. The result is not enlightenment; it is agony.
The Text
I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven. It is a grievous endeavor which God has given to the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. What is bent cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted. I spoke within my heart, saying, "Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my heart has seen an abundance of wisdom and knowledge." And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and simpleminded folly; I came to know that this also is striving after wind. Because in much wisdom there is much vexation, and whoever increases knowledge increases pain.
(Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 LSB)
The King's Great Project (v. 12-13)
The Preacher begins by establishing his credentials and his mission.
"I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven. It is a grievous endeavor which God has given to the sons of men with which to occupy themselves." (Ecclesiastes 1:12-13)
He is not some detached philosopher in an ivory tower. He is the king. This means he has the resources, the authority, and the leisure to conduct this investigation properly. No one can accuse him of having insufficient funding or a small sample size. He has an entire kingdom at his disposal.
His mission is comprehensive: "to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven." This is the ultimate intellectual quest. He wants to understand everything. He applies the full force of his God-given wisdom to the task of figuring out the world on its own terms. He is trying to reverse-engineer the meaning of the universe from the inside.
But notice the immediate evaluation of this task. It is a "grievous endeavor," a sore and painful business. And who assigned this task? God did. This is crucial. God has intentionally designed the world in such a way that trying to understand it without reference to Him is a miserable, frustrating, and ultimately futile occupation. It is a divine trap for the proud. He has hard-wired creation to confound and vex the autonomous mind. The world is a lock, and human reason is the wrong key. Trying to force it will only break the key and frustrate the locksmith.
The Sobering Results (v. 14-15)
After conducting this exhaustive research, Solomon delivers his top-line conclusion. It is not what the humanist wants to hear.
"I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. What is bent cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted." (Ecclesiastes 1:14-15)
The verdict is in: "all is vanity." The Hebrew word is hevel. It means a vapor, a puff of smoke, a breath on a cold day. It looks like something, but when you reach out to grab it, your hand closes on nothing. It is insubstantial, fleeting, and ultimately meaningless. To pursue meaning in the stuff of this world is to be a "striving after wind," or as some translate it, "shepherding the wind." Can you imagine a more futile task? Trying to herd the wind into a corral is the perfect picture of the secular project.
Verse 15 tells us why this is so. First, "What is bent cannot be straightened." The world is not just complicated; it is crooked. It is bent out of shape by the fall of man. Sin has introduced a fundamental warp into the fabric of creation. Human wisdom can observe the crookedness. It can measure it, analyze it, and write long, sad poems about it. But it cannot straighten it. All our political programs, educational reforms, and technological advancements are simply attempts to rearrange the bent furniture on a crooked floor. Only the one who made it straight in the first place can make it straight again.
Second, "what is lacking cannot be counted." There is a deficit at the heart of the world. There is a God-shaped hole in everything. The secularist tries to do his accounting without acknowledging this massive, unquantifiable debt. He tries to count his assets, but he cannot number the one thing whose absence makes all the other numbers meaningless. The world without God is a mathematical equation that will never, ever balance.
The Investigator's Impeccable Credentials (v. 16-17)
Now, lest we think that Solomon's experiment failed because he was not smart enough or thorough enough, he reminds us of his resume.
"I spoke within my heart, saying, 'Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my heart has seen an abundance of wisdom and knowledge.' And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and simpleminded folly; I came to know that this also is striving after wind." (Ecclesiastes 1:16-17)
Solomon is at the absolute pinnacle of human intellect. He has more wisdom than anyone before him. He is not a dilettante. He has seen an "abundance of wisdom and knowledge." Furthermore, his study was comprehensive. He did not just study the noble heights of wisdom; he also plumbed the depths of "madness and simpleminded folly." He investigated insanity to understand sanity. He studied the irrational to grasp the rational.
And what was the result of this exhaustive, 360-degree review of the human condition? The same thing. "This also is striving after wind." Trying to find ultimate meaning in human folly is a dead end, but so is trying to find it in human wisdom. Both are horizontal pursuits, and both lead to the same empty-handed frustration. Whether you are in the gutter or in the university library, if you are living "under the sun," you are just shepherding the wind.
The Agonizing Paradox (v. 18)
This final verse is the nail in the coffin of the religion of humanism. It is the conclusion that turns our modern assumptions completely upside down.
"Because in much wisdom there is much vexation, and whoever increases knowledge increases pain." (Ecclesiastes 1:18)
Our world tells us that knowledge is the cure. Education will solve our problems. Information will set us free. Solomon, having more of it than any of us, says the exact opposite. More wisdom brings more vexation. More knowledge brings more pain.
Why would this be? Because if you are an honest and intelligent observer of this fallen world, and you have no hope beyond this world, then the more you see, the more you suffer. To increase knowledge is to increase your awareness of the world's unfixable crookedness. You see the injustice more clearly. You feel the sting of mortality more sharply. You understand the depth of human depravity more profoundly. You see the train wreck in high-definition slow motion, and you are utterly powerless to stop it. This is the agony of the analyst. It is the grief of the clear-eyed observer who has no savior. The more you know, the more you know how bad it is. And without God, that knowledge is not a balm; it is a torment.
Conclusion: Wisdom Above the Sun
So what is the point of all this? Is the Bible anti-intellectual? Should we abandon learning and embrace ignorance? Not at all. The book of Ecclesiastes is not designed to make us stupid; it is designed to make us desperate. It is a severe mercy, a bulldozer that clears away all our flimsy man-made shelters so that we are left with no choice but to look up.
The problem is not wisdom. The problem is wisdom "under the sun." The pain described here is the pain of a mind created by God to know Him, trying to find ultimate satisfaction in the things He has made. It cannot be done.
The crooked things cannot be straightened by us, but the good news of the gospel is that God sent One from above the sun to do just that. Jesus Christ came to make the crooked paths straight. The deficit that cannot be counted has been paid in full by the blood of the Son of God.
The knowledge that increases pain is the knowledge of this world. But there is another kind of knowledge. Paul, a man of immense learning himself, said that he counted all his worldly wisdom as loss "in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8). The knowledge of Christ does not increase pain; it heals it. It is the only knowledge that can make sense of the vexation. It is the only wisdom that can look at the crookedness of the world and the pain in our hearts and say, "This is not the final word."
Ecclesiastes forces us to the end of ourselves. It shows us the bankruptcy of the human mind when it sets itself up as God. The Preacher ran the experiment so that we would not have to. The conclusion is not to abandon reason, but to baptize it. It is to bow the knee of our intellect before the throne of our Creator and Savior, and to find in Him, the eternal Word, the one in whom "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3).