Commentary - Ecclesiastes 7:23-26

Bird's-eye view

In this short, reflective passage, the Preacher recounts a personal intellectual and spiritual quest. Having laid out a series of proverbs and observations about the nature of wisdom and folly, he now confesses the limits of his own pursuit. He determined to grasp ultimate wisdom through his own efforts, only to find it receding from him, as deep and distant as the mind of God itself. Yet, his diligent search was not fruitless. In his effort to understand both wisdom and its opposite, the "wickedness of foolishness," he made a profound discovery. He found that the most potent, destructive, and bitter reality under the sun is the seductive power of the foolish and adulterous woman. She is the personification of a world system that traps and binds the sinner. The passage concludes by drawing a sharp, covenantal line: escape from this deadly snare is not a matter of human cleverness or willpower, but rather a gift of God's grace to the one who is found "good before God."

This section serves as a crucial hinge in the book. It demonstrates the inadequacy of unaided human reason to solve the ultimate questions of life, thereby pushing the reader toward humility and dependence on divine revelation. The abstract problem of folly is made terrifyingly concrete, and the solution is located not in man's searching, but in God's saving.

Outline

Context In Ecclesiastes

This passage follows a collection of proverbial statements in the first part of chapter 7 that contrast wisdom and folly in various life situations (funerals vs. feasts, patience vs. pride, etc.). After offering this practical, observable wisdom, the Preacher now steps back to give a personal testimony about his own attempt to systematize it all and arrive at a final, comprehensive understanding. His conclusion about the limits of his search (vv. 23-24) sets the stage for the sobering discovery he announces in verse 26. This personal reflection on the seductive nature of folly serves as a bridge to his further explorations of righteousness, sin, and the fallen nature of humanity in the remainder of the chapter and into chapter 8. It is a move from the general observations of wisdom literature to a specific, pastoral warning about the most dangerous manifestation of sin.

Key Issues

The Search and the Snare

The Preacher is an honest man. He is not a skeptic who delights in ignorance, but rather a diligent seeker who has run headlong into the wall of his own creaturely limitations. He wants to know, to get to the bottom of things, to find the "explanation" for all of it. This is a noble pursuit, but a dangerous one if undertaken in one's own strength. The wisdom he seeks is not just a collection of clever sayings; it is the blueprint of reality, the very mind of God. And so, he finds it "far from" him.

But his search is not in vain. In seeking to understand wisdom, he must also understand its opposite, "the wickedness of foolishness." And it is here that God grants him a profound insight. The greatest danger is not intellectual error in the abstract. The greatest danger is folly with a pretty face, wickedness with a soft voice, and death with a warm embrace. The Preacher's great discovery is that the central battle is not fought in the library, but in the heart, against the snares of a seductive and godless worldview, here personified as the adulterous woman.

Verse by Verse Commentary

23 I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me.

The Preacher begins with a confession of his ambition and his failure. He took all his observations, all the proverbial wisdom he had gathered, and tried to use it as a tool to achieve a final, ultimate state of wisdom. His declaration, "I will be wise," reveals the intent of his heart. This was not a passive wish; it was a determined project. But the result was humbling. The goal itself seemed to move further away the more he pursued it. This is the experience of every honest thinker who relies solely on his own intellect. The horizon always recedes. Ultimate, comprehensive wisdom is an attribute of God, not a human achievement. The Preacher is learning the fundamental lesson of Proverbs: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not the conclusion of a successful research project.

24 What has been is far away and exceedingly deep. Who can find it?

He elaborates on why wisdom was so far from him. The very nature of reality, the "what has been" which includes all of God's sovereign decrees and providential workings, is not on the surface of things. It is far away, beyond our natural reach, and exceedingly deep, beyond our intellectual capacity to plumb. The question, "Who can find it?" is rhetorical. The answer is that no mere man can. This is not a cry of despair, but a statement of creaturely humility. We cannot, by searching, find out God (Job 11:7). This verse is a rebuke to all forms of rationalism and gnosticism that imagine the human mind can, on its own terms, ascend to the mind of God. We are finite, and the truth of all things is infinitely deep.

25 I turned my heart to know, to explore, and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the wickedness of foolishness and the simpleminded folly of madness.

His initial failure did not lead to cynical resignation. Instead, it refined his search. He "turned his heart," indicating a renewed and deliberate effort. Notice the comprehensive nature of his quest. He uses three verbs for his positive search: to know, to explore, and to seek. He is after not just wisdom, but an explanation, a rational accounting of things. But he also knows that one cannot understand light without understanding darkness. So he applies the same diligence to understanding the negative side: the wickedness of foolishness and the folly of madness. He is a spiritual pathologist, studying the disease of sin in order to understand the nature of health. This is the foundation of true discernment; it requires an unflinching look at both good and evil, truth and error.

26 And I found more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is good before God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.

Here is the stunning result of his comprehensive search. After all his deep thoughts and explorations, the most profound thing he discovered was a practical, pastoral, and terrifying reality. He found something more bitter than death. What could be worse than the curse of the grave? The answer is the seductive trap personified by the adulterous woman. This figure, prominent in Proverbs, represents more than just sexual temptation. She is the embodiment of the world's alluring promise of pleasure, wisdom, and life apart from God. Her heart, the very core of her being, is not a source of love but a trap, a complex of snares and nets designed to entangle a man. Her hands, which should offer help and comfort, are chains that lead to bondage. She promises freedom and delivers slavery. This is the essence of all sin.

The verse ends with the only solution. Who gets away? Not the clever man, not the strong-willed man, not the man with a good accountability partner. The one who escapes is the one who is "good before God." This is not a description of achieved moral perfection. It is a statement of divine favor. The one who escapes is the one whom God protects, the one on whom God has set His gracious affection. It is the elect. Conversely, "the sinner," meaning the one who is in a state of rebellion against God, will be captured by her. It is an inevitability. Left to his own devices, the sinner always walks into the snare. Escape is not a human accomplishment; it is a divine deliverance.

Application

We live in a world overflowing with the daughters of the strange woman. She does not just lurk on dark street corners anymore; she broadcasts her philosophy from every screen. She is the voice of our culture, whispering that freedom is found in autonomy, that truth is relative, that pleasure is the highest good, and that commitment is a cage. Her heart is snares and nets, and her hands are chains, and she is more bitter than death.

The Preacher's journey teaches us two vital truths for navigating this world. First, our own wisdom is not enough. We cannot out-think the devil. We cannot reason our way to safety. Trying to become wise in our own strength will only show us how far away wisdom truly is. We must abandon the project of "I will be wise" and instead receive wisdom as a gift. That wisdom has a name, and it is Jesus Christ, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3). Our intellectual humility must drive us to the Scriptures, where God has revealed what is otherwise "exceedingly deep."

Second, our escape from the snares of the world is entirely a work of grace. Do you find yourself walking free from addictions and temptations that have destroyed others? Do not credit your own strength. You are "good before God" only because Christ was condemned for you. Your escape is a miracle of divine intervention. The proper response is not pride, but profound gratitude and a desperate, daily clinging to the God who holds you fast. For the sinner, the one outside of Christ, capture is certain. The only hope is to cry out to God for a deliverance that he cannot accomplish for himself.