The Chief Purpose of Man (Eccl 12)

THE CHIEF PURPOSE OF MAN (ECCLESIASTES 12)

What is your goal in life? Getting an education? Being a success? Buying a house? Starting a family? Retiring a millionaire or multimillionaire?

A survey of about 1,000 people aged from 16 to 35 in Hong Kong concerning their personal goals over the next 10 years reveals that 57 percent listed “to own property or improve living environment” as their top choice. About 40 percent listed earning their “first pail of gold” while 30 percent pointed to higher education and getting promoted. (“Youth still chasing `pail of gold,'” Diana Lee, December 15, 2010) http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=11&art_id=106039&sid=30632996&con_type=1&d_str=20101215&fc=4

What is the chief purpose of man? Is it to enjoy our unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? According to the Ecclesiastes 12, the chief purpose of man is to know our Creator, Shepherd and God.

Remember Your Creator and Recognize His Power
12 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”— 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain; 3 when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; 4 when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; 5 when men are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags himself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. 6 Remember him — before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, 7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 8 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Everything is meaningless!” (Ecc 12:1-7)

A little girl asked her mother, “How did the human race appear?” The mother answered, “God made Adam and Eve and they had children, and so was all mankind made.”

Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, “Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.”

The confused girl returned to her mother and said, “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?” The mother answered, “Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.”

The last chapter of Ecclesiastes has four imperatives, of which the first is the command to “remember.” In the first section from verses 1 to 7, the structural marker that divides and groups the text are the three “before” or “while not” in Hebrew (vv 1, 2, 6) and not the seven “when’s” in NIV, because there is only one bona fide “when” (v 1) in Hebrew (“when you will say”): the first “before” regards time, the second creation, including nature, people, birds, plants and insects, and the last things.

Time is an unwelcome guest and a space invader. It’s been said, “Time and tide waits for no man.” The world is spinning so fast, “coming” and “approaching” (v 1) faster than you can retreat. There is no stopping Father Time from wasting time. In the blink of an eye, the days of your youth” (v 1) turns into “days of trouble/evil” and the “day” when the keepers of the house tremble (v 3 Hebrew “day” missing in NIV). The day won’t come fast enough when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them” Another translation for pleasure (v 1) is “desire” or “delight.” One’s early days, happy days, best days and glory days– they all pass by in no time. A popular saying in Hong Kong challenges, “How many decades are in a person’s life!” (人生有幾多個十年！)

The second “before” downplays and dismisses creation, namely skies, men and insects. The sun and the light and the moon and the stars in the sky “darken” and the clouds “return” (v 2). Even the powerful sun seems to disappear during the day and the sky darkens in a matter of minutes during a solar eclipse at least twice a year.

Next, the keepers of the house, the strong men and the grinders are people who are alert (keepers), tough (strong men), skilled (grinders) and observant (those looking through the window be dimmed and the doors shut, but they are powerless and defenseless to do anything even if they are willing, eager and available. If that is not enough, he (man) rises to the sound/voice of low grinding - not hard grinding, and birds singing their faint songs (v 5). Not only does “danger” occurs for its only time in the Bible, so it is an unknown fear and it is in plural. The chiasm is obvious: men begins with “keepers… tremble” (v 3) and ends with “men…afraid” (v 5).

From heaven to man, the text turns to plants and insects. A grasshopper with no desire (v 5) is an oxymoron and a joke. Grasshoppers eat plants and not garbage or meat, Grasshoppers eat plants only, devouring equivalent of their own weight in a day. Locust swarms, however, may cover some 500 km/300 mi flying at night with the wind. The largest known swarm covered 1,036 sq km/400 sq mi, comprising approximately 40 billion insects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_locust

The last “before” spell things out in terms of objects, to be exact, damaged goods that are irreparable, irreversible, irrelevant. They are either (v 6) snapped in two, cracked on the surface (2nd “broken bowl” and 4th “broken wheel”) or crushed to pieces.

There is another way to see the three before’s: the first, time rumbles; the second creation, especially men, stumbles; the third, things crumble. Still another way to see it is time flies, men fall, and things fracture.

Most translations replace “then” with “because/for (ki)” in verse 5. It is consequential but not necessarily chronological. The deadly D’s – disasters (earthquakes, winds, fires, floods, famine), disease, death are no respecter of age, sex, race, health or religion. Man is made of dust and spirit (v 7), the material and immaterial part of man. Return is the most important verb in the text, occurring thrice (vv 2, 7, 7). Clouds return after the rain (v 2) and man return to God (v 7). Man’s eternal home (v 5) is dust, not heaven, which is for those who have accepted Jesus as their personal Savior.

Vanity of vanities means a life of activity, acquisition and amusement but no advancement, aim and assurance. While the word “vanity/meaningless” occurs in nearly every chapter (missing in chapter 10), it is the repetition of the phrase “Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” alone that ends the book perfectly in a chiastic way, occurring in the first chapter introduction and the last chapter.

Receive Your Shepherd and Reach for Wisdom
9 Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. 10 The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true. 11 The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails — given by one Shepherd. 12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. (Ecc 12:9-12)

Do you know how many words are there in the English dictionary? The Chinese language Kangxi dictionary has 214 radicals, published in 1716, contains more than 47,000 characters, according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary has about 220,000 words. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/93

How many books do you or can you read a year? In one year alone more than 1.5 million books are published worldwide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per_year United

Furthermore, how many languages do you speak?

The next three verses are regarded as an epilogue or a postscript, an editorial or a summation. After explaining the decline, decay, degeneration, derailment and departure of life and things, the writer, traditionally regarded as Solomon, celebrated wisdom from above, wisdom borne of a relationship with the Shepherd (v 11), who is perfect, powerful and praiseworthy. Wisdom is not information or knowledge. Information is the facts, knowledge is in the insight, but wisdom is the integration into life.

The writer spoke from personal experience. The text says three things about his qualification and credibility as a spokesman: the person, the practice and the purpose: (1) The person. He was first of all a teacher/preacher, a wise one at that (v 9), so he can speak on the topic. (2) His four-fold practice include teaching people knowledge, meditating its words, scouring many sources, and arranging them for literary and educational purposes, the last verb may be interpreted as straighten, compile, and edit. The four verbs in verse 9 are a series of emphatic (piel), sometimes translated with “surely”: taught/imparted, pondered, searched, set in order/arrange, which is extremely unusual, suggesting he had given his utmost, written his masterpiece, achieved a lot. (3) The purpose is its “subjective (right/acceptable words) and objective” (truth) value (v 10), according to Keil and Delitsch. The word “firmly-imbedded” is mostly translated as “plant,” as in planting trees (Eccl 2:5) and a time to “plant” (Eccl. 3:2).

The writer reveals his expertise in the area: his “many” proverbs (v 9), “many” books and “much” studying (v 12) – all three words are the same and interchangeable in Hebrew. The first is content, the second is the volumes, and the third is the discipline.

The preacher tried his best to acquire worldly wisdom, which is flawed, futile and foolish, but true wisdom is in the Shepherd and not in the study, in the Bible and not in books, a gift and not a given, from revelation and not from reason, true wisdom which affects our being, behavior and belief.

Revere Your God and Respond to Him
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. (Ecc 12:13-14)

When Robert Owen, the notorious freethinker and philosopher, visited revival leader Alexander Campbell (1788–1866) to arrange the preliminaries for the great debate that was to follow, they walked about the farm till they came to the family burying ground. “There is one advantage I have over the Christian,” boasted Mr. Owen. “I am not afraid to die. Most Christians have fear in death, but, if some few items of my business were settled, I should be perfectly willing to die at any moment.”

“Well,” replied Mr. Campbell, “you say you have no fear in death; have you any hope in death?”

“No,” said Mr. Owen after a thoughtful pause.

“Then,” said Mr. Campbell, pointing to an ox standing nearby, “you are on a level with that animal. He has eaten till he is satisfied, stands in the shade whisking off the flies, and has neither hope nor fear in death.” (Illustrations of Bible Truths # 854)

“Conclusion of the matter” is “the end of the whole word,” so verse 13 could mean the last word or closing remark, but it is singular, not plural, suggesting the two imperatives fear God and keep his commandments are a two-sided commandment but a single unit.

The Hebrew words for “God” and “man” (v 13) are most intriguing. “God” is Elohim throughout the book, God of the creation, and not Yahweh, God of Israel. The word for “man” for much of Ecclesiastes is not the social “ish” but the primitive “adamah,” which occurs 49 times to ish’s mere nine times. “Adamah” is the name for man in relationship and fellowship with God from the beginning (Gen 1:26) and his name throughout the first two chapters of Genesis until the end of Genesis 2 with the introduction of woman, when he became “ish” (Gen 2:23) in contrast to woman (ishshah). The first man (adamah) is created in God’s image (Gen 1:26), is formed from the dust of the ground and became a living soul/being (Gen 2:7) when God breathed in his nostrils the breath of life.

The whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments (v 13). “Fear” and “keep” are in the imperative mood in Hebrew. Contrary to popular opinion, there are seven and not many fear imperatives in the Bible, the first is in the book of Joshua and the last is in verse 12 (Josh 24:14, 1 Sam 12:24, Ps 34:10, Pro 3:7, 24:21, Ecc 5:6, 12:13). All “fear not” admonitions in the Bible directed at individuals from Abraham (Gen 15:1) to Joshua (Josh 8:1) or Gideon (Judg 6:23) are merely the regular imperfect “You/Thou shall not fear” verbs. Fearing God is healthy not harmful, peaceable not paralyzing, transforming and not tedious. All the imperatives I found in regard to “fear” in the Bible up to Ecclesiastes are to “fear the Lord/God” (Ps 34:9, Prov 3:7, 24:21, Eccl 5:7). All the seven “fear” imperatives in the Bible talk of fearing God, never man. A person who has no fear of people is pathological and a person who is fearful of others is paralyzed, but a person who fears God above all is blessed. It is a humble and healthy reverence and respect that affect one’s being and governs one’s behavior.

Fearing God and keeping his commandments are both sides of a coin. One is the attitude, the other is the action. The first is the relationship – the outcome of fearing God, the second is the righteousness, the outcome of keeping his commandments. The subject of fearing God/the Lord appears four times in Ecclesiastes (Eccl 3:14, 5:7, 8:12, 12:13).

In the beginning of the book God was the Giver and the Creator in the book but in the end He is the Judge. The last role for God in the book is the Judge (Eccl 11:9, 12:14). He will judge (“piel”) every secret thing, all that you say, see, hear, do and think. It includes what theologians call “the sin of commission” and “the sin of omission,” the wrong you did and the right you failed to do, for example, the difference between a man who throws rubbish on the street and a person who did not pick up the thrown rubbish.

Heb 9:27-28 says, “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”

Conclusion: God did not create us for the purpose of living forever. He did not create us for the purpose of living forever either. He created us for the purpose of living forever with Him, to enjoy Him and fellowship with Him forever? Do you have the eternal life and the abundant life that is found in Christ alone? IS your name written in the book of life?