For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Eccles 8:1-8

1 Who is like the wise?
    Who knows the explanation of things?
A person’s wisdom brightens their face
    and changes its hard appearance.

2 Obey the king’s command, I say, because you took an oath before God. 3 Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. 4 Since a king’s word is supreme, who can say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

5 Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm,
    and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.
6 For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter,
    though a person may be weighed down by misery.

7 Since no one knows the future,
    who can tell someone else what is to come?
8 As no one has power over the wind to contain it,
    so no one has power over the time of their death.
As no one is discharged in time of war,
    so wickedness will not release those who practise it.

A. Find out :

1. What effect does wisdom have upon a man? v.1
2. What reasons are given for obeying the king? v.2-4
3. What will the wise know? v.5
4. What may he have to go through first? v.6
5. What 3 things doesn’t a man know? v.7,8
6. What power does wickedness have? v.8

B. Think:

1. How does wisdom help a man according to this passage?
2. Why do you think Solomon speaks about kings here?
3. How do verses 7 & 8 flow with what has gone before?

C. Comment:

“Who knows the explanation of things?” asks Solomon, and all that follows is really an expansion of that. Look, he says, when you have to deal with authority (the king) watch how you act and speak for he is all powerful. It will be the wise who knows how to act before the king and know when to speak and act rightly without incurring his wrath. (See Nehemiah 2:1-8)

Who knows about the future? Who knows about the wind? Who knows the day of death? Who knows how to break away from a wicked life style? These are all questions that perplex man and make man aware of his need for wisdom.

But there is more to it than that. There is also behind this the sense that there are many things over which we have no control. The best we can hope for is a measure of wisdom, but basically we are bound by so many things in life. Here there is a partial truth for indeed there is much that we do not have power over but to meekly submit is stoicism.

As Christians we can refer all things to our heavenly Father who actually is the ruler over all things. When we know Him we can have a divine sense of purpose which is very different from accepting a mechanistic universe.

D. Application?

1. Our words and actions DO affect what happens to us, even though we may not affect all things.
2. God is the Lord over all things.

Passage: Eccles 8:9-17

9 All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. 10 Then too, I saw the wicked buried – those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless.

11 When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong. 12 Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. 13 Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.

14 There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. 15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.

16 When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labour that is done on earth – people getting no sleep day or night – 17 then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.

A. Find out :

1. What two people upset Solomon? v.9,10
2. What temptation do the latter create? v.11
3. Where does he see God in all this? v.12,13
4. What other meaningless thing does he see? v.14
5. So what is his conclusion? v.15
6. What is his overall conclusion? v.17

B. Think:

1. How can injustice be a source of irritation in our lives?
2. Why not use length of life as a measure of God’s justice?
3. What is Solomon advocating in this passage?

C. Comment:

Solomon, we said previously, has been saying there are some things you cannot fathom and which you just have to accept. He continues that theme now with some warnings added.

There are people who lord it over others, and there are wicked people who seem to get away with it and even receive the praise of others while they do it. The danger here is that righteous people will be tempted to take the law into their own hands, but they must learn to rest in God and leave it to Him to end the wrongs.

When we observe life we will see the righteous going through apparently bad times and the wicked going through apparently good times, so again, we must learn to rest in daily living, at rest with God, because humanly it is impossible to work out why everything is happening, from the viewpoint of justice.

We need to rest in the fact that God does oversee all things and that in eternity He WILL bring judgement upon all wickedness. Those who live close to the Lord MAY have greater understanding as to what is happening, but even they will go through times when all they can do is righteously trust the Lord (see Job 1 & 2 and Habakkuk 3:17,18).

D. Application?

1. It is impossible to work out the “why”s of every thing that happens on the earth.
2. The Lord knows so simply rest in His love and wisdom.