Ecclesiastes part ten

We are at chapter eight verse 2, and I don't mind telling you I am heartily sick of Ecclesiastes, but we will soldier on.

The next section has been given a title by the producers of the NIV, "Obey the King". Keep in mind that this book was supposedly written by the king. It starts off by telling the reader to obey the king because he took an oath before god. I didn't take an oath, did you? Who is he talking to? Then we are told to not be in a hurry to leave the king's presence, and to not stand up for a bad cause, because the king is going to do what he wants, no matter what anyone else says. 

Verses 5-8are in the form of a poem that tries to convince the reader he will come to no harm if he obeys the king. If the reader is wise, he will recognize that there is a proper time and procedure for everything, even if he is miserable. Then the author contradicts that in the next stanza to imply no one knows what the future holds or has power over it.

Next we have more stuff that the author saw under the sun: People lording it over others, only to hurt themselves; both wicked people and holy people being buried; sentences for crimes not being carried out quickly. Even though he sees wicked people living a long time, he knows it will go better for god fearing men. Because the wicked do not fear god, it will not go well with them and they will not live long. This is a blatant contradiction from one sentence to the next. It's like someone went through and  tried to fix the parts they disagreed with, without deleting the original.

The author changes his tune again in the next few verses: Righteous men get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men get what the righteous deserve. Of course it is all meaningless. So, the author recommends that everyone just try to enjoy life. Eat, drink and be glad. Then you will have joy, presumably in spite of all the unfairness and meaninglessness. 

Chapter eight ends by telling us that after the author applied his mind to know wisdom, he came to the conclusion that no one can understand all that god has done, or discover its meaning, not even a wise man. This thought continues on in chapter nine where we are told that what the righteous and wise do are in god's hands and no one knows whether love or hate awaits him!" At this point, I would think that most people should come to the conclusion that reading Ecclesiastes is an exercise in futility. This guy has already admitted, more than once, that everything is meaningless and not even a wise man can figure it all out, so everyone should just go enjoy their lives. What's he continuing on for then?

He's got to tell us again that every bloomin' person on the face of the earth, wise or fool, good or bad, clean or unclean, shares a common destiny. In case you don't know what that is, because he doesn't say yet, it's DEATH. That's the evil in everything, the destiny of all. (Notice there is no eternal reward for the good.) Any living thing is better off than the dead because it has hope. (Tell that to the fundamentalist Christians.) The next passage effectively destroys the doctrines of heaven and hell. "The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten." Everything associated with them vanishes. "Never again will they have a part of anything that happens under the sun."