“So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed, all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 2:9–11

Solomon was a man searching for satisfaction and contentment. He had tried everything under the sun. In the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes, Solomon sets forth the restlessness of life (1:4–11), tests all the pleasures of life (1:12–2:11), and concludes by examining the purpose of life (2:12–23).

Summing up his search, Solomon declares that the activities of life are empty when God is left out of the picture:

“Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I? For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind” (Eccl. 2:24–26).

The book of Ecclesiastes maps out Solomon’s search for the true meaning of life under the sun. Looking back over his life, he concludes that life without God is utterly empty. When we read the first two chapters of this book, we get a sense of mankind’s hopelessness apart from God:

“One generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the earth abides forever” (Eccl. 1:4).

In Solomon’s mind—and in the minds of many people today—people come and go, yet the world simply continues on. The sun rises and the sun sets (Eccl. 1:5). So what is the purpose of life? It all seems futile and frustrating because true fulfillment and satisfaction cannot be found in the things of this world.

Solomon reviews his achievements, his wealth, his wisdom, and his work, yet he is left wanting more. He longs for a deeper purpose for his existence.

Anchor For Today:
True abundant life can come only from God through the Lord Jesus Christ, who declared, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).