Bible Commentaries
Ecclesiastes 8

Verses 1-17

In this division, dealing with the evidences of the vanity of life, the preacher sets forth certain deductions. The highest wisdom is submission to things as they are. Who knows anything? he asks. Therefore it is good to recognize the king's authority and yield to it, to recognize the inevitableness of all things and submit to them, to recognize the absolute certainty of death and to abandon one's self to that certainty. Yet in doing all this there will abide in the heart the recognition of abounding injustice. It is manifest in all the ways of men. In a clause which is intended to be a saving one, the preacher declares its existence but absolutely denies its activity. And what is the ultimate issue in all such convictions? "I commended mirth, because a man hath not better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry." And this because wisdom is elusive. Man cannot know, therefore he need not try and should abandon himself to the sensual pleasures of the moment. It is all true if a man live "under the sun."