Grieving in No Enjoyment (Ecc 6: 1-2)

GRIEVING IN NO ENJOYMENT (Ecc 6: 1-2):

The author is very considerate and he doesn’t look things in one dimension, but in different aspects. Immediately after saying about the enjoyment of toils which is a gift of God, the author looks at a different case and he addresses it as an evil, which he had seen under the sun and says that it is very common among men. The author knew that it is very common among men because he is born in wealth and honor and power that would have enabled him to see different people who don’t enjoy life, whom he is trying to point out.

The author says that the greatest evil is that a man to whom God had given riches, wealth, and honor so that he lacks nothing that he desires, yet God does not give him the power to enjoy them. There are some people in the world who toil very hard but everyone doesn’t achieve what they had targeted due to many reasons. There are also some people in the world who toil very hard and receive what they had targeted. Everything in the world is under the control and authority of the sovereign Lord, which the author never declined or forgot to remember. Though a man toils very hard, if God doesn’t allow him to prosper, he would never come up in his life because the earth and all its fill are from the Lord. So, the author says that God gives wealth and possessions and honor.

Even if a person doesn’t lack anything in life because of the prosperity and position, but could not able to enjoy what he had desired because of the lack of power, that will be the cruelest thing according to the author, as there is nothing in the world he could achieve more. Also, there would not be any reason for him to live more, because he wasn’t able to eat or enjoy comfortably what he has and he sees the stranger who doesn't starve for it, eating or enjoying it. So, the author says that as vanity and an evil disease for the man.

Stimulations for Self-Reflection:

1.    What does the author say about the evil he had seen under the sun?

2.    Why the evil that the author saw under the sun is common among men?

3.    What God had given to man and what he had not given?

4.    Why the riches, wealth, and honor alone couldn’t help a man to enjoy?

5.    What do you mean by ‘God give not power to eat’?

6.    Why does the Power to eat from God necessary?

7.    Why the author says that it is vanity and evil disease for a wealthy man, who does not have the power to eat from God?

8.    How we can eat or enjoy all that God had given?