King Solomon Enthroned With Plans and Counsellorsby CBPepper
2:9Ecclesiastes 2:9
So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.
The verse is Solomon's own testimony that he was great and increased more than all that were before him in Jerusalem, becoming greater and more prosperous than all who had ruled there before him. The statement that his wisdom remained with him means that his wisdom stayed with him while he pursued wealth, accomplishments, and pleasure. His greatness and increase came by making great works, building houses, planting vineyards, making gardens and orchards, getting servants, gathering silver and gold and the treasure of kings, and getting singers and musical instruments and every delight. This course was a search for the highest good in earthly things and for satisfaction in the pleasures of sense, after the pride of prosperity separated him from God and he turned from the joy of divine communion.
His wisdom did not keep him from turning away from communion with God to seek satisfaction in earthly pleasures. Bitter experience taught him the emptiness of such a life, so that his great works, wealth, increase, extraordinary achievements, and pursuit of pleasure left him hating life and hating his labor under the sun, judging his labor and earthly gains to be vanity and vexation of spirit with no lasting profit under the sun. His altars to heathen gods proved vain in their promise of rest to the soul.
Wearied and thirsting from earth's broken cisterns, Solomon in his later years returned to drink at the fountain of life, and the discipline of suffering accomplished its work in him. By inspiration he recorded the history of his wasted years with its lessons of warning for after-generations, so that although his people reaped harvests of evil from his sowing, his life-work was not wholly lost.
The verse is Solomon's own testimony that he was great and increased more than all that were before him in Jerusalem, becoming greater and more prosperous than all who had ruled there before him. The statement that his wisdom remained with him means that his wisdom stayed with him while he pursued wealth, accomplishments, and pleasure. His greatness and increase came by making great works, building houses, planting vineyards, making gardens and orchards, getting servants, gathering silver and gold and the treasure of kings, and getting singers and musical instruments and every delight. This course was a search for the highest good in earthly things and for satisfaction in the pleasures of sense, after the pride of prosperity separated him from God and he turned from the joy of divine communion.
His wisdom did not keep him from turning away from communion with God to seek satisfaction in earthly pleasures. Bitter experience taught him the emptiness of such a life, so that his great works, wealth, increase, extraordinary achievements, and pursuit of pleasure left him hating life and hating his labor under the sun, judging his labor and earthly gains to be vanity and vexation of spirit with no lasting profit under the sun. His altars to heathen gods proved vain in their promise of rest to the soul.
Wearied and thirsting from earth's broken cisterns, Solomon in his later years returned to drink at the fountain of life, and the discipline of suffering accomplished its work in him. By inspiration he recorded the history of his wasted years with its lessons of warning for after-generations, so that although his people reaped harvests of evil from his sowing, his life-work was not wholly lost.