Reviewing Ecclesiastes on the Way Out

After studying this book through the sermons of Jack Abeelen, I'm working through it again with just the text and commentaries to see what resonates.  Here are some verses that are particularly meaningful to me:

"Don’t be surprised if you see a poor person being oppressed by the powerful and if justice is being miscarried throughout the land. For every official is under orders from higher up, and matters of justice get lost in red tape and bureaucracy." Ecclesiastes 5:8 NLT

This reminds me of all that I have been reading about Africa--a troubled place on so many levels.  What to make of this verse---it is suggesting we should be passive and resigned to this type of oppression?  The Message version renders it more this way:

"Don't be too upset when you see the poor kicked around, and justice and right violated all over the place. Exploitation filters down from one petty official to another. There's no end to it, and nothing can be done about it." -Ecclesiastes 5:8, The Message

"But the good earth doesn't cheat anyone—even a bad king is honestly served by a field." Ecclesiastes 5:9 MSG

Yes, as long as the field is not taken from the individual.

"Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what's given and delighting in the work. It's God's gift!" Ecclesiastes 5:19 MSG

Enjoying what God gives us--the work and the profit--is part of God's great design.  Here I like the freshness of The Message:

"God deals out joy in the present, the now." Ecc 5:20 MSG

"Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart." Ecclesiastes 5:19-20 ESV

"If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he." -Ecclesiastes 6:3

Even with long life and many children, a man can come away unsatisfied.

"Crying is better than laughing. It blotches the face but it scours the heart." Ecclesiastes 7:3 MSG

True, hardship and sadness demand more from us and shape us more than joy.

"On a good day, enjoy yourself; On a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days So that we won't take anything for granted." Ecclesiastes 7:14

His economy is perfect, a blend of both.  Our response should be balanced and blended as well.

"It's best to stay in touch with both sides of an issue. A person who fears God deals responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it." Ecclesiastes 7:18

A good verse to consider with regard to the issue of staying in touch with the world's current events as depressing as they may be.  We need to be aware of reality.

"See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes." -Ecclesiastes 7:29

This boils a cauldron of issues down to the original catalyst---why did Adam and Eve sin against God?  Like Pandora's box, it opened a door of "many schemes."  We are adept in our "computations" (another word for schemes)

"I say: Keep the king's command, because of God's oath to him." Ecclesiastes 8:2

"Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. For there is a time and a way for everything, although man's trouble lies heavy on him." Ecclesiastes 8:5-6

"No one who does evil can be saved by evil." Ecclesiastes 8:8

This is a new thought to me but makes sense---at least evil has no power to deliver those who submit to it.  It seems like a solution to the immediate yet fails the followers in the end.

To me, these verses prompt me to think about Julius Caesar, about the issues of when we should break from rule and when we should conform.

"And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun." Ecclesiastes 8:15

There's something lovely about commending joy.