Solomon begins the topic of riches in Chapter 5; but it seems to continue here.
Drunk Uncle Solomon is at it again.
In the last two verses of Chapter 5, Solomon does a 180 degree turn on riches and says that every man whom God has given riches, He has allowed for him to eat of it and gladness of the heart.
He back to riches being futility because some rich men don't get to eat of their labors- it goes to foreigners. I assume this means lost in war? Or sold to others?
Wow then he goes on to talk about examples of people who had good things, but weren't satisfied, so it would have been better that they not be born.
This is why suicide rates are so much higher in more advanced societies, in my opinion. Rich, spoiled brats, such as Solomon, live in a constant state of wanting to be satisfied. That will never happen this side of heaven. That longing is placed there so that we have eternity in our hearts. But he has some assumption that he can have whatever he wants, because that has been seemingly true for him so far. He's bored and depressed and can't imagine these other people who understand that some degree of dissatisfaction s just part of our reality.
Boy, that was a depressing one. Short, but depressing.
Wiersbe makes an interesting point about the "all things have been named" from verses 10-12. Everything has been named by God, and by Jewish tradition, in the naming, it is given character. There is already a reality for what light, dark, air, and man are. However, jut because it has been defined, we still get to make choices in how we interact with it. If we deny it's creation, we can still survive, but we choose illusion over reality. And then we accept substitutes instead of God's plan for our lives.