All is Vanishing

Listen to the words of the the English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley:

I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

This poem, titled “Ozymandias,” is notable for its irony.  The words of Ozymandias are intended to strike fear into the heart of his adversaries while exalting his own name as the great and glorious “King of Kings.”  Yet this King and all his great works now lie, inglorious, in the windswept dust.  The despair one feels now in seeing the works of Ozymandias has nothing to do with his once mighty power, but rather the dread of realizing that even the greatest and most accomplished people will vanish beneath the dust and be forgotten.  We despair that there is nothing we can do to ward off time, nothing that we can accomplish on this earth that will endure.

There was another king who accomplished many great and mighty works.  He says that he applied himself to the study of “all that is done under heaven.”  He became known as the wisest man in the world.  He built gardens, parks, orchards, and vineyards; he constructed an entire city and built up a powerful military force.  His wealth, power, and influence would be the envy of anyone. In short, he accomplished as much as one man could hope to accomplish while living on this earth.  And yet . . .

You know the man. His name was Solomon, and he “was king over Jerusalem” (Ecc. 1:12).  But as Solomon reveals in his great book, Ecclesiastes, all that he accomplished is nothing but “hebel.”  Hebel is the Hebrew word that becomes Solomon’s theme in Ecclesiastes; he uses it 37 times throughout the book.  Scholars and translators differ on its meaning.  The King James Version uses “vanity,” the NIV, “meaninglessness.” Other ideas include vapor, breath, ephemerality, or even absurdity.  Again and again, Solomon declaims that every effort of man is “vanity,” whether it is the pursuit of such seemingly noble goals as wisdom and righteousness (1:17; 7:16), or of the earthly delights of wealth, power, and pleasure.  All is vanity, or, perhaps better, all is vanishing.

The NIV’s translation of hebel as “meaningless,” may not accurately represent Solomon’s idea. Does Solomon really mean to say that “everything is meaningless” (1:2; 12:8, NIV)?  Throughout the text we see Solomon telling us many important truths about life and our relationship with God.  Passages such as 2:24-25 and 3:12-14 tell us that our only source for enjoyment or any kind of meaning in our lives is from God, and that everything God does “will endure forever.” If that is true, how can all things be “meaningless”? 

Similarly, the KJV word “vanity” doesn’t fully capture Solomon’s idea, since it is mostly associated with excessive attention to one’s outward appearance or success in the eyes of others.  Yet, Solomon’s search for the noble qualities of wisdom and righteousness suggests not everything is “vanity,” at least not in our contemporary sense of the word. 

It seems better to think of hebel as “vanishing.” Sometime when you are reading the text, substitute “vanishing” for each time you read “meaningless” in the NIV, or “vanity” in the KJV.

“Vanishing! Vanishing! says the Teacher.  Utterly vanishing! Everything is vanishing!” (Ecc. 1:2). 

Everything accomplished on earth will vanish. We know that our pleasures vanish very soon after we experience them.  But even the wisdom we gain, or any righteous work we accomplish, will be swallowed up by time and there will be no use for it anymore. 

Solomon, though, unlike Ozymandias, does not leave us with “despair.”  His book centers attention on the permanence of God in stark contrast to the things that merely vanish, for “he has set eternity in the hearts of men” (3:11). Solomon gives us the assurance that living in the light of God’s commandments has its rewards on this earth, for the only way to enjoy “vanishing” things is to properly value them in the light of eternity.  1 Peter similarly assures us that amongst our temporary sufferings, we are receiving an inheritance from God that will “never perish, spoil, or fade” (1:4). 

Oh how we need Solomon’s wisdom at the beginning and end of every day lived “under the sun.”    

Originally published in the Words of Life Bulletin.

-Nick Boone