BibleTools.info

Bible Verse Explanations and Resources


Loading...

Ecclesiastes 2:11

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

And, behold, all was vanity - Emptiness and insufficiency in itself.

And vexation of spirit - Because it promised the good I wished for, but did not, could not, perform the promise; and left my soul discontented and chagrined.

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
Solomon soon found mirth and pleasure to be vanity. What does noisy, flashy mirth towards making a man happy? The manifold devices of men's hearts, to get satisfaction from the world, and their changing from one thing to another, are like the restlessness of a man in a fever. Perceiving it was folly to give himself to wine, he next tried the costly amusements of princes. The poor, when they read such a description, are ready to feel discontent. But the remedy against all such feelings is in the estimate of it all by the owner himself. All was vanity and vexation of spirit: and the same things would yield the same result to us, as to Solomon. Having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. His wisdom remained with him; a strong understanding, with great human knowledge. But every earthly pleasure, when unconnected with better blessings, leaves the mind as eager and unsatisfied as before. Happiness arises not from the situation in which we are placed. It is only through Jesus Christ that final blessedness can be attained.
Ellen G. White
Conflict and Courage, 196.1

Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. Ecclesiastes 2:11. CC 196.1

Read in context »
Ellen G. White
Our High Calling, 276.2

Age after age the curiosity of men has led them to seek for the tree of knowledge; and often they think they are plucking fruit most essential, when, like Solomon in his research, they find it altogether vanity and nothingness in comparison with the science of true holiness. OHC 276.2

Read in context »