Tuesday, October 2, 2012

No satisfaction in children


3 If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he. 4 For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. 5 Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other. 6 Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place? Ecclesiastes 6:3-6

Ecclesiastes chapter six is a hard chapter. I can hear you now, "all Ecclesiastes is hard to understand.” Well, I don’t know if it is all hard to understand, but I am certainly having a harder time with this chapter than the previous five.  Let’s look at it and see what we can gleam from this portion of scripture.

People look at different “things” and “possessions” to declare themselves “successful” or “satisfied”. This portion is speaking of someone who had a hundred children and lived many years. In all this “his soul was not filled with good”. In Hebrew, filled means satisfied.

Warren Wiersbe in his commentary on Ecclesiastes, Be Satisfied, says:
Verses 3-6 surely deal with a hypothetical case, because nobody lives for two thousand years, and no monogamous marriage is likely to produce a hundred children. … The Preacher was obviously exaggerating here in order to make his point: No matter how much you possess, if you don’t possess the power to enjoy it, you might just as well never have been born.”

This man had a hundred children, lived many years and he didn’t have a proper burial. No one cared because he wasted his life on things that were inconsequential.

All through these chapters the same reoccurring theme is mentioned, what is the use? What satisfies? What is our purpose?

Solomon wants us to realize that our end all in this life is what we do with God. We  can only satisfy the emptiness in our life by filling the emptiness with God. God is the only One who can completely satisfy our every longing.

Have a blessed day, 
Donna

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