Ecclesiastes 6

The Scholar returns to the subject of how meaningless wealth is, especially for rich folks who don’t seem satisfied with what they have and can’t seem to enjoy life. He says they’d be better off born dead and thrown out with the trash (6:3), a little hyperbole, perhaps. Sometimes, it may seem that the Scholar writes with all the intense drama of a kindergartener with an owie. But that hyperbole is exaggeration that’s to drive home a point.

Whatever humans think they are doing to control what happens in their lives, they’re kidding themselves—as far as the Scholar seems to see it. God’s the coach and he’s calling the plays. We might catch the ball and run to the right when the play was to the left. But it’s God who moves the ball down the field, regardless of what offensive move we choose to make in the face of God’s defensive front line. As in, “tackled for a loss.” Pardon the football illustration. But perhaps the Scholar is saying again that we shouldn’t chase the wind by kidding ourselves. We should “chase God” (5:7). Early Jewish scholars writing in the Targum Bible paraphrase and commentary said much the same—that people should pursue the spiritual over the material things of life.

“When the sun goes down” means when they die. The writer calls that place “a world of darkness” (6:4). When Old Testament writers talked about life after death, it was usually about a place called Sheol, where the dead spirits go and tend not to come back (Genesis 37:35), except for Samuel, conjured up by a medium (1 Samuel 28:15). Some Jewish scholars say Isaiah 26:19 helped convince Jews in Medieval times that there is a resurrection. Rabbinic Judaism, like much of Christianity, teaches that all people will rise from the dead.