Kevin Carson wrote a piece in response to my recent posts on Ecclesiastes, offering further explanation of the meaning of “vanity.” Carson believes the Preacher uses the term not so much to refer to the “unsatisfying, endless repetition of old things…” (as I defined in my second post), but to refer to the frustratingly enigmatic nature of life in a fallen world. That is, that though we try to understand why life happens the way it does, we simply can never know.
Carson is on to something here, and he does a great job exploring the argument of the entire book (while I was limiting myself in my post only to the explanation of vanity in chapter 1). Carson proposes his definition in stark contrast to mine, though I’m inclined to see us as exploring the topic from different angles. I focused on the day-to-day experience of vanity, while Carson gets at the ideological underpinnings of the concept.
His insights are well communicated and worth considering. Check it out!
One of the things that helped me to understand this word better, was seeing the question that he posed in the first 3 verses and how he answers it: “What gain does a man has for all the tool at which he tools under the sun?” He poses it several times in different forms throughout the book. The question presupposes that man seeks some kind of gain, solution for all he does, whether it’s toil, pleasure, or wisdom. And gets nothing, because of how this world runs under the sun, and because God is very interested in keeping man from figuring it all out – which should teach man to fear God.
I loved working though this book! Thank you for the posts.