Why do pleasure, wealth, and wisdom fail to give the Preacher lasting gain?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The Preacher tries pleasure and builds a rich estate, yet finds no lasting gain in it. Wisdom is better than folly, but both the wise and the fool die. He also cannot know whether the heir who receives his work will be wise or foolish.

Chapter breakdown

The Preacher tests a life of pleasure and finds it vain. He questions laughter and delight. In this edition, he speaks of withdrawing his flesh from wine while turning his mind to wisdom and seeking what is useful in life. He builds houses, plants vineyards, creates gardens and orchards, and makes ponds to water trees. He acquires servants, livestock, silver, gold, singers, and vessels for wine. His riches surpass those of his predecessors in Jerusalem, and his wisdom remains with him. He refuses himself no pleasure and enjoys his labor. Looking back, however, he finds vanity and no lasting gain under the sun.

Wisdom exceeds folly as light exceeds darkness, yet both the wise person and the fool die. Both will also be forgotten. The Preacher grows weary of life and of the work he must leave to an heir whose wisdom he cannot know. A careful worker may leave everything to someone who did not labor for it. Days of sorrow and restless nights deepen his frustration.

The chapter then speaks of eating, drinking, and enjoying the good of one’s labor as coming from God’s hand. God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to the person pleasing to him. The sinner’s anxious gathering may end up benefiting that person instead. The Preacher still calls such anxious care vanity.

The story inside

The experiment begins with pleasure and expands into houses, gardens, wealth, and entertainment. The king enjoys what he makes, but then measures it against death and the uncertain heir. The closing reflection shifts from owning lasting gain to receiving daily enjoyment from God.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The Preacher enjoys his work but does not find lasting gain in the completed estate (2:10–11).
2
Wisdom is better than folly, yet this advantage does not remove their shared death (2:13–16).
3
The worry about an heir leads into the thought that enjoyment of work is a gift from God (2:18–24).

Test your recall

Why does the Preacher worry about his heir, and what enjoyment does he describe as coming from God?

Show answer

He does not know whether his heir will be wise or foolish, though the heir will control what he has built. Eating, drinking, and enjoying the good of one’s labor come from God’s hand (2:18–19, 24).

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 70199–70202
2:11. And when I turned myself to all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labours wherein I had laboured in vain, I saw in all things vanity, and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun.
Lines 70245–70246
2:24. Is it not better to eat and drink, and to shew his soul good things of his labours? and this is from the hand of God.