Ecclesiastes 2: 1 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure”; but surely, this also was vanity.
The Preacher (Solomon) opens this chapter with statements about how he attempted to find fulfillment in his life. He pursued pleasure, he pursued laughter, he tried to gratify his flesh with wine.
He then moves on to his grand achievements; forgive the long passage, but there is a purpose to citing this:
Ecclesiastes 2: 4 I made my works great, I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards. 5 I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. 7 I acquired male and female servants, and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds.
He says “I,” “my,” or “myself” fifteen times in this passage (if I counted right). “This is what I did,” “this is what I accomplished.” He says nothing about doing these things for others, or for the Lord. He did these things for his own pleasure. So, here he is at the end of his life lamenting that it was all for naught, that it is vanity. In other words, he finds that there was nothing fulfilling in this.
He sums up his experience, and it is the central point of the entire chapter, as follows:
Ecclesiastes 2: 10 Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward from all my labor.
11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.
More “I” and “my.” We see in this lament the perfect picture of what does not bring fulfillment in life. Chasing after and accumulating more stuff. The focus on I, my, myself.
To turn to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, specifically the Beatitudes (although all of the Sermon is useful to my point). What does “beatitude” mean? In Latin, “beatitudo.” It has long been translated as “happiness,” but it is not the happiness that modern society understands – this bastardized happiness understood today as “pleasure.” It is pleasure that Solomon chased, and he was very successful in the chase. Yet he found it brought him no happiness.
Beatitudo, properly understood, means fulfillment – just what Solomon found, at the end of his life, that he is lacking; he has no fulfillment, despite being tremendously successful at accomplishing “pleasure.” Yet, beatitudo is more than fulfillment; it is fulfillment through other-regarding action, or love.
Read the Beatitudes. I will start with the last one:
Matthew 5: 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Does this sound like happiness, in the way our society understands it? Yet, somewhere back in time, Jesus’s teaching that culminated here was labeled by some Latin somewhere as “happiness.”
In my study of the Sermon on the Mount (all links found in the Bibliography tab above), I used two sources: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev. This quote from Metropolitan Hilarion:
It is not incidental that we have analyzed each of the Beatitudes in such detail. … In them, Jesus speaks of how genuine happiness (blessedness) is possessed by the one who, by human standards, is deeply unhappy; he cites as positive qualities those that are not so highly valued in human society.
Genuine happiness is found here, in the Beatitudes. But what are these not so highly valued qualities?
· Blessed are the Poor in Spirit…
· Blessed are They That Mourn…
· Blessed are They Which do Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness…
· Blessed Are the Pure in Heart…
· Blessed are the Peacemakers…
· Blessed are They Which are Persecuted for Righteousness’ Sake….
Is there anything “happy” in this list? Not by the world’s standards. But this is what Jesus taught, this is how we are to grow, this is how we are to live. This is how we will find happiness.
Conclusion
Jesus also taught that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord God, and love our neighbor as ourselves. In other words, love. Fulfillment (beatitudo, or happiness) through other-regarding action. This is love.
Now, contrast this to Solomon. I made a point of counting his I, my, myself, statements. There is no other-regarding action here; there is no love. There is no possibility of happiness – true happiness – in chasing pleasure, which is what Solomon chased.
True happiness comes only with and through God. True happiness comes by following what God commands, doing for the Lord and for others, and not for ourselves.
He who dies with the most toys doesn’t win. He just dies. And if all he chased was toys, he dies very unfulfilled.
Epilogue
From the two aforementioned authors who were my guides through the Sermon on the Mount:
Lloyd-Jones: …no man can live the Sermon on the Mount unaided. … The Beatitudes immediately take us into a realm that is beyond the law of Moses completely.
Metropolitan Hilarion: Grace is the divine gift that is necessary in order for people to fulfill Jesus’ commandments and to live in truth. With the help of grace, and not by their own efforts alone, his followers are called to seek and attain the kingdom of heaven.
There is only happiness in God and through God and by God’s grace. Happiness can be found nowhere else and in no other manner.
For how wise Solomon was supposed to be, he seemed to be something of an idiot as well. Who could possibly think that having 700 wives and 300 concubines would make one happy? And it isn't like he naively wished for this from a genie, like a some horny teenage boy, not knowing how difficult one wife can make your life. He added these wives over time, one after the other.
Even if he only undertook these marriages (mostly with foreigners too) as a means of securing peace with neighboring tribes/kingdoms, wouldn't they be angered when you just kept adding wives, thus necessarily valuing each individual wife less and less? A neighboring king might regard Solomon as something of a son, if his daughter was Solomon's only wife, but would he have any familial regard for him if his daughter was just one of 700 women Solomon called his spouse? Probably not.
Bionic, very good observation about Solomon using so many first person pronouns. He is very self focused. To further comment on his selfishness, Solomon almost surely didn't do anything of those things himself. He commanded others to do them. He didn't plant one vineyard by himself. One of his problems is that he doesn't even give other people credit for their work. He doesn't even reflect on the good done to those people through wages and unenjoyment of the physical beauty.
Solomon could have authorized public building projects to benefit his people the Israelites. To give them purpose, provision, enjoyment, and community. All these things he "accomplished" could have been for the sake of others, to celebrate the goodness of God and the unity of their nation.
Maybe the same works would have given him fulfillment if his attitude was shifted off of himself and onto his nation and of course God.
https://thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com/2025/09/epilogue-jesus-on-money-and-usury.html