When Good Things Go Wrong
What’s Ecclesiastes 6 about?
Solomon wrestles with life’s cruelest paradox: having everything you could want but being unable to enjoy any of it. It’s about those moments when God’s blessings feel more like burdens, and when the very things meant to bring joy become sources of emptiness.
The Full Context
Ecclesiastes 6 sits right in the heart of Solomon’s most honest and uncomfortable observations about life. Written during the height of Israel’s prosperity (around 950 BCE), this chapter comes from a king who had literally everything – wealth beyond measure, wisdom that attracted visitors from around the world, and power that stretched across nations. Yet Solomon writes with the voice of someone who discovered that having it all doesn’t guarantee enjoying any of it.
This passage addresses one of humanity’s most persistent questions: if God is good and gives good gifts, why do those gifts sometimes feel empty? Solomon isn’t writing as a philosopher in an ivory tower, but as someone who lived through the devastating realization that external blessings don’t automatically translate to internal satisfaction. The chapter fits within Ecclesiastes’ broader exploration of life’s apparent meaninglessness, serving as a bridge between his observations about work and wealth (Ecclesiastes 5) and his later reflections on wisdom and folly. The key theological challenge here is understanding how God’s sovereignty relates to human enjoyment – a tension that every believer who has ever felt blessed but empty will recognize.
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The Hebrew word ra’ah appears throughout this chapter, and it’s doing heavy lifting that our English translations sometimes miss. We typically translate it as “evil” or “grievous,” but in ancient Hebrew, ra’ah carries the weight of something that’s deeply wrong with the natural order – not just bad luck, but a fundamental breakdown in how things should work.
When Solomon says God gives someone wealth, possessions, and honor but doesn’t give them the ability to enjoy these things, he’s describing a ra’ah – a cosmic wrongness that feels almost cruel. The word choice suggests this isn’t just disappointing; it’s a perversion of how life should function.
Grammar Geeks
The phrase “God does not give him power to eat of it” uses the Hebrew verb shalat, which means “to have dominion over” or “to rule.” Solomon isn’t just saying the rich man can’t enjoy his wealth – he’s saying he has no authority or control over his own blessings. It’s like being given keys to a car you’re not allowed to drive.
The structure of Ecclesiastes 6:3-6 creates a devastating comparison between a man who lives a thousand years twice over but never finds satisfaction, and a stillborn child. In Hebrew poetry, this kind of comparison (called a mashal) forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths. Solomon’s point cuts deep: if you can’t enjoy life, what’s the difference between living forever and never being born at all?
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
For ancient Israelites, this chapter would have been shocking. Their entire worldview centered on the idea that God’s blessings were meant to be enjoyed. The Promised Land was described as flowing with milk and honey – not just providing sustenance, but offering delight. The covenant promised that obedience would bring harvests so abundant that they’d be eating old grain when the new crop came in.
So when Solomon describes someone receiving God’s material blessings but being unable to enjoy them, his original audience would have recognized this as a description of curse-like conditions occurring within apparent blessing. This wasn’t just about rich people’s problems – it was about the terrifying possibility that God’s gifts could become sources of torment.
Did You Know?
In ancient Near Eastern cultures, the inability to enjoy food and drink was often seen as a sign of divine displeasure or spiritual bondage. What made Solomon’s observation so unsettling was that he was describing this happening to people who had every external sign of God’s favor.
The mention of proper burial in verse 3 would have particularly resonated with ancient readers. In Hebrew culture, burial was crucial for honor and rest in the afterlife. For Solomon to say that even a stillborn child (who received no formal burial) was better off than someone who lived but couldn’t enjoy life – that was a statement that would have made people stop in their tracks.
Wrestling with the Text
Here’s what keeps me up at night about this chapter: Solomon isn’t describing people who are obviously doing something wrong. These aren’t the wicked rich who oppress the poor. These are people who have received genuine gifts from God – wealth, possessions, honor – but somehow lack the internal capacity to enjoy them.
Why would a good God give external blessings but withhold the ability to enjoy them? Is this some kind of divine test? A consequence of sin we can’t see? Or is Solomon pointing to something even more uncomfortable – that even God’s good gifts can become meaningless in a fallen world?
The comparison with the stillborn child is particularly jarring. Solomon isn’t being poetic or metaphorical here – he’s making a calculated argument that non-existence might be preferable to existence without enjoyment. For a culture that valued life above almost everything, this was radical thinking.
Wait, That’s Strange…
Solomon mentions that even if someone had a hundred children and lived twice a thousand years, it wouldn’t matter if they couldn’t find satisfaction. But in Hebrew culture, children and long life were the ultimate signs of blessing. He’s essentially saying that the most blessed person imaginable could still be miserable – which raises serious questions about how we define blessing.
How This Changes Everything
This chapter forces us to confront the difference between having and experiencing, between being blessed and feeling blessed. Solomon isn’t advocating for poverty or suggesting that material things are evil. Instead, he’s highlighting something we all know but rarely admit: the capacity for enjoyment is itself a gift, separate from the things we might enjoy.
Think about it: you can have the perfect meal, but if you’re stressed or depressed, it tastes like cardboard. You can be surrounded by people who love you, but if you’re consumed with anxiety, you feel alone. You can achieve everything you’ve worked for, but if you lack the internal equipment to savor it, success feels hollow.
Solomon is diagnosing a fundamental human problem: we can receive God’s gifts but lack the spiritual or emotional capacity to receive them as gifts. This isn’t about gratitude techniques or positive thinking – it’s about recognizing that enjoyment itself is a divine gift that we cannot manufacture or earn.
“The capacity for enjoyment is itself a gift, separate from the things we might enjoy.”
This changes how we pray. Instead of just asking for things, maybe we should be asking for the ability to truly receive and enjoy what we already have. It changes how we view people who seem blessed but miserable – perhaps they’re not ungrateful or spoiled, but genuinely afflicted with an inability to experience their blessings as blessings.
Key Takeaway
The most dangerous poverty isn’t lacking things to enjoy, but lacking the ability to enjoy the things you have. True blessing requires both the gift and the capacity to receive it as a gift.
Further Reading
Internal Links:
External Scholarly Resources:
- The Message of Ecclesiastes by Derek Kidner
- Ecclesiastes: Life Under the Sun by Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
- Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs by Iain Duguid
Tags
Ecclesiastes 6:1, Ecclesiastes 6:3, Ecclesiastes 6:6, blessing and curse, wealth and poverty, divine sovereignty, human satisfaction, joy and sorrow, meaning and meaninglessness, material vs spiritual blessing
