The Worth and Worthlessness of Riches
Ecclesiastes 5:10-6:9

 

Jake Gittes: I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million?

Noah Cross: Oh my, yes.

Jake Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?

Noah Cross: The future, Mr. Gitts, the future.

Chinatown (1974)

The Preacher has told us not to be surprised at the oppression of the poor (5:8). That's what happens when greedy men rule over each other. But if oppression of the poor is unavoidable, our minds naturally turn to the value of wealth. So The Preacher takes this opportunity to say there is no help in riches, either. He has already commented on the futility of riches in 2:1-11. He has complained, specifically, that he must leave everything he has labored for to the man who will come after him (i.e. his heir) who may be wise or foolish (2:18-23). He has reflected, on the other hand, on the greater futility of having no one to leave his riches to (4:8). But perhaps there is some value in them after all - not to leave as an inheritance, but to be enjoyed in this life under the sun.

  1. The Worthlessness of Riches (5:10-17)
    1. Due to greed (10)
      1. I remember the story of a rich man being asked, "How much money is enough?" And he replied "A little bit more."
        1. (It was told of Nelson Rockefeller in my day, but I suspect it was told of others before, say, of Howard Hughes, and will be told of other tycoons in years to come. It's one of those stories that ought to be true, so people tell it, changing the names as necessary.)
        2. Whatever the historical provenance, the tale is morally true and illustrates the point of this verse.
        3. A rich man always feels there's one more thing he could own, one more dollar he could make.
        4. Then he'll be satisfied... won't he?
      2. Along the same lines, a bond salesman during the Wall Street boom of the mid-80s said, "You don't get rich in this business; you just attain new levels of relative poverty."
      3. So up front, when considering the benefits of wealth, we are moved to ask, "What is wealth?'
        1. Answer: Having "enough."
        2. But no one ever has enough. No one is ever satisfied.
      4. Anyone who doubts this only needs to visit the Saddleback Valley and view the types of living conditions about which we complain:
        1. I can't eat out as often as I like
        2. I can't afford the compact disc player and the VCR
        3. I drive an old car (meaning as opposed to a new one, rather than as opposed to none at all).
        4. The list goes on. We look at our wealth and complain of our poverty.
      5. Note that at this point The Preacher isn't drawing any moral conclusions.
        1. E.g. Sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven
        2. He's simply relating the sad facts of the case.
      6. This also is futility
        1. It is like the carrot before the horse. However fast he runs, it's still just a little beyond his reach.
        2. It is chasing after wind, chasing after an elusive goal that recedes from you as you run toward it.
      7. Ironically, riches produce the opposite of what one would hope - dissatisfaction.
    2. Due to the increase of consumers (11)
      1. What good is wealth, anyway? Can you really enjoy it all at the same time?
      2. Wealth increases responsibility
        1. I'm reminded of the bum Alfie Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Professor Higgins decides to give him 5 pounds and he beams. Higgins ups it to 10 and Doolittle shakes his head and frowns. 5 pounds he can spend any way he likes. 10 is "a responsibility."
        2. A man gets rich and suddenly he has to hire servants and security guards, he develops "family" he never knew he had. What's the point? So he can look out onto his estate and say, "I own all this"? Whoop de do.
      3. Ironically, wealth produces the exact opposite of freedom from care that one would hope.
    3. Due to sleeplessness (12)
      1. The working man sleeps well whether he eats a little or a lot
        1. Because he has no wealth to worry him.
        2. (He's spent his 5 pounds and he'll make another tomorrow and spend that too.)
      2. But the abundance of the rich worries him so he can't sleep
        1. So that which he longed for becomes the source of his dissatisfaction in the world
        2. Ironically, riches produce the thing they are meant to avert - insecurity.
    4. Due to misfortune (13-17)
      1. This is the severest evil of all (13)
        1. The owner hoards wealth, hoping that it will protect him.
        2. Instead he loses it all without ever getting the enjoyment of it.
      2. Verse 14 should read "Namely, those riches perished through misfortune."
        1. The point is not that he kept them to his own hurt and later lost them.
        2. Rather, the "hurt" is the loss of the riches spoken of in v. 14.
      3. So he has nothing to give his son
        1. Ordinarily, the begetting of a son would be the occasion of great joy and a sign of God's blessing
        2. Instead, it is a day of sorrow because the man has nothing to give his son.
      4. Here, we begin to see a few more nuances.
        1. Riches are not bad in themselves. It would have been good for the man to have something to give his son.
        2. But riches are uncertain and this is a grievous evil.
        3. We want so much to trust in riches, but so often they don't pay off.
        4. It would be less evil if they never paid off. Then we wouldn't try to trust in them.
      5. In such circumstances how can The Preacher blithely commend the diligence of saving money and providing for a rainy day?
      6. Ironically, the riches that he saved never get put to the use he intended - providing an inheritance for his son. He would have been better off spending them right away.
      7. And this gets The Preacher to brooding about death again. He's shown that riches are no good in life; he now reminds us of the earlier conclusion that they're no good in death.
        1. This time he doesn't focus on who the money is left to
        2. Instead he focuses on the owner himself.
        3. He will go back naked (possessionless) into the ground
          1. The Egyptians buried their Pharaohs with massive wealth. But the Pharaohs never really took it with them
          2. There is no lasting return to be carried away from labor for possessions.
      8. This also is a severe evil (16)
        1. On the one hand it was a severe evil that his riches didn't help him in life (5:13)
        2. On the other, it's a severe evil that they don't accompany in death (5:16)
        3. The futility of life gets you coming and going.
      9. So that elusive "profit" has not been found (16)
        1. Laboring for riches is laboring for wind
        2. And consuming what your riches buy is done in "sorrow and sickness and anger" because you reflect on this futility.
  2. The Worth of Riches (5:18-20)
    1. Their enjoyment is man's lot (18)
      1. How ironic!
        1. It may not be possible to enjoy the good of one's labor in this life
        2. Yet it is "good and fitting" and man's lot (heritage) (18)
      2. So there is a worth to riches when one can acquire them
      3. One should enjoy them and count that as his lot, saying the lines that have fallen to me in pleasant places.
    2. If God chooses to grant them (19)
      1. It is the gift of God to grant such enjoyment.
      2. So we know these gifts are good in themselves and may be enjoyed.
      3. Yet God is sovereign (3:1-11) and who can force his hand?
      4. So after all his carping about the uselessness of riches, The Preacher concedes they have some use. But so what? It's not like you can control whether you have them or not.
    3. Then he will be distracted (20)
      1. Most ironic of all - the best aspect of riches is they distract a man from thinking that he will die
        1. Contrast this with Psalm 90:12
        2. Are The Preacher and the Psalmist contradicting each other? (Again?)
      2. God occupies (distracts) the man with gladness of heart so that he is able to pass pleasantly through life and not dwell morbidly on the inevitable.
  3. The Worthlessness of Riches (6:1-9)
    1. When they are not enjoyed (1-6)
      1. Yet we've got another evil business going on
        1. It may be nice when God does grant that a man enjoy riches
        2. But what if he doesn't?
      2. What if God sets the man up for a cosmically cruel joke, giving him riches and wealth and honor and no power to enjoy those things and a foreigner takes over?
      3. This is horrifying - vanity and an evil affliction (2).
      4. Nothing can make up for this
        1. He can have a hundred children
        2. He can live a long life
        3. But if he doesn't enjoy that life
        4. Or if he has no burial (isn't remembered)
        5. Then it's all futility
      5. The stillborn child is better off
        1. Compare to 4:3
        2. Not that the stillborn is well off
          1. It comes in vanity and vanishes in obscurity
          2. Its name is covered in darkness
          3. It has not seen the sun or known anything.
          4. Yet it has more rest (i.e. cessation from striving against the toilsome futility of life under the sun.
          5. A man can live twice the world record (Still held by Methuselah at 969 years after all this time) but if he doesn't enjoy it, he just goes down to the grave like the stillborn.
    2. Because they do not satisfy (7)
      1. A repetition of 5:10
      2. Feeding the mouth cannot satisfy the soul (i.e. the desires of the heart)
      3. Wealth and labor totally unsuited for the purpose to which they are put.
      4. The only thing that can answer is the promise of the gospel
        1. Isaiah 55:2

          Ho, everyone who thirsts,
          come to the waters,
          and you that have no money,
          come, buy and eat!
          Come, buy wine and milk
          without money and without price.
          2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
          and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
          Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
          and delight yourselves in rich food.
          3Incline your ear, and come to me;
          listen, so that you may live.
          I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
          my steadfast, sure love for David.
        2. John 4:14,15 - Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."
    3. (And therefore the worthlessness of wisdom) (8,9)
      1. The Preacher has lamented that much wisdom entails much grief (1:18)
      2. He has nevertheless conceded a limited value to wisdom, even though all die, making the point moot (2:14)
      3. Now he questions even that limited value.
      4. The purpose of wisdom is to order one's life so that one has enough to be content.
      5. But do the wise have more wealth than the fool?
      6. And what's the advantage of being wise if you're poor.
      7. It's better to actually have something than to be wise enough to know what's worth having (if you don't have it).
    4. And all this is futility and chasing after the wind (9)
      1. This is the last time The Preacher will use this phrase.
      2. This marks the halfway point in the book
        1. Both thematically and numerically (half the verses come before this point, half after)
        2. He's gone around in circles long enough on Work and Wisdom and Pleasure
        3. And he's gotten nowhere.
        4. It's time now to draw some conclusions and set forth some wisdom sayings on the basis of what we've learned.

Go on to Week 8 (6:10 - 8:1)

Go back  to Week 6b (5:1-9)

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