Ecclesiastes 10:12-20
Ever the realist, the Preacher continues to set truth before us. Are we beginning to heed what he has to say?
A fool multiplies words,
Ecclesiastes 10:14
though no man knows what is to be,
and who can tell him what will be after him?
The notion that no one can know what is coming next is a recurring theme for the Preacher. (See also Ecc. 3:22,6:12,7:14.) We see the same idea elsewhere in Scripture:
Do not boast about tomorrow,
Proverbs 27:1
for you do not know what a day may bring.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
James 4:13,14
So if you ever thought that Ecclesiastes is “out there” and not in line with the rest of Scripture, think again. If that last line from James doesn’t sound like the Preacher, I don’t know what does!
We all know from our own experience that the Preacher is right on target about not knowing what is yet to be. We all know that “stuff” happens (to use the more polite term). We all know that life throws us curve balls. Yet look around and listen to how people boast of what they are going to do next, puffed up in their illusions about the future. It pervades our culture — right alongside anxiety about how everything is going to fail!
Perhaps we should instead listen to the Preacher and live in the now.