The Limits of Wisdom: Authority, Injustice, and Life’s Uncertainties
Ecclesiastes 8:2-17
2I keep the command of the king, and that because of the oath of God.3Do not be dismayed at his face. Do not persist in a bad cause, for he does whatever he pleases.4In that in which the word of the king holds power, who can say to him, What are you doing?5One who keeps a commandment does not know a bad outcome, but a wise heart knows time and justice.6For there is a time and justice for every matter, because the distress of man rests heavily upon him.7For he does not know what will happen, because when it happens, who can tell him?8No man has power over the spirit to restrain the spirit, and there is no power in the day of death, and no discharge in battle, and wickedness does not deliver its master.9All this I saw, and I gave my heart to every deed that is done under the sun during the time when one man domineers over another to his harm.10And so I saw the wicked buried; they came and went from a holy place, and they were forgotten in the city where they had done right. This too is vanity.11Because no edict against the harmful deed is carried out promptly, therefore the heart of the sons of man is filled within them to do bad.12Although a sinner does bad a hundred times and prolongs his days, yet I know that it will go well with those who fear God, who fear before his face.13But it will not go well with the wicked, and he will not prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before the face of God.14There is a vanity that is done upon the earth: there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deed of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deed of the righteous. I said that this too is vanity.15So I praised joy, because there is nothing better for a man under the sun than to eat and to drink and to rejoice; and this will accompany him in his toil during the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.16When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the task that is done upon the earth, even by day and by night sleep does not enter his eyes so that he sees nothing.17And I saw every deed of God: a man is not able to find out the deed that is done under the sun, however much a man toils to seek it out; he does not find it. Even if the wise man claims to know, he is not able to find it.