As a young woman, I could not have been more bored or uninspired by Ecclesiastes. Reading it this time through, I can appreciate it a bit more.

I used to think the writer was just like Eeyore. But now I can see some hard won wisdom in it, and I appreciate that the writer is looking around, seeing so much of the world and trying their best to hold lightly to it, and focus on God.

Back to The Bible Project video, they talk about one word which is used throughout the book, hevel, which in my Bible is ‘vanity’. Lots of English Bibles have the word as ‘meaningless’, but the video was helpful in explaining that it doesn’t quite mean that. It means smoke, or mist, or vapour. A kind of temporary, fluctuating gas that when you try and grasp it, disappears.

It reminds me of the lyric from The Sound Of Music: ‘how do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?’.

Because, ultimately, the author isn’t wrong. So much of life is fleeting. Let’s enjoy the blessings we have been given and spend our time developing our relationship with Jesus.

In this book, I liked the references to the preacher, who the writer is clearly very taken with. In the version I’m reading, it says that the preacher ‘sought to find words of delight’, which I shall certainly bear in mind in my own preaching!

My favourite verse from this book: Ecclesiastes 11.5: As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Thanks to maxknoxvill on Pixabay for the photo.