SOLOMON
At some stage of their life, many people ask the question: “What really am I here for? Is there really any true meaning to my existence? Is this all there is to life? Wake up, eat, work, come back home, and watch TV or go out for a short time and then back home to sleep? Lather, rise, repeat?”
Sure we can break it up with some milestones. We might obtain an education, start a career or a job, maybe get married and have a child or two, and if we do, perhaps everything will turn out well but maybe it won’t. Is life just a series of repetitions with a few breakthrough moments of success and failure? Often what we do strive for entails a search for one or more of the following: prestige, power, wealth, fame, knowledge, or companionship. Many people spend so much of their life seeking to attain one of these aspects that once something is attained, they’re no longer able to fully enjoy their success.
So what about Solomon? He was someone who had attained essentially all of what people strive for. He was a king of Israel, an absolute monarch. He had enormous power and was considered one of Israel’s best rulers, thus attained prestige.
He was wealthy — considered the richest man on earth. According to 1 Kings 10:14 the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold (one talent equals about one hundred pounds), and he reigned for forty years (that would be about approximately 2,664,000 pounds). In addition, he was given more by merchantmen, spice merchants, kings of Arabia, and governors.
He was considered the wisest man who ever lived. He had “…a wise and understanding heart so that there was none like you before you, neither after you shall any arise like unto you.” (1 Kings 3:12)
He had no lack of companionship either having 700 wives, princesses and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). In addition, Solomon built the Temple, palaces, and cities. He had a navy and an army that helped him reign over an area from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean and to Egypt; Israel being the most powerful nation on earth at the time.
Further, he created gardens, vineyards, lakes and said, “…whatever my eyes desired, I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour.” (Ecclesiastes 2:10)
In today’s language, Solomon “had it made.”
But in the end, what was his overall assessment regarding his accomplishments? His conclusion: Pleasure is vain; it’s all really vanity. It is all essentially meaningless.
If a man who accomplished so much finds such little value in what he’s done and so little meaning in his life’s work, then what really is there to find meaning in?
Perhaps it’s in his conclusion. This man of prestige, power, wisdom, and wealth ended life with one conclusion. The only matter of any real import was this: Fear God and keep His commandments — for this is the whole duty of man.
And this is the one conclusion we all should think about.
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