1 Kings 20:1 - Meaning and Application

In this chapter, the royal preacher goes on to show the emptiness of worldly wealth when people set their happiness in it and grow eager to pile it up. Riches can be useful in the hands of a wise and generous person, but in the hands of a mean, secretive, greedy miser, they do little good.

1. He first reviews the outward things such a person may have. He may have wealth (Ecclesiastes 6:2), children to leave it to (Ecclesiastes 6:3), and a long life (Ecclesiastes 6:3, 6:6).

2. Then he shows the foolishness of not enjoying it. Such a person has no power to enjoy his goods, lets strangers consume them, is never satisfied with what he has, and in the end has no burial (Ecclesiastes 6:2, 6:3).

3. He speaks against this as a real evil, a common evil, vanity, and a disease of the soul (Ecclesiastes 6:1, 6:2).

4. He even says that the condition of a still-born child is better than the condition of such a man (Ecclesiastes 6:3). The still-born child’s trouble is only that he never enters life (Ecclesiastes 6:4, 6:5), but the greedy worldling lives a long time to see his own misery (Ecclesiastes 6:6).

5. He also shows the emptiness of riches because they feed only the body and bring no rest to the mind (Ecclesiastes 6:7, 6:8). He points to the endless desires that covetous people torment themselves with, desires that remain unsatisfied even when they are fully met, because a person is still only a person afterward (Ecclesiastes 6:9, 6:10).

He ends this section with a plain conclusion from all that has been said. It is foolish to think we can build our happiness out of the things of this world (Ecclesiastes 6:11, 6:12). Our true satisfaction must be found in another life, not in this one.