Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read through Eccl 7:25-29. What questions do you have? (Consider reading 7:23-24 as well for context).
2. What sticks out to you about the story of Solomon's downfall in 1 Kings 11?
3. What was Solomon looking for in 7:25? Why do you think his search resulted in the "forbidden woman" in 7:26?
4. What does Solomon's name mean?
5. Read Matt 12:41-42. How is Jesus greater than Solomon?
I wonder if you have heard the news over the past couple of weeks of another well-respected, prominent Christian leader who has disqualified himself from ministry because of an inappropriate relationship with a woman. Sadly, this isn’t a new experience for us. Frequently, we hear of pastors and theologians who become morally compromised. I don’t think this is because more leaders are failing than before, but we just can hear about it more readily today, and our headlines are slanted towards a negative bias. You’ve never read a story that says: Breaking News! Pastor faithfully serves church and family for another year!
What should you do when a Christian leader falls? Well, there’s many things you should do. You should mourn and be saddened. You should be cautious in how you speak—you shouldn’t try to excuse or defend sin, nor should you throw stones and mud when you don’t know all the details.
You should pray: Pray for all those affected. You should pray for your own pastors—pray that God would keep us and preserve us. And you should pray for yourselves—Peter tells us that the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for individuals to devour (1 Pet 5:8). When a leader falls, we should all by sobered and chastened.
And once you have done all of those things…then finally, you should wonder: how could someone who seemed to have such maturity and wisdom, throw it all away? There may be no better example of someone possessing immense wisdom and leadership, and throwing it all away, than that of King Solomon in the Bible. Solomon had every possible blessing a leader could have. God promised to David, Solomon’s father, that his lineage would be blessed by God forever. David dealt with quelling virtually all of Israel’s enemies, so Solomon had no major wars or battles to fight. Further, David set aside a large sum of resources and treasure for Solomon to begin his rule with. But, of course, what really set Solomon apart was the divine gift of wisdom that God gave him. In a dream by night, the Lord appears to Solomon and offers to give him anything he asks for, and Solomon confesses that he feels like he is “but a little child” who has become king, so he asks for wisdom to govern the people (1 Kings 3:5-9). And God, pleased with Solomon’s humility, grants him not only wisdom, but also wealth, security, and a long life.
But, as Solomon taught us earlier in Ecclesiastes, “the end of a thing is better than the beginning,” (Eccl 7:8). Later in Solomon’s life, when he is no longer young, we are told:
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. 4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. - 1 Kings 11:1-4
Solomon the wise, Solomon the blessed, becomes Solomon the fool. How could that happen? Well, our text in Ecclesiastes today will tell us. Tradition tells us that Ecclesiastes was written by an even older Solomon than the one described in 1 Kings 11. Near the end of his life, Solomon is broken by his escapades of sin and idolatry, and he comes to us like one returning from the kitchen of sin to tell us: I tried every dish, licked every pan, and here is what I found:
25 I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. 26 And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. 27 Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— 28 which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. 29 See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. - Eccl 7:25-29
Solomon’s Search
“I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness.” - 7:25
If we remember, Solomon ended the last section reflecting on the limits of wisdom: “All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. 24 That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?” (Eccl 7:23-24).
The wisest man of the Old Testament confesses the limits of his own wisdom. There are certain things he cannot figure out.
But here in verse 25, he pivots from his admission of ignorance to a search for knowledge. He claims “I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom.” Now, if he just admitted in vs. 23-24 that his quest for wisdom left him asking “Who can find it out?” why does he begin a search for wisdom here? There’s two ways to understand vs. 25. It could be that verses 23-24 are Solomon seeing the limits of his wisdom, and then searching for more wisdom and now commending this approach to us as a positive endeavor to follow. In other words, if you feel stumped by the riddles of life, then you too should turn your heart to search out for more knowledge. But I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think that verse 25 represents a new search for wisdom, but an old one; when Solomon confidently said “I will be wise” in verse 23, verse 25 is him expanding on that. Double-click on “I will be wise” and you get: I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness.
Now, that turn of phrase is something we have heard before in Ecclesiastes.
In 1:17 and 2:12, Solomon seeks to understand “wisdom, madness, and folly.” But in these two sections, Solomon isn’t recommending you do what he did. He pursues sinful pleasures and vain attempts at using wisdom and experiences to find “gain” in this life, control and lasting satisfaction. And each time, he found nothing.
Now here, following almost the exact same formula, Solomon is doing the same thing. I do not think that Solomon is providing a remedy to the ignorance he confesses in 7:23-24 nor is he recommending to you to undertake this same process. Like before, Solomon is looking back at a younger version of himself who had everything—power, money, wisdom—yet also began to feel their limits. So, he begins a quest for what will make him happy, what will explain life. But you may ask: Why is it wrong to pursue wisdom and knowledge? Why is it wrong to understand even how evil works?
When Adam and Eve are presented with the temptation by the serpent in the garden, he tells them to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. The fruit had the allure of good, and the temptation of evil. Sin often doesn’t look like pure evil. Sometimes, it just looks like a desire for knowledge. Sometimes, you have been walking on the path of righteousness for a long time and grow tired and curious about what is off the beaten path. Perhaps if you veered into the forbidden, you’d learn more, there’d be new experiences, new opportunities that you currently lack by sticking to the path of obedience.
Solomon similarly has a choice before him; as he meets the limitations of the path of wisdom, the same temptation presents itself to him—maybe there is secret knowledge to be found on the darker side? Maybe, after being raised in church and following the rules for so long, maybe there is something in the realm of forbidden that will answer the questions and heal the ache?
What Solomon Found
And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. - 7:26
When Christian and Hopeful jump off of the King’s path, they are captured by the Giant Despair. And when Solomon jumps off he finds something “more bitter than death.” Solomon is here to warn all of us: There are worse things than dying. Like, losing your integrity. Like a grenade going off in the heart of an iceberg, Solomon’s sin fractured not only his life, but the life of the nation. And the pain of that was more galling than his own death.
What was it that ruined his integrity? The character that he warns of so frequently in the book of Proverbs: the forbidden woman. Before we expand on this more, lest there be any confusion, two things to remember: If you are a woman and think that this section must not apply to you, remember (1) that Solomon is just describing to you his own experience of what ruined him and (2) Solomon closes the book by addressing his son (12:13), so, just like the book of Proverbs, he is writing this book to be given to his son, so he writes from his own experience for another man. Nevertheless, just like Proverbs, this teaching equally applies to you as well—the danger he is pointing out is to sexual exploits outside of God’s framework of the covenant of marriage. So, here Solomon warns us of the temptation of being lured away from chastity and monogamous fidelity—whether we are men or women.
The woman here is described like a huntress. Notice her tools of hunting are not overtly aggressive: they are not spears or arrows. Her heart is snares and nets, and as soon as you take her hands, you will find your own shackled and yourself a prisoner. Meaning, the adulteress or the adulterer lays a trap and waits for you to walk into it. What does that trap look like? Proverbs tells us that it looks like a certain kind of speech: “smooth words” (Prov 2:16) and “lips [that] drip honey and…speech [that] is smoother than oil” (Prov 5:3; cf. 6:24; 7:5). It looks like them emphasizing their physical beauty: “[desiring] her beauty in your heart…[being captured] by her eyelashes” (Prov 6:25). And preying upon the craving for what is forbidden: “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant,” (Prov 9:17). This forbidden man, this forbidden woman is like a spider weaving a beautiful and deadly web, waiting for a victim…so, Solomon warns his son: “Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,” (Prov 5:8).
Now, listen to all of this come together into a scene that Solomon relays to us in Proverbs 7:
For at the window of my house I have looked out through my lattice, 7 and I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense, 8 passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house 9 in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness. 10 And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. 11 She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home; 12 now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait. 13 She seizes him and kisses him, and with bold face she says to him, 14 “I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows; 15 so now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you. 16 I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen; 17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. 18 Come, let us take our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with love. 19 For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey; 20 he took a bag of money with him; at full moon he will come home.” 21 With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. 22 All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast 23 till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life. 24 And now, O sons, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth. 25 Let not your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths, 26 for many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. 27 Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.
- Prov 7:6-27
The great irony, of course, is that the man who wrote these words took the very path he warned of.
Solomon’s lust overwhelmed his wisdom, and it took him to places he never thought he would go. The man who built the temple, becomes the man who builds altars to false gods; the same man who charged all of Israel: “Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God,” (1 Kings 8:61) is the same man described as: “his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God,” (1 Kings 11:4). Just to really underline this for you, in 1 Kings 11, among the various gods we are told that Solomon builds altars to, one of them is “Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem,” (1 Kings 11:7). Molech was the deity that was worshipped through infants being burned alive (see Lev 18:21; 20:2-4; 2 Kings 23:10). We are nowhere told that Solomon ever offers up any of his own children, but he built the altar, he helped that abominable practice take place. And he built that place “on the mountain east of Jerusalem” that is, the Mount of Olives, the hillside overlooking the Temple. So, every time a faithful worshipper of Yahweh would leave the temple, he would look up and see children being sacrificed to a demonic god.
How could Solomon let that happen? 1 Kings tells us rather simply: “Solomon clung to these (his harem) in love,” (1 Kings 11:2b). He loved them! Now, given the fact that he had a thousand women in his harem, when it says that he “clung to them in love”, it probably doesn’t mean that he really loved their personality; he likely didn’t know most of their names. How could he? What he loved about these women was what they could offer him, from political alliances, to more basic, carnal desires. And they turned his heart away.
When the New Testament describes false teachers, one of the most common sins that identify them is sexual immorality. Why is sexual sin so prominent in movements of false teaching, and why is it so frequently the vice that sinks so many Christians? Because it is so powerful in shaping what we love. It bypasses our rational mind and directly affects our heart. And this isn’t because sex is bad, but precisely because it is so good! The world has perverted God’s good design of sex, inflamed it beyond all proportions, and so (ironically) made it less enjoyable.
William Blake, the Romantic poet, disagrees. He thinks that restraint on sexual desires, especially restraint that comes from the church, is what ruins sex:
I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
Contrary to this, the Bible teaches us that restraint is inherent to a satisfying sexual life. Here is what healthy sexuality is meant to look like: Pursuing a relationship requires getting to know the other person, seeking counsel from family, friends, seeing if you agree on what it looks like to follow Christ, so on and so forth. Let’s take all of that for granted and say that is in place, and let’s take a single man and single woman. What begins the relationship? They notice each other. They notice that they are attracted to each other. If the relationship is going right, this attraction will include sexual desire. What do they do? They don’t indulge it, nor do they try to banish it. They sublimate it, restrain it, and use it as an engine to pursue its correct culmination: marriage. You date, you get a job, a place, you get to know each other, so you can get married! What happens if you don’t wait till marriage? Sex is the most intimate act you can perform with another person, it is bearing your entire self open to the other. Marriage is a lifelong covenant where you have committed to open up every part of your life to another person, and then stay. If you have sex with someone who has not committed to you, then there will always be lingering the thought: what if they leave? And you won’t be able to enjoy sex with the same abandon and peace and ease of knowing: we have become an inseparable union. You see, restraint doesn’t lead to diminished joy, but actually enhances it.
And then within marriage, sex is enjoyed always with restraint: one spouse does not demand sex, but uses sexual desire as an engine to pursue romance and love and service. Further, if one spouse begins to feel sexual longings for someone other than their spouse, they must restrain it.
What happens when we don’t? There was another famous Romantic poet who lived like a sexual libertine, a kind of Hugh Hefner of the 1800’s, named Lord Byron. And, on the day of his 36th birthday, he wrote:
My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of Love are gone; The worm—the canker, and the grief Are mine alone!
When we live with unrestrained sexual pursuits, we wind up like Solomon. Solomon’s harem of a thousand women may seem extreme, but how many millions of sexual experiences are available to you on your computer today?
It may be easier now more than ever for us to succumb to the forbidden man and forbidden woman today. Solomon tells us: “He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.” Solomon is telling you: I didn’t please God in how I lived; I was the sinner taken…don’t be like me.
What Solomon Missed
“Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things—which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found.” Eccl 7:27-28
This passage feels confusing, but bear with me. While adding one experience to another in his quest for satisfaction and fulfillment, the Preacher tells us what he found. He already told us what he found back in vs 26: the forbidden woman. But, he now moves beyond that to something beyond that issue, something that his soul has sought repeatedly, but has never found. Then he tells us that he has found one [upright] man among a thousand, but no upright women. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean that women are inherently less righteous than men are. First, remember this is being written from Solomon’s experience, and in his experience, all of the women he has met are women who have ensnared his heart and led him astray. Remember the number here: he is searching among “a thousand”. How many women did he have in his harem? A thousand. I think this is similar to David’s comment about Jonathan, his best friend, after he dies, where he claims that: “your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women,” (2 Sam 1:26). This isn’t David making a categorical statement on all women or confessing to a romantic love for his Jonathan; he is simply saying in his experience, no woman was as loyal and faithful as Jonathan was. All of the women in David’s life, up to that point, had not risked their lives for David and stuck with him the way that Jonathan had. The same principle applies here for Solomon, just in the opposite way. Solomon was ruined by women and it was all his fault.
Second, remember the point of what he is saying in this verse: he is saying “finding a righteous person is as rare as finding one in two thousand,” which is really another way of saying what he said back in vs. 20, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.”
And that point is supported by the final comment he makes in vs. 29, "See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.” This last verse adds even more confusion to the question: what did Solomon find? At first, we are told he finds the forbidden woman, then we are told that he finds one man among a thousand, but no women, and then concludes with this alone I found, which I take to mean: this is the sum of what I found, this is what I have been driving at. When he says, “I found one man among a thousand,” I don’t think he means that literally, I think he is using a phrase like, “the chances of finding an upright man are one in a million.” He isn’t ruling out the possibility of it, but he is saying that he has yet to see it. Here is what he does know: God made mankind upright, but we have sought out many schemes. God mad Adam and Eve upright, but the temptation to the knowledge of good and evil was more than they could bear, and so now, as a consequence of which, we are all unrighteous, all prone to sin.
It seems like Solomon’s main point in this final section is to tell you: I found that I could not find what I was looking for.
I wonder if you noticed something odd about this passage. Who is speaking? Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher…
The Preacher, which is where the book gets it name (Gk. Ecclesiastes, Hb. Qoheleth), is the title that is given to the main author of the book. At the beginning of the book, we are told: “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.” (Eccl 1:1). The “Preacher” is clearly to be identified with Solomon throughout the book, yet strangely, Solomon is never named. Even more strangely, the question of who is speaking the whole time presents another wrinkle. If “The Preacher” is Solomon, then who is introducing him in 1:1? And, who is concluding the book at the very end when the Preacher no longer speaks, but someone else begins speaking about the Preacher in the 3rd person (Eccl 12:9ff). The book of Ecclesiastes opens up and closes with the phrase: “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.” And then, seemingly out of nowhere, in the very middle of the book, the phrase “says the Preacher” again appears.
Why is that?
Well, what comes to your mind when you hear the name “Solomon”? You probably immediately associate that with wisdom. Solomon was a world-renowned celebrity for his wisdom. Solomon represented Israel at its peak—everything after Solomon was just a slow spiral into exile. And, at first, my hunch while studying Ecclesiastes was that Solomon does not use his name because as he sits in the nuclear holocaust of what he did to his life, he realized that he no longer deserved that kind of name anymore. And here, where Solomon is recounting to us the very instance that detonated his life, he again reinserts this little reminder: I’m not Solomon anymore, I’m just the Preacher. Reminder: “Preacher” has a positive connotation to us, it didn’t mean that in Hebrew; just meant collector, or one who assembles people together.
But as I was studying this passage even more, I became even more convinced of this, and it came from studying Solomon’s name. Solomon’s name (Shilōmō, שְׁלֹמֹה) comes from the same word used for the city of Jerusalem (Salem, שָׁלֵם), which we first read about all the way back in Genesis, when Abraham first meets Melchizedek, a priest-king who rules over Salem (Gen 14:18). Solomon was likely given that name because David had just conquered Jerusalem and knew it would be the future of Israel’s kingdom, and believed Solomon to be the future king who would dwell there. Salem in Hebrew means peace as a noun, but as an adjective refers to something that is whole, complete. It is used earlier to refer to uncut stones, the idea being rocks that are not split or divided. But, when used to describe the human heart, it refers to this idea of being committed to something with one’s whole heart. For instance, when David prays for Solomon, he prays:
“And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind,” (1 Chron 28:9)
It is later used to identify whether or not a king was faithful to the Lord, as in Jeroboam where we are told:
“And he walked in all the sins that his father did before him, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God,” (1 Kings 15:3)
It is what Solomon himself tells others they must do:
“Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God,” (1 Kings 8:61)
And, critically, when Solomon turns from the Lord, we are told it is what he lacks:
“For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God,” (1 Kings 11:4)
The man whose name means “wholly true” does not deserve that name. He isn’t. And if he isn’t, then who is? If gold rusts, what shall iron do? For if a Priest, upon whom we trust, be foul, no wonder a layman may yield to lust.
Fortunately, the Bible points forward to another man who will come, bearing the name שָׁלֵם:
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (שָׁלוֹם) 7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
- Isa 9:6-7
While speaking with the Pharisees, Jesus explains: “…something greater than Solomon is here.” - Matt 12:42
Jesus is the truer and better Solomon, the Prince of Peace, who serves the Father with a whole heart, who remains wholly true.
Jesus is the truer and better king, who rules and governs His people with peace and righteousness, who never compromises himself morally.
Jesus is the truer and better leader and pastor who will never scandalize the church or break your heart or let you down, but whose integrity and justice and goodness and beauty will never be bruised or blunted.
Jesus is the truer and better son of David, who resists the temptations of lady folly, the forbidden woman, who stays true and faithful to His bride. Even when she is unfaithful to Him. And who here hasn’t? Who here hasn’t turned off the path of obedience and thought we could find our own way? Fear not, Christian, the better Solomon has come to atone for your faithlessness and can make you righteous with his own pure, undivided heart.
