What can we enjoy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
We wrap up Ecclesiastes 5 with another Carpe Diem passage:
18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. 19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. 20 For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.
I wrote about the passage that:
Verse 5:18 has what is commonly considered a carpe diem passage. Enns sees these passages as a resignation of sorts in that God has given man wealth, but he will die anyway.[1] In contrast, Perry says that “if enjoyment comes from God this must include the very power to enjoy.”[2] Longman thinks that only those who God gives wealth can enjoy it.[3] My thinking goes with the latter two since the Teacher speaks of this as something good. In verse 12, the Teacher also describes the sleep of a laboring man as sweet, which could mean that God wants the average man to have a peaceful sleep and then when he has done his toil, to simply enjoy his life.
The simple message is to enjoy what you have. If you can eat and drink, enjoy it. If you have to work in your life, enjoy it. If you have wealth, enjoy it. It is interesting that we have to be told to enjoy our lives. Is this so difficult for us to do? Unfortunately, it often is.
It could also be worthwhile in our day and age to realize that the Teacher says to enjoy both work and wealth. If you have to go to work every day, try to enjoy it. If you have wealth, enjoy it as well. (Please also do consider clicking the Patreon button and becoming a supporter of Deeper Waters.) When you have a meal regardless, enjoy that too.
It could be the antidote to the pessimism of death is to be busy enjoying your life so much that you cannot think about death. Or, it could mean that when the time comes, you will realize you had a good life. Of course, as an Israelite, the Teacher would include that this also means living according to the teachings of YHWH.
For our day and age, we need to consider wealth and work. Envy over a wealthy man does one no good. If someone has wealth and wants to enjoy it, let him. If you have a job, go to work and try to enjoy it. If you can improve matters for yourself, by all means do so, but enjoy your life in any case. It is a good gift from God to be received with thanksgiving.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
[1] Ibid., 73.
[2] Perry, 113.
[3] Longman, NICOT The Book of Ecclesiastes, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1998), 168.