Reformation Hope Church

The book of Ecclesiastes records the grief of an old man- King Solomon. He tells us in Chapter 2 of the labors of his work on behalf of Israel. He speaks of the great success he had in raising up the people out of squalor into the most prosperous kingdom on the face of the earth. The problem is, though God had given him great wisdom – supernatural insights (cf. I Kings 4 and Proverbs 1:1-9) – he had failed terribly by departing from the fear of the Lord in the later days of his life, his wives leading him astray and into idolatry. He sees his work had become a vanity. He had indulged himself in pleasures and success, prosperity and happiness and it all failed him. He had forgotten his own proverb which says man’s heart (including his own) is like deep water where the word for “deep” in the Hebrew is Amoq, that is to say, unsearchable. (cf. Proverbs 20) He had forgotten “the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked, who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. Solomon in his deep grief for having betrayed