When the Preacher reaches the conclusion that everyone suffers the same fate, it makes him despair. When one doesn’t look beyond the earth, one may start to wonder why one should still look for wisdom in his or her life. Man’s life seems so pointless. Science and wisdom can provide many benefits in this world, but they do not take away the misery on earth. They do not provide a perfect life from which death has disappeared. We cannot create that eternally happy life. Without knowing and living with Christ, everything will one day be lost.
An example of this is Tyre. This city is praised for her wisdom in Ezekiel 28:1–26. This wisdom has brought about many benefits and much prosperity. In Ezekiel 28:3, Tyre is even called wiser than Daniel. Yet all that advantage disappears under God’s judgment because the wisdom of Tyre is a wisdom without God.
17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.