Session 14 Old Testament Overview Ecclesiastes & Song of Solomon Based on material from: Capitol Hill Baptist Church 525 A Street, NE Washington, DC 20002

1. Old Testament
Core Seminar
Class 14
“Ecclesiastes & Song of Solomon”
Old Testament Overview
1

2. Introduction to Ecclesiastes &
Song of Solomon
2
• 1st Semester covered Israel’s history up through David and the
wisdom literature of Job, Psalms, and proverbs.
• Two more wisdom books then back to the historical books.
• These two books work as a commentary on Genesis 2 and 3.
• Song of Songs is a “how to” manual for exercising
dominion, as Adam and Eve were commanded to in Genesis
2.
• Proverbs focuses on work and care of the Garden – daily
jobs.
• Song of Songs focuses on the other side of the creation
mandate: being fruitful and increasing in number.
• Ecclesiastes is commentary on the world of Genesis 3 - the
world of the fall.

3. Ecclesiastes - Context
3
• A son of David is the “preacher” or “teacher” (1:1-12) but who
the is it?
• Most believe it is Solomon – but could be any descendent.
• Some language in the text is in 3rd person so the “teacher’ is
really unknown.
• How does Ecclesiastes fit into the Redemptive History??
• As a how-to guide for living in the fallen world.
• Some believe it to be an un-inspired, book of wise sayings. (2
Timothy 3:16-17)
• Ecclesiastes sits near the end of the Bible with material written
after the exile, between Esther and Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
• To answer some questions raised by those who’ve lost the land,
temple, nationhood, and identity.

4. Ecclesiastes - Theme
4
• Like Job, it first poses a problem then gives the solution to it.
• The question: What is the meaning of life? Isn’t it all fleeting,
empty, pointless, and vain since we are all just racing towards
death anyway?
• Read 1:1-11
• Robert Gordis, a leading Conservative rabbi, writes:
“Whoever has dreamed great dreams in his youth and seen the vision flee,
or has loved and lost or has beaten barehanded at the fortress of injustice
and come back bleeding and broken, has passed *the Teacher’s+ door, and
tarried a while beneath the shadow of his roof.”
• The answers to this dilemma, or lack thereof, will affect
everything in one’s life, from psychological make-up, to values
and ethics, to the very clothes we wear.

5. 5
• Ecclesiastes confronts man’s attempt to find meaning in the creation
apart from the Creator.
• Conclusion … without a sovereign Creator God, all is vanity.
• But if the universe was created by God then there is great meaning and
value to life.
• Note: the universe needs a God in order to having meaning.
• But for the universe, and our lives, to have meaning, God must have:
• eternality, sovereignty, and purposefulness.
• Only if God ordains all things that come to pass, and has the power to
carry out all His plans will our lives have meaning.
• God is a sovereign God, and everything is filled with significance
because God does nothing in vain or without reason.
• Therefore God is to be feared and all He gives are to be enjoyed.
• This includes our jobs and homes and families and so forth.
• But it also includes our troubles and afflictions. These too are
meaningful and good. We must believe He makes no mistakes.
• Ecclesiastes begins as an antithesis – all is vain. Haven’t we all at some
time felt this way?

6. Ecclesiastes – Structure and Outline
6
I. Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 – Antithesis: All is vain.
II. Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:23 – All is vain apart from a sovereign Creator.
III. Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 – Thesis: All is meaningful if a sovereign God rules
the universe.
IV. Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 – The sovereignty of God affirmed.
V. Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:16 – Objection: If God is sovereign, why are there
so many problems in the world?
VI. Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 – First answer: Who are you, the created, to point
your finger at the Creator; you should be silent and worship in
reverence instead.
VII.Ecclesiastes 5:8-7:14 – Second answer: What is good/prosperity?
Those who have it don’t necessarily have a blessing from God, nor do
those without it necessarily have a curse from God.
VIII.Ecclesiastes 7:15-29 – Third answer: “Bad” things happen to “good”
people because no one is good.
IX. Ecclesiastes 8:1-12:14 – Practical application from chapters 1-7.

7. 7
After the book opens …
• The next chapters go back and forth in answering those basic
objection.
• The proof that all is indeed in vain begins in chapter 2 : the Teacher has
tried everything yet without meaning.
• At the end of chapter 2, we see the book’s thesis. “All is meaningful if
a sovereign God rules the universe.”
• That thesis is defended, objected to, defended, and then finally we
reach a conclusion in the epilog, chapter 12.
• What is the conclusion of the matter? Verses 13-14.
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God
and keep His commandments, For this is man's all. For God
will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret
thing, Whether good or evil.”

8. Ecclesiastes: 1:1 – 2:23
8
• Chapters 1 & 2 are an exploration of what the meaning of life might be.
• The Preacher spends the rest of chapter 1 and most of 2 giving us a
tour of his pursuit of the value of life apart from God.
• In: wisdom, wine, laughter, riches, delicacies, his work, his
projects, sex, power, fame, and full material gluttony. Read 2:10-11.
• It was as successful at providing life with meaning and purpose as
trying to grasp, the wind.
• The psychological effect of such a bleak outlook on life? 2:17 & 23
• Everything ends and everything dies.
• It’s a wonder that anyone smiles!

9. Ecclesiastes: 2:24-26
9
• In verses 24-26 he lays out a solution. “Nothing is better for a man
than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good
in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. For who can
eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I? For God gives wisdom
and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the
sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give
to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the
wind.”
• Notice words like “better” and “satisfaction” and “from the hand of
God” and “enjoyment” and “pleases” and “happiness.”
• Why? A new perspective from a vacuum to a life with God.
• He now says that the best thing a man can do is to eat and drink and
enjoy his work – no more vanity.
• Here, “eat and drink” are a metaphor for “Everything one does”.
• Implications: Live life and be happy and enjoy the labor of your hands.
• Resulting from “from the hand of God”.

10. 10
• Before this he was looking at life through the lens of a natural man.
• Hence … a very pessimistic view of life.
• Why would changing his perspective change his view of life?
• Because the origin of every activity one undertakes is from the very
hand of an eternal and meaningful God.
• The only way our temporal lives can ever have eternal significance is if
an eternal God orders them.
• That means that He is in control of them; He gives them to us. And He
gives us our various tasks each day.
• What would the world think of this?
• Verse 6 tells us God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to whom he
desires. The lost are left in the dark just gathering and storing ‘wealth’
for someone else to inherit.
• Read Ecc. 3:12-14 Solomon has changed his view of life.
• So here’s the Gospel – we begin our lives away from God resulting in a
life that is all vanity … but a life through God provides the only hope in
a hopeless world.

11. Ecclesiastes: The Rest of the Book
11
• The Teacher goes on to cite man’s main objection to God’s goodness
and sovereignty starting in verse 3:16: the problem of evil.
• He answers it in three parts.
– 5:1-7 give us the same answer that God gave Job. “Who are you,
created one, to challenge the creator? “God is in heaven and you
are on earth, so let your words be few.” (5:2b) = “Shut up!”.
– The 2nd part to this answer, through 7:14, looks at the prosperity in
this world.
• Is lack of material things really a sign of God’s curse?
• Perhaps part of the problem of evil is a misunderstanding of
what really is good.
– A third answer, end of chapter 7: there are no good people (7:29)
all “men have gone in search of many schemes.”
– Chapter 8 is application: Obey the king. Work hard. Enjoy your
spouse. Seek wisdom. Remember your creator in the days of your
youth.

12. The Song of Solomon
12
• Solomon is the author but there is no historical context for the book.
• There is some important redemptive-historical context.
• There is a bit of Genesis 2 and 3 going on in the book – the beautiful
relationship in the Garden of Eden between Adam and Eve as God
intended for God’s glory and their good.
• On this side of the fall, men and women are still to behave ethically
towards each other, in proper sexual relationships.
• Doing so brings glory to God and their own good.
• Else they’ll experience more of the same consequences that Adam and
Eve did in Genesis 3: God will not be glorified and men and women will
harm themselves.
• The book is more than just the context of marriage.
• Stephen Dempster (Assoc Prof of Religious Studies - Crandall
University.) writes in Dominion and Dynasty, “Shorn of its literary
context, the song could be almost pornographic. But the context of
the canon both restricts the meaning to the context of marriage and
expands it to include the relationship between Yahweh and Israel.”

13. 13
• So the book is about marriage … but what is marriage?
• Ephesians 5 tells us it is a picture of Christ’s love for His church.
• The OT prophets also used it as an image of God’s relationship to his
covenant people.
• Like Ecclesiastes, the Song is placed with the post-exilic literature.
• The editors saw that even in the midst of judgment, God was providing
a graphic, passionate, and profound reminder of his love and
faithfulness for his people.
• Read Isaiah 62:5
• Song is both a commentary on what it looks like for the man and
women to be “naked and not ashamed” and a celebration of God’s
love for us.

14. The Song of Solomon - Theme
14
• Summary of Song of Solomon:
The Song of Solomon sings of the son of David, who is the ideal king of
Israel, who is the seed of the woman, seed of the Abraham, seed of
Judah, seed of David, who enjoys uninhibited, unashamed intimacy
with his beloved, in a garden that belongs to him.
• Created in God’s image involved being created male and female.
• The two sexes were to image forth God’s glory through a harmonious
and pure sexual relationship … then came sin and it all fell apart.
• Still, men and women are called to monogamy and sexual purity.
• This book extols the beauty and worth of living in such a
relationship, and warns us not to create our own sexual agenda.
• Like a Shakespearian romance drama: the betrothed young woman
and her beloved singing praises to each other about how fair and
beautiful they each are; then they get married and live happily ever
after.
• Unlike Shakespeare, there is no murder and no one commits suicide.

15. 15
• Three basic sections.
– The courtship, through 3:5.
– The wedding ceremony and consummation, through 5:1.
– And the marriage, through the end of chapter 8.
1. The courtship, whose theme is patience.
• 2:7 “Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the
does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”
• Implication – they are not married yet and she expresses her desire to
remain chaste until the right time … marriage.
• She is saying, don’t rush what you think love is and what loving acts
are, until the time is right.
• Then, in marriage, the sex will be beautiful, honoring to God, and
healthy for the relationship.
• Prior to that, is will only reap disaster.
• 2:7 is repeated in 3:5 prior to the marriage section which starts in v6.

16. 16
2. The wedding, whose theme is sexuality in marriage.
• The wedding itself in the rest of chapter 3
• Chapter 4 gives a beautiful, graphic description of sex and sexuality.
• Ending in 5:1 “Eat, O friends, and drink; drink your fill, O lovers.”
• Some think this is the very voice of God putting His blessing upon their
sexual relationship.
• After marriage God not only okays sex but says it is right and good and
to be enjoyed to its fullest.
• It’s not just a dirty little necessity to produce of children, but a good
and beautiful and God honoring act between a man and wife.
• Sex, just like marriage, was created by God for His glory and for His
creatures’ good and health.
3. The rest of the book covers their married life.
• Again in 8:4 we find the woman admonishing the young women “Do
not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”
• Wait … don’t make a mess of your lives!

17. The Song of Solomon - Conclusion
17
• Song is should be seen an inversion of part of the fall into sin.
• “To the woman He said: " I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your
conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be
for your husband, And he shall rule over you.” Gen 3:16
• One of consequences of the fall was that marriage relationship would
be strained.
• The woman would desire to control the man and the man would abuse
his authority and dominate her.
• “To have and to hold” has turned into “to desire and to dominate.”
• But it doesn’t have to be so. 7:10 reads “I belong to my lover, and his
desire is toward [for] me.”
• God’s plan: The woman not seeking to control, and in turn not being
exploited by, the man.

18. 18
• The Song of Solomon teaches that marriage and sex occupy a very high
place in God’s economy.
• Therefore it’s an imperative duty and a high privilege to keep the
marriage bed pure: for unmarried persons to abstain from sex and
married couples to love each other with it.
• If we abuse these gifts God disaster and frustration will result
• Song is a wonderful guide to relationship and sex in marriage.
• And a beautiful description of God’s love for us, the passion of which
can only be described by the passion in a marriage.
• This is the perfect marriage. And it is the love that God has for you.