“Enjoy life with
the wife whom you loved all the days of the life of your vanity, which He has
given you under the sun all the days of your vanity; for that is the portion in
your life and in your work where you labored under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 9:9)
This is a profound statement that makes us aware
of the complementary unity of man and woman, even in the midst of the vanities
and futility of human life. There is an implicit enjoyment in this awareness,
based on the fact that both genders belong to each other as the separate
portions destined to live united in the labors that life demands in the
material world under the sun.
“Whoever has
found a wife has found goodness, and brings favor from the Lord.”
(Proverbs 18:22)
The verse is stated more as a commandment than
an advice from King Solomon, which makes us reflect on the goodness that we
enjoy in the completion we find with each other, for goodness is the
culmination of such completion that God wants for us.
“Whatsoever your
hand attained to do by your strength, do that; for there is no work, or device,
or knowledge, or wisdom in the grave, where you go.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
Kohelet reminds us that doing and achieving as
the result of knowing and understanding belong to the material world, for in
the spiritual dimensions all is already known, understood, done and achieved.
“What profit is
there in my destruction (lit. blood), if I go down to the pit? Shall the dust
praise You? Shall it declare Your truth?” (Psalms 30:9)
“For the grave
cannot thank You, death cannot praise You. Those who go down to the pit cannot
hope for Your faithfulness.”
(Isaiah 38:18)
In this context we understand that we live in
this world because of goodness and for the sake of goodness, for which we
praise God because is His truth. Thus we also realize that goodness is His
faithfulness that keeps His creation alive.
“I returned, and
saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding,
nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happened to them all. For
man also does not know not his time as the fishes that are taken in an evil
net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; even so are the sons of men
snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11-12)
These verses make us reflect on the combination
of circumstances that surrounds life under the sun, called here “time and
chance”. This reflection comes to consider that the vanity and futility of ego’s
fantasies and illusions dwell in a playground full of nets, snares and traps of
their destructive predicament, where all is subjected to randomness.
Thus we realize that living in the truth of
goodness is our freedom to choose the positive paths and works that lead us
with certainty towards their fruits and benefits, not subjected to anything different
from their ways and attributes. In goodness there is no randomness, accidents,
traps or prisons.
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