November 1, 2018: Day 82 – Ecclesiastes 9

I don’t mind the line that we find in vs.4: “But whoever is joined  with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.”  That is as practical and earthy as you can get.  It doesn’t matter who you think you are/were, just be sure that who you are/were has significance in the here and now.  The mighty stop being mighty as soon as their heart stops beating and their mind stops thinking.  Another nugget of truth is this in v s.11: “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong…but time and chance happen to them all.”  There is a sense that no one can feel a sense of entitlement that will last them their whole life long.  Life comes to those who carpe diem.

There is an interesting little parable at the end with a bumbling loud ruler and a wise old man who was poor.  It seems like just out of sheer power the ruler takes the day, even if the words of the wise old man were more true and more accurate to what the ruler was spewing.  But, because of the status of the poor man, he did not have the power to be heard.  The statement we are almost left with is found in vs.16: “yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.”  What a sad state of affairs it is in which we find ourselves.  This is truth spoken within a context where the powerful actually do rule, while the weak and the poor are subject to those in power.

The more things change the more they stay the same…