If I am to serve God, and if I am to possess anything of “true religion,” I must begin with the Substitute. For religion begins with pardon; and without pardon religion is a poor and irksome profession. “There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared.” This is the Divine watchword. Not first the fear of God, and then forgiveness; but first forgiveness, and then the fear of God.
Bonar, H. (1881) How Shall I Go to God, 25
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. Eccl. 1:7 (KJV)
The word ‘full,’[1] although has a trivial meaning throughout scripture, but it is interesting how it is used in Eccl. 11:5; where it is used as to mean ‘to be with child.’ This verse in itself doesn’t seem to say anything advance or different from the verses it follows. The theme remains to be the same – futility of human labour. Similarly, ‘the sea is not full’ could very well mean that with all the illusion of progress and growth, much like the sea, human progress does not result in anything meaningful.
Comment:
“this also illustrates the succession of men, age after age, and the revolution of things in the world, their unquiet and unsettled state; and the unsatisfying nature of all things; as the sea is never full with what comes into it, so the mind of man is never satisfied with all the riches and honour he gains, or the knowledge of natural things he acquires; and it suggests that even water, as fluctuating a body as it is, yet has the advantage of men; that though it is always flowing and reflowing, yet it returns to its original place, which man does not. And from all these instances it appears that all things are vanity, and man has no profit of all his labour under the sun.” (Gill)
Image: Maarten van Heemskerck, Jonah Under His Gourd (1561)
References:
Gill, J. (1748-63). Exposition of the Old Testament, Eccl. 1:7
[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h4392/kjv/wlc/0-1/
It is this weariness that fits you for Him, and Him for you.
Bonar, H. (1881) How Shall I Go to God, 13
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