It's nothing new that generations are at odds with each other. The old folks are resistant to change and the new folks are resistant to tradition. Old folks see change as "radical disruption," while young folks see change as "necessary progress." Old folks see tradition as "time-tested & true" and young people see tradition as "stagnant & irrelevant."
It's always been this way. Each new generation thinks they are the first to find fault with the generation before them, and each older generation despairs that the young people are ruining the world and are more lazy and spoiled than anyone before them.
It's also nothing new that within a generation or two, historical events, cultural trends, and powerful, influential people of the past will be less meaningful and become "less remembered" as the shock & upset of former world-changing events wear off -- or the events will be altered or interpreted differently. This is the vulnerable turning point when history is rewritten and reevaluated by each new generation (which too often leads to forgetting the positive strides and focusing on the mistakes made in the past -- or in the other extreme, exaggerating and elaborating details to the point of near mythology -- claiming players as heroes or villains rather than simply human.)
When you're young, it's hard to believe that your ideas are probably not new and, furthermore, that your children and grandchildren will criticize you in turn when they grow up to find as much fault with your ideas & actions as you do with your parents' & grandparents' lives. And when you're old, it's hard to remember that young people have worthwhile changes to make and really can be trusted to "take over."
Ecclesiastes 1:2 New International Version
>โMeaningless! Meaningless!โ says the Teacher. โUtterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.โ
New Living Translation
>โEverything is meaningless,โ says the Teacher, โcompletely meaningless!โ
English Standard Version
>Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
Berean Study Bible
>โFutility of futilities,โ says the Teacher, โfutility of futilities! Everything is futile!โ
What does ืึฒืึตึคื ืึฒืึธืึดืืึ mean?
Is there a word/concept for โchronosโ and โkairosโ in Hebrew in Ecclesiastes 3:1-11?
My thoughts:
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"Do not curse the king, even in your thoughts, or curse the rich, even in your bedroom;" I don't agree with that. No one is above criticism.
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"Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone." Demonstrate fist that there is a God and that he gave commandments.
โVanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.โ
Iโve certainly witnessed this my own life as well as the world. What is one to do to escape vanity? In what context is this verse being exclaimed? If the world was full of vanity back then how does one cope with the even deeper vanities of the world today?
My thoughst:
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"Every word of God proves true;" Then there are very few word of God in the bible. Especially in the supposedly divinely revealed Genesis story.
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What's so bad about "a slave when he becomes king"? I suspect most slaves would make decent kings because they know the struggle of the lower classes. They know what it's like to be poor and abused and so would likely work to improve conditions for their subjects.
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I already like Ecclesiastes. In the grand scheme of things non of us matter, nothing we do has any great effect on the universe and this Teacher seems to recognize that.
