Ecclesiastes Intro and Chapter 1 (Updated)

Introduction
The sarcasm and mocking Solomon offers here could easily be aimed at the large number of Western Christians who don’t get Hebrew wisdom literature. The underlying premise of the book is portraying the vanity of trying to understand life, the universe and everything from a human point of view. The wisest man in human history could not come up with a good answer, try as he might all the ways men seek to conquer this existence.
That much is obvious. The difficulty is that virtually no one in Western Christianity has a clue about the fundamental human approach Solomon uses here. This book is easily the pinnacle of Hebrew mysticism. That is, there is nothing here truly spiritual, in the sense that this book is wholly a matter of God’s moral laws for fallen mankind. It does point to spiritual depth, but never mentions it directly. As non-Western literature, there is nothing here of questioning the nature of existence, nor defining the meaning of things from a rational position. That’s the wrong question here. The question is how to make the most of human existence after the Fall. The question is how best to obtain the very most life here can offer.
That question is played out while trying to avoid references to revelation. Solomon experiments with all the ways men pursue the different approaches, and he does so with vastly superior native ability. He does make reference to mere logic in the rational mold, but dismisses it, too. In the end, he answers with the assertion that, taking the very best of all the various philosophical approaches to the basic question of how to make the most of our human existence, and using the very deepest and wisest mind with access to as much human knowledge as existed at that time, you still can’t come up with anything better than a pretty simple grasp of God’s Laws.
Solomon didn’t have to put pen to parchment here; he had numerous scribes working in the palace. It’s possible this was published after his death. However, you can’t take seriously scholars who assert it comes from Post-Exilic times, because by then, only a tiny handful of Hebrew scribes could possibly understand what Solomon meant. They would have written up an entirely different book from his notes. By the time the Exile was over, Hebrew Mysticism was virtually forgotten, and this book is very firmly the product of classical Hebrew Mysticism before the Exile.
Chapter 1
There is no ambiguity in the author’s identity: Solomon, heir of King David to the throne in Jerusalem. He calls himself “the one who assembles,” a Hebrew pun describing one who assembles words of truth, then assembles people to teach the truth.
The first thing he tells us is to not take this world too seriously. It doesn’t matter what you bring to the task, you can’t make much of by yourself. No matter what you accomplish by any scale of human measure, it won’t make any difference for very long. You can’t change the rotation of the earth, the movement of wind currents or the hydrologic cycle. The better you understand things, the more it drives you nuts. The one thing you most want to change is hardest of all — human nature. It ever reaches for things it cannot have. What little improvement there could be requires paying attention to human history, but even if they know it, they still repeat it.
Again, the issue is not whether we can change our world physically. We should know better than that, Solomon says. The one thing that affects us all the most is fallen human nature. If there is one thing we could fix, and should try to fix, the one thing which is the key to all our problems, it would be human nature. Thus, the whole point of verse 15, for example, is a description of human nature itself — irreparably bent and broken.
Solomon informs his readers he has examined the issue fully. Human talent, wisdom and creativity simply cannot change anything that matters. Here he sits, the wisest human on earth so far, downright legendary for his grasp of things, and with all he gained in that department, he still can’t change anything. God has revoked human access to the Garden of Eden, so man must work simply to stay alive, and it is work guaranteed to do little more than keep him alive. Should he somehow amass the resources for leisure, he ends up wanting more of something else. It is unspeakable misery to realize nothing can be done to nudge humanity back where they could be.
The greatest peace fallen men can have is engaging the task itself of staying alive and minding your own business. Sure, give expression to your soul’s longings but never take yourself seriously. Once you begin to imagine you have some advantage over others, you cannot avoid creating trouble for yourself and others. You will only make things worse.