Life Isn’t fair!
This series of articles was inspired by a sermon series on the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. The writer King Solomon, towards the end of his life, looks back at what he has seen and done ‘under the sun.’ One of his observations is the prevalence of injustice. His comments echo our own experiences – life is not fair!
In chapter 9 of the book, Solomon concludes that time and chance happen to all. Should we regard this as the conclusion for all people. Or is it the conclusion of a man whose vision was solely ‘horizontal’ and not ‘vertical’?
A review of Ecclesiastes
Solomon tells a story of unfairness:
“I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me: There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siege works against it. Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man.” (Eccl 9.13-16)
The story is interesting in that it is punctuated with adjectives, adding colour and meaning. Notice these words: greatly: small: few: powerful: huge; poor; wise. These words bring tension between what was and what could have been.
Matthew Henry comments that this was a real incident, known to Solomon and doubtless to the first readers. As indeed are the later incidents I mention. Solomon was aware of the world around him.
The man rescued the city. Yet afterwards the man who rescued the city lived in poverty and obscurity as he had before. That is not fair. He should have become a hero.
Scrolling back through the preceding chapters, we notice a series of comments about the unfairness of life – things do not turn out as they ‘should.’
“I saw the tears of the oppressed – and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors – and they have no comforter.” (Eccl 4.1) Nothing changes! In every age power lies with the oppressor. The oppressed is left with tears; no one to save them.
“Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to heed a warning. The youth may have come from prison to the kingship, or he may have been born in poverty within his kingdom. I saw that all who lived and walked under the sun followed the youth, the king’s successor. There was no end to all the people who were before them. But those who came later were not pleased with the successor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Eccl 4.13-16) The story of Israel is echoed throughout history throughout the world. One good ruler, full of integrity and wisdom and compassion is no guarantee of another. And circumstances change; famines may replace fruitful years. Even Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, lot most of the wealth he had inherited. Its as if these verses were prophetic.
And our memories are faulty and selective. Even after Solomon’s death the people complained that he had put a heavy yoke on them (1 Kings 12.4). He hadn’t! Israel had grown wealthy by trade and revenues from surrounding nations. An earlier generation had recalled their Egyptian experience; “there we sat round puts of meat” (Exodus 16.3). They hadn’t! They had been slaves.
“If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still. The increase from the land is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields.” (Eccl 5.8-9)
The prophet Samuel had prophesied the burdens that a king would impose. “He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.” (1 Sam 8.13-14).
In the world of commerce, wealth trickles up, not down. The poor get poorer. The rich get richer. Wealth and rights are not distributed evenly.
And even bureaucracy itself can be loaded against us. ‘Bureaucracy can be a form of injustice; the rich and well educated can work through it, either by bribery or ‘knowing the system,’ whereas the disadvantaged just have to wait for justice and are often powerless.’ (David Devenish, Demolishing Strongholds)
“I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness.“ (Eccl 7.15) The righteous man died, maintaining his integrity – yet the wicked prosper (Ps 73.2-3).
There are those who cheat the system, overclaim benefits, fiddle their expenses, and seem to get away with it – that is not fair. There is a level of endemic dishonesty in our culture and probably others. We refer to ‘white lies,’ and overlook a ‘low level’ of theft as acceptable. We find that the culture of one organisation accepts such behaviour – I heard testimony from a friend who, when submitting his monthly expenses, was expected to inflate amounts claimed, as ‘everyone does it.’
Solomon goes further: “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.” (Eccl 8.14)
The rewards are the wrong way around: – the righteous receives the reward due the wicked; the wicked gets the reward due the righteous. And this is endemic. No wonder Solomon reaches his conclusion regarding time and chance:
“The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favour to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.”
Unless we see the context of this conclusion, we will find ourselves in the same hopeless place. If we consider only life ‘under the sun’ or events which ‘I have seen’ then we will reach the same conclusion.
We must make our observations with reference to the unseen world and to God’s eternal kingdom. Otherwise, we find ourselves in Solomon’s hopeless ‘time and chance’ conclusion. In contrast, once we are aware of the unseen world and God’s eternal kingdom, our focus and understanding are transformed. (See my conclusions are in a later article.)