Ecclesiastes 2:11

I looked. Literally, “I turned to,” to take particular notice of. The Hebrew word means much more than “to look at casually.” The noun from this root, meaning “face,” contains the idea of facing up to something in order to take account of it. Further, in Hebrew, the emphatic pronoun is used as if Solomon had said, “I personally took stock of.”

Vexation of spirit. Banquets, festivities, music, sensual pleasure — these do not provide lasting satisfaction. According to John 4:24, literally, “God is spirit,” not “a Spirit” in the sense of being one spirit among many, but spirit essentially, absolutely. And man must approach God through his own human spirit. Only in such a union can man find perfect satisfaction and contentment. All the pleasures of the world were found by Solomon to be mere “wind,” “breath,” or “a striving after wind” (see on ch. 1:14).

Profit. See on ch. 1:3. “Profit” is an important word in the philosophy of Ecclesiastes, where it occurs ten times. It does not occur elsewhere in the OT. Solomon tested each experience, each undertaking, each pleasure, in which he indulged, in terms of the “profit” to be derived from it. The literal meaning of the Hebrew root of the word so translated is “surplus,” or “balance.” The suggestion has been made that it was probably a word used in Jewish trade relations.

Under the sun. This expression appears 29 times in Ecclesiastes, in reference to the sphere of human activity. Similar expressions are found in various languages.