Eat, Drink and Be Merry

"So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 8:15).

The "most famous" passage in Ecclesiastes is in chapter 3. Perhaps the "next most famous" passage is here, in 8:15, which in the King James Version urges readers to "eat, drink and be merry." Some folks quote this passage as if the Teacher is affirming this lifestyle—and he is, but it's because of an underlying cynicism toward life in general. This is another one of those verses that is often taken out of context and, as has been famously said, a text without a context is a pretext for a prooftext. What was the Teacher saying here?

Back up one verse, to 8:14, and we read this: "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." In other words, he has witnessed wicked people reaping rewards and receiving praise while righteous people are put down, ignored, maybe even abused. It's an upside down world, the Teacher observes (more "down" than "up"), and THEREFORE, he says we should just eat, drink and be merry. If life is meaningless, get as much enjoyment as you can. In the Teacher's current state of mind, he's all for adopting a rather hedonistic lifestyle. Just grab the pleasure and forget about achieving anything worthwhile.

This, again, is why we have to read any passage in light of the whole Scripture, because the overwhelming affirmation of Scripture is this: (a) work is good and (b) the righteous will be rewarded in the end. One of my favorite passages (and one that balances this one out) is found in Psalm 73. The psalmist is distressed, much like the Teacher of Ecclesiastes, that the wicked seem to prosper. They seem to get away with everything! Have you every felt like that? I know I have. The psalmist wrestles with this: everything he has done to live in a righteous way seems to be useless. Up to verse 16, he's on the same page as the Teacher.

Then, in verse 17, listen to what happens: "I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny." When he went to worship, when he began seeing things through God's eyes, everything made sense. He gained a long view. (And that, by the way, is one reason weekly worship is so important. The world will weigh us down, but when we gather in the house of God with the people of God, we're given a new perspective, and I, at least, need that every week!)

Eat, drink and be merry? Absolutely, but not in the sense the Teacher puts forth, as a discouraged response to an upside down world. But eat, drink and be merry because life is good and, more than that, because God is good. God has the long view in mind, and because of that we can celebrate.