Ecclesiastes chapter 6

vs 1

There certainly are lots of them. Surprising we get up in the morning at all, really.

vs 2

This is really an extension of chapter 5 and its dealings with toil and wealth. If there is a truth that exists in our culture today, it is this one - that we are given so much of everything we want, and yet cannot be satisfied with it or enjoy it.

vs 3

I'm not sure what makes a proper burial so important - perhaps a link to resting with your fathers? That would surely date this back a bit. But that, along with not being able to enjoy the prosperity that comes from wealth, makes for a life of meaninglessness. So much so that it's better to be born dead than live a life that ends that way.

vs 4

I assume this is a description of the stillborn child.

vs 5

The author accepts that there is a peace in death, at least there is for a stillborn child. The idea of a post-death judgement does seem a little far from the mind of Qoheleth in the book as a whole.

vs 6

The peace in death is not objective though - it is only in comparison with the life of a man who does not enjoy his prosperity. The reason is that both end up in the same final position, but the man also had to live a whole life of non-enjoyment beforehand, so his suffering is compounded.

vs 7

Another endless cycle of which Qoheleth bemoans.

vs 8

Although Qoheleth does answer these to some degree, the truth of his argument is that there is ultimately no great answer to separate them.

vs 9

Appetite I think can be understood in a broad sense here, not just the feeling of hunger for food. The message I think is that excessive imagining and contemplating brings mostly sorrow, when compared with simple accepting what is in front of you. If what you desire is only what you have, then there will be a lot less sorrowful than if your mind wanders to desiring all the things you don't and won't have. Of course, such contentment is pretty much out of reach of people, which is probably why it's a chasing after wind anyway.

vs 10

I will freely admit that I'm in floating territory here. No idea. My guess, and it's really not much more than a guess, is that the idea that all has been named is the idea that there is nothing new. The idea that humanity is known for what it is means that humanity itself is not a boundless mystery - we know what that is too. We also know that God is stronger than humanity, so humanity is not going to change, and neither is anything else on behalf of humanity. We are not agents of change, then. We simply strive for faster sameness.

vs 11

This sounds like a simple proverb. Either it means the more complex we make something, the less people can understand it (which is pretty logical and obvious), or that the more words someone uses to say something, the less meaningful it is (which also seems commonsense sometimes). Or it could mean something else.

vs 12

Ahh, I think now we get to the crux of the matter regarding the meaninglessness of many words. Regardless of how wise one might look with their many words, how many of their words can answer the questions posed in this verse? Not even Christians can say with certainty what happens when you die. We can't enumerate the stages of it. We can guess. The first question I would say is impossible for humanity to answer on its own - only by God's revelation can we know how to live.