I made myself great works; I built houses; I planted vineyards:
All Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 2:4 Go To Ecclesiastes 2
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Hear what Solomon says, who knew the present world by actual experience. “I built houses, I planted vineyards, I made gardens, and orchards and pools of water. I gathered also silver and gold. I got myself men singers and women singers, and flocks and herds.” There was no one who lived in greater luxury or higher glory. There was no one so wise or so powerful, no one who saw all things so succeeding to his heart’s desire. What then? He had no enjoyment from all these things. What after all does he say of it himself? “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Vanity not simply but superlatively. Let us believe him, and lay hold on that in which there is no vanity, in which there is truth; and what is based upon a solid rock, where there is no old age or decline but all things bloom and flourish, without decay, or waxing old, or approaching dissolution. Let us, I beseech you, love God with genuine affection, not from fear of hell but from desire of the kingdom. For what is comparable to seeing Christ? Surely nothing! What to the enjoyment of those good things? Surely nothing! Well may there be nothing [comparable]; for “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him.”
