What is the meaning of Ecclesiastes 1:15? What is crooked Solomon begins with a picture of something bent out of shape. He is looking at life “under the sun” and sees twists in both creation and human character. • Genesis 3:17-19 shows the moment the world became bent through sin’s curse. • Psalm 51:5 reminds us that even from birth we carry this crookedness within. • Romans 8:20-21 speaks of all creation groaning, confirming that the warp Solomon observes is real, not mere pessimism. cannot be straightened No amount of human wisdom, technology, or moral effort can make this world morally or physically perfect again. • Job 14:4 asks, “Who can bring clean out of unclean? No one!” echoing the same verdict. • Jeremiah 13:23 uses the image of a leopard’s spots to illustrate our inability to self-correct. • Only the Lord promises a final straightening in Isaiah 40:4, yet that awaits His direct intervention, not ours. and what is lacking Solomon shifts from the bent to the empty—missing pieces that leave life feeling incomplete. • Haggai 1:6 talks about wages put into a bag with holes, highlighting chronic shortage. • Luke 12:15 warns that life is not found in an abundance of possessions, implying a deeper lack that stuff can’t fill. • Colossians 2:10 reassures believers that they “have been made complete in Christ,” underscoring how real this deficiency is apart from Him. cannot be counted You cannot add up what is not there; deficiency refuses to become sufficiency by bookkeeping. • Proverbs 27:20 says, “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied,” paralleling the idea that unmet need keeps expanding. • Ecclesiastes 6:7 observes that a man’s appetite is never filled, illustrating an unquantifiable shortfall. • Matthew 16:26 asks what profit there is in gaining the world but losing the soul, spotlighting an eternal deficit beyond human calculation. summary Ecclesiastes 1:15 lays out two hard certainties: the world is bent beyond human repair, and it is missing what no ledger can supply. These realities drive us away from self-reliance and toward the only One who can both straighten the crooked and supply what is lacking—Jesus Christ, who will, in the new heaven and new earth, make everything right and complete. |
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