Finding Out the Work of God

Verse 17 says, "Then I saw all the work of God…" In this section Solomon is not thinking about God's work of creation. Rather, he is thinking about God's work of Providence. That is; His holy and wise ordering and governing of all things, as the Shorter Catechism states it. Solomon is not saying that the study of God's Providence is vanity. He is telling us that it is a vain thing to believe that we will be able to perfectly understand all the reasons that God orders things in the way that He does. He is saying here, that in his searching to discover the "work" of God, that "though a wise man attempts to know it, he will not be able to find it out." This does not mean that we should not attempt the study of God's Providence at all. Just the opposite is true. In verse 16, he calls it "applying my heart to know wisdom".