In the Place Where the Tree Falls: Power and Wealth Under the Sun (Eccl. 9:13-11:6)

“In the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.”

That’s a pretty good way of summarizing what Ecclesiastes is saying about life. Stuff happens.

In the redwood forests of California, there are fallen trees that have been there for hundreds of years. When the trunk is thirty feet in diameter – and two hundred feet long – and when the bark is fire resistant – a fallen tree can survive dozens of fires and hundreds of years.

In the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.

Ecclesiastes is written to complicate Proverbs 1-9. Life isn’t quite that neat and simple. What do you do when you can’t find Wisdom!? And all you can find is Folly?

I find the woman who is a snare (Folly in Proverbs 9), but I cannot find Wisdom.

And so, not surprisingly, the literary structure of Ecclesiastes falls apart precisely where the Preacher fails in his search for Wisdom....