"Vanity"(Heb. hebel) means "meaningless."11As Solomon used this word in Ecclesiastes he meant lacking real substance, value, permanence, or significance. "All"in the context of what he proceeded to describe refers to all human endeavors (cf. v. 3). David Hubbard understood it in a slightly different way.
"Hebelstands more for human inability to grasp the meaning of God's way than for an ultimate emptiness in life. It speaks of human limitation and frustration caused by the vast gap between God's knowledge and power and our relative ignorance and impotence. The deepest issues of lasting profit, of enlightening wisdom, of ability to change life's workings, of confidence that we have grasped the highest happiness--all these are beyond our reach in Koheleth's view."12
The phrase "is vanity"is the most popular one in Ecclesiastes (cf. 1:14; 2:1, 11, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 26; 3:19; 4:4, 7, 8, 16; 5:7, 10; 6:2, 4, 9, 11, 12; 7:6, 15; 8:10, 14; 9:9; 11:8, 10; 12:8.13
This verse contains Solomon's "big idea"or proposition. It is the point he proceeded to support, prove, and apply in the chapters that follow.14Proverbs 1:7 is such a statement in that book. This is the first hint that Solomon's viewpoint includes "exclusively the world we can observe, and that our observation point is at ground level."15
"Because it apparently contradicts other portions of Scripture and presents a pessimistic outlook on life, in a mood of existential despair, many have viewed Ecclesiastes as running counter to the rest of Scripture or have concluded that is [sic] presents only man's reasoning apart from divine revelation."16
". . . it is no exaggeration to say that there may be less agreement about the interpretation of Koheleth than there is about any other biblical book, even the Revelation of John!"17
