"Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labor;
And this was my reward from all my labor.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labor in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11).
Solomon proved for himself what so many since his time have had to prove again and again for themselves: materialism and sensualism are not the answer to a satisfying life.
Possessing extreme wealth so that he could have anything he desired and having tried everything he could think of to find satisfaction, Solomon concluded that these things brought him neither pleasure nor satisfaction—they were of no profit.
In his pursuit, he found himself “grasping for the wind,” that is, trying to take hold of that which has no substance—of that which amounts to “nothing.” The overriding message of his conclusion is that satisfaction comes not from the material and sensual but from the spiritual.