Ecclesiastes 1:5-8

Things continually change yet remain the same -- Ecclesiastes 1:5-8: Solomon pictured man as being like nature, changing quickly but continually remaining the same. The runner is quick to find the course and stay on it. Psalms 19:5-6 pictures the sun in just that fashion. "Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." One generation comes and another goes just as the sun is quick to repeat its circuit. A generation, like the sun, never stands still. They are one moment at the noon of prosperity and then quickly cut off at the midnight of life.

Solomon used the wind to picture the instability, and restless state of man. Man attempts to fill he belly with stuff and it satisfies no more than being filled with the wind. The frailty of human life is seen, as man's life is quickly gone just as the wind passing over the earth. Age after age passes, just as rivers flowing into the sea. Just as the sea is never full with the rivers that flow into it, so the mind of man is never satisfied with all the riches and honour he gains on earth. Solomon pictured the unsatisfying nature of all these things -- vanity of vanities. Man has no profit in these things "under the sun."