Ecclesiastes begins with an important matter of debate. If we are to translate “hebel” as “meaningless” or “vanity,” we are asserting that the book has little to offer us and that life is an existentialist’s dream come true. But if we treat “hebel” as “vapor,” we are asserting that life is difficult to understand and in many ways incomprehensible. Ecclesiastes calls us to debunk what Pastor Jeff Harlow calls the “myth of control.” In other words, we are not the captain of our ships or our destiny. Yahweh alone controls our lives and in Him our actions are not meaningless.
