By Van Yandell
Ecclesiastes 1:7 “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”
El Niño is a weather phenomenon that includes the warming of the waters in the Pacific Ocean in the equatorial latitudes. El Niño means “little boy” in Spanish. El Niño also means “the Christ Child.”
Spanish and other South American fishermen and seafarers first noticed the unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean in the early 1600s. They named that occurrence El Niño de Navidad, because El Niño typically peaks in December, the believed time of Christ’s birth.
What was realized by the early American settlers and explorers was that varying weather/climatic conditions changed from year to year. They likely rationalized the weather patterns were an act of God and did not blame mankind or the squirrel population or other somewhat laughable scenario for causing the weather fluctuations.
And they did not start building electric buggies thinking that would change the climate and make the world a better place. A certain fact we can postulate about our ancestors, they were much smarter than we.
The power to charge the buggy batteries would have to be produced by something! Blaming “non-causes” for societal and environmental conditions appears to be another sign of our declining intellect.
King Solomon, second son of David and Bathsheba, was given wisdom by the Lord. He not only possessed great knowledge and skills; he was also resourceful and had an insight into many things, most did not have.
God asked Solomon in a dream what He could give him. Solomon said, “Give me wisdom that I may lead this great people of Yours.”
Solomon was a genius architect and engineer. His construction skills were unsurpassed for the time. Solomon also had extensive abilities as a gardener and a musician.
2 Chronicles 1:11-12 “And God said to Solomon, Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honor, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou may judge my people, over whom I have made thee king: Wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honor, such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like.”
The fame of Solomon as a very wise king spread throughout the (known) world. Other kings and queens came great distances to sit in his presence and hear him voice wisdom. Many of them brought presents such as pure gold. Solomon accumulated, some believe, as much as forty tons of pure gold, valued (by one source) at $64,300,800,000 today. No wealth today is compared to what God gave Solomon.
Solomon’s wisdom was also witnessed in his writings that became books of the scripture (Old Testament). The penning of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon are credited to him.
Solomon was also a great philosopher. In Ecclesiastes he stated his frustration with the boredom of life. Nothing is ever satisfying. God and His teachings were the only satisfaction to Solomon and he directly makes a point of this.
In making the point of “there is nothing new under the sun,” he used several examples from the physical world. One such example regards the cycling of water on our planet.
Ecclesiastes 1:7 “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”
Solomon probably never saw an ocean. He would likely have seen the Great Sea (Mediterranean Sea) and that body of water appears as an ocean from the beaches of Spain to Israel to North Africa.
At times there are more violent seas on the Mediterranean than on oceans, especially in the Strait of Gibraltar. The winds funneling into the strait from the Atlantic are extremely violent and seldom lay. Solomon would have been familiar with the characteristics of the earth’s largest bodies of water.
Solomon made a point that God was a recycler from the beginning. The hydrologic cycle as described in Ecclesiastes 1:7 is a point Solomon had no way of knowing. It therefore becomes evident God had to tell him to write this verse.
The hydrologic cycle is God’s way of recycling water. Basically stated, the rain falls, the earth uses it; the water evaporates into the atmosphere or the excess flows to the sea. In the seas, the water evaporates, floats back over the land and the rains come again.
We are actually using the same water as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob used over 4000 years ago. When we consider El Nino, the jet stream patterns and the changing climate due to the natural cycles of the earth, extremes in temperature and precipitation become a certainty.
The development of El Nino this year has caused a much greater evaporation rate than normal. Thus we are experiencing much larger amounts of rain and therefore flooding. Abnormal weather characteristics will likely be experienced for the remainder of this year. Long range weather prognosticators simply follow the patterns.
The reason for the weather/climatic anomalies seems obvious. Varying conditions on our earth have existed for centuries and will continue to manifest themselves making weather from year to year uncertain. Some of the hottest temperatures on record (120 degrees upward) were recorded in 1936.
Just as our Creator God set the seasons and the earth and solar system in their cycles and orbits, so He determines those varying conditions. To blame the “cause and effect” on anything else would be a test of our Creator and recklessness in fact.
For students of the Holy Bible, God’s word, knowledge and wisdom has revealed to us; the more we study, the more we’ll be convinced of its validity. To be convinced of the reliability of the scriptures is dependent on one’s exposure to its teachings. It certainly does appear those that deny its authenticity have not read it and sought out its truths.
For those that have been influenced to believe, it seems reasonable to deduct, if God knew the hydrologic cycle three-thousand years ago and was in control of it, He most certainly is today and our weapon of choice is TRUTH (John 14:6).
Since eternal life is a reality as the scripture indicates (Romans 6:23), it seems logical to believe what He tells us about salvation. Eternal salvation is by a faith based belief in Christ Jesus crucified for the remission of sin and resurrected. This is the only eternal salvation (Acts 4:12).
Job 37:6 “For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength.
Van Yandell is a retired Industrial Arts teacher, an ordained gospel evangelist and commissioned missionary, from Fredonia, Kentucky. A part of the Bible Connection series.
