I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. – Ecclesiastes 2:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 27, 2016): Ecclesiastes 2

Succession is never easy because it represents a lack of control. It has been noted recently that President Obama seems to be becoming more and more uncomfortable with the upcoming election in the United States, partially because the result of the election will be a judgment on whether to try to expand on all that he has built or a decision to destroy it. This becomes a question of legacy. It is also a built-in feature of an adversarial electoral system. One party tries to differentiate themselves as much as possible from the other. And the other is always viewed as “The Evil Empire.” Heaven forbid that a Republican should ever have something to good to say about a Democrat, or a Conservative could ever agree with a Liberal. The other position is always evil and everything that they accomplished a product of that evil. It is amazing as a society that we can ever get anything done.

Even in a non-adversarial system, succession remains hard because of a lack of control. You just don’t know what the next leader is going to do. I left a church position some years back. As a congregation, we had worked hard on a mission statement that was hopefully going to serve the church as it moved into the future. After I had left, the first thing that I heard the new pastor did was to get rid of the mission statement. One moment your statue stands prominently in the town square, and the next it lies in pieces in the middle of the roadway. All because of succession.

Solomon says that he hates the idea of succession. He hates the knowledge that everything that he has worked so hard to accomplish will one day fall into the hands of another – even if, in this case, that other will be his son. Maybe that is why David seemed to spend so much time planning out Solomon’s reign, especially when it came to the process of building the Temple in Jerusalem. Maybe that was just an effort to increase his influence over the time period that would come after him. But even then, it failed. Solomon for all of his Wisdom was never even close to the king that his father David had been.

And, maybe, Solomon had even more to fear. Rehoboam would never be even close to the king that Solomon was, let alone be the grandson for which David probably had hoped. I love Adam Clarke’s epitaph on the rule of Solomon.

"Alas! Solomon, the wisest of all men, made the worst use of his wisdom, had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, and yet left but one son behind him, to possess his estates and his throne, and that one was the silliest of fools!"

There seemed to be a good reason why Solomon feared to leave what he had a built in the hands of another.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 3