The Old Testament tone of reference to idols is one of bitter contempt.
Its rigid monotheism was intensified and embittered by the universal
prevalence of idolatry; and there is a certain hardness in its tone in
reference to the gods of the nations round about, which has little room
for pity, and finds expression in such names as those of our
text--'vanities,' 'lies,' 'nothingness,' and the like. To the Jew,
encompassed on all sides by idol-worshippers, the alternative was
vehement indignation or entire surrender. The Mohammedan in British
India exhibits much the same attitude to Vishnu and Siva as the Jew did
to Baal and Ashtoreth. It is easy to be tolerant of dead gods, but it
becomes treason to Jehovah to parley with them when they are alive.
But the point which we desire to insist upon here is somewhat wider than
the vanity of idols. It is the emptiness of all objects of human pursuit
apart from God. These last three words need to be made very prominent;
for in itself 'every creature of God is good,' and the emptiness does
not inhere in themselves, but first appears when they are set in His
place. He, and only He, can, and does, satisfy the whole nature--is
authority for the will, peace for the conscience, love for the heart,
light for the understanding, rest for all seeking. He, and He alone, can
fill the past with the light in which is no regret, the present with a
satisfaction rounded and complete, the future with a hope certain as
experience, to which we shall ever approximate, and which we can never
exhaust and outgrow. Any, or all, the other objects of human endeavour
may be won, and yet we may be miserable. The inadequacy of all these
ought to be pressed home upon us more than it is, not only by their
limitations whilst they last, but by the transiency of them all. 'The
fashion of this world passeth away,' as the Apostle John puts it, in a
forcible expression which likens all this frame of things to a panorama
being unwound from one roller and on to another. The painted screen is
but paint at the best, and is in perpetual motion, which is not arrested
by the vain clutches of hands that would fain stop the irresistible and
tragic gliding past.
These vanities are 'lying vanities.' There is only one aim of life
which, being pursued and attained, fulfils the promises by which it drew
man after it. It is a bald commonplace, reiterated not only by preachers
but by moralists of every kind, and confirmed by universal experience,
that a hope fulfilled is a hope disappointed. There is only one thing
more tragic than a life which has failed in its aims, and it is a life
which has perfectly succeeded in them, and has found that what promised
to be bread turns to ashes. The word of promise may be kept to the ear,
but is always broken to the hope. Many a millionaire loses the power to
enjoy his millions by the very process by which he gains them. The old
Jewish thinker was wise not only in taking as the summing up of all
worldly pursuits the sad sentence, 'All is vanity,' but in putting it
into the lips of a king who had won all he sought. The sorceress draws
us within her charmed circle by lying words and illusory charms, and
when she has so secured the captives, her mask is thrown off and her
native hideousness displayed.