Has Life Gone Stale?

Ecclesiastes- 'The Pursuit of Meaning: Doubt, Despair and Discovery'.  

⁴A generation passes away and [another] generation comes, but the earth remains forever.  ⁵The sun rises, and the sun sets, and quickly returns to the place from where it rises.  ⁶Whirling to the south and turning toward the north, the wind turns and turns and whirls continually, and through its circles the wind returns.  ⁷All rivers run to the sea, but the sea is never full; to the place from where the rivers [first] run, there they return to run again.  ⁸All things are tiresome; man is unable to speak [of it]; the eye is not satisfied [with what it] sees, nor the ear filled with [what it] hears.  ⁹That which has been is that which will be [again], and that which has been done is that which will be done [again]; and there is nothing at all new under the sun.  ¹⁰Is there anything of which it may be said, ‘See, this is a new thing’?  It has been already from days past which have come before us. (Ecclesiastes 1:4-10)* 

The Preacher began with the statement of his perspective that everything was as a vapor or mist (hebel).  As he seeks to discover the point of life, he looks to the natural world; but finds no answers there.  Nature seems locked in an endless loop.  People are born, live and die, only to be replaced by a new generation.  The sun rises, crosses the sky and sets, only to begin the same pattern again the next morning.  The wind blows, the water flows—on and on and on it goes.  We may hear the author sigh as he says, “all things are tiresome.” (1:8) 

Life itself has become, or seems to have become, stale.  That which seems new, is in fact old—it’s been done before.  There are no new people; just replacements for the dead.  No new sunrise; just the same sun on an endless loop.  No new rain; just recycled water which has fallen before.  “Is there anything of which it may be said, ‘See, this is a new thing?’ (1:10) For the Preacher the answer is 'no'.  On and on it goes.  What is now is what has already been and will be again in days to come when our future 'replacements' walk the earth.  Indeed "there is nothing at all new under the sun."

Is the Preacher correct?  Is life tired and stale?  And if it is, is this what God intended?  From the author’s perspective it may have seemed so—that life was an endless cycle of birth and death; that the creative spark had gone out of the universe.  As a Christian, with the benefit of the perspective of the New Testament, I can recognize that the created order is “subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20 ESV) until the revealing of God’s Elect at the end of days (see Romans 8:19-21).  Until then life perhaps does seem stale, and the pursuit of meaning destined to end in despair and futility.  But for those with hope, the ‘firstfruits of the Spirit’ (see Romans 8:23), we can see the beauty of a world on the edge of something wonderful.

*Because I will be posting larger sections of Scripture, and to avoid copyright infringement, the text will be my own basic translation, similar to, but distinct from other common translations.  Words in [brackets] are supplied to give better flow to the text. These words are generally implied, but not directly given in the Hebrew text.