What is the context?
The Teacher describes a deliberate investigation of everything done under heaven. His royal position and accumulated wisdom give the experiment every apparent advantage.
His judgment is that human activity remains a pursuit of the wind. Insight can see what is crooked or missing without possessing the power to put everything right.
The comparison includes wisdom, madness, and folly. The sorrow of knowledge is the pain of recognizing limits and disorder, not an instruction to refuse instruction or celebrate deception.
This first experiment will be followed by pleasure, achievement, and reflection on death. The reader should follow the inquiry rather than treat the last line as the book’s only word about wisdom.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Wesley emphasizes that greater knowledge exposes both misery and the limits of one’s understanding. His reading recognizes that insight can sharpen grief when it cannot remove the trouble it sees. That need not become a rule that learning necessarily damages a person’s health.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.
Where can I study this further?
No deeper study linked yet.