Transient: passing especially quickly into and out of existence.

"The motto of Ecclesiastes is not, as the niv translation reads, “Meaningless! Meaningless! . . . Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Eccles. 1:2). Neither is it “All is to no purpose!” The Hebrew word hebel is best translated as “transience,” or “transitoriness,” for it has at its root the sense of a “fog,” “mist,” or “change.” In Ecclesiastes it is used to capture the suffering that arises from the enormous amount of change in our lives, the lack of permanence and stability that appears to be everywhere.

Whereas the book of Job highlights the suffering that comes to an individual, Ecclesiastes looks more holistically at life, culture, and the general direction of history. It poses a question that expresses another aspect of the turmoil of the human soul: “What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?” (Eccles. 1:3). The problem in life, according to the writer of Ecclesiastes, also called the “Preacher” or the “Teacher,” is that everything seems to be changing all the time. Life is just too brief and too temporary. Is it worth all the trouble, all the working, living, and striving?

... In the midst of all the changes in life, there are anchor points in fearing God and observing his commandments. God has deliberately made everything beautiful and has built people so that they have a capacity and a hunger to know how everything fits together. Yet without knowing God, it is impossible to know “A” from “Z,” the beginning from the end (Eccles. 3:11). “Change” is a fact of life (and often a source of suffering), but that does not have to be our final answer to reality or life. Knowing God is the greatest goal imaginable, for in knowing him there is joy and the ability to find pleasure and satisfaction in every sphere of life."

WALTER C . KAISER JR. In Christopher W. Morgan, Robert A. Peterson, Editors et al., Suffering and the Goodness of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008).