From: Ecclesiastes
and the Perpetual Paradoxes of Life Return to Home
By
Roland H. Worth, Jr. © 2012
[Page 29]
Chapter One:
The Paradox of Intelligence and Knowledge:
We Idealize Them, but They are Unable to Bring Full
Satisfaction in a World of Perpetual Change
(1:1-1:18)
The person who can not
“dream” of a better world--either personally or for society--condemns himself
to perpetual unhappiness. Ironically
enough, however, the person who does “dream” of betterment may fail to
reach that goal because it is sought from the wrong sources or because the
perpetual changes of life will bring us both good and ill. On this earth, there is never a permanent
utopia, only periods when the dream comes tantalizingly close only to vanish
again.
Hence all our intelligence and knowledge
and seeking for enlightenment inevitably becomes frustrated by either our own
misdirection or by circumstances beyond any one’s control. They bring us pleasure because of what they have
made possible, but simultaneously discontent us because the results fall short
of our objective. “Absurdity! Absurdity!” is the cry of our mind as it
rebels at the intolerable situation.
The
Flow of the Argument
A.
We can’t base happiness on what will happen tomorrow because in a very
real sense life consists only of change—there is never a permanent status quo
or stability (1:1-11)
B.
Hence we also can not trust wisdom to bring satisfaction in spite of its
rightful appeal (
[Page 30]
A.
We Can’t Base Happiness on What
Will Happen Tomorrow
Because in a Very Real Sense Life
Consists Only of Change——
There Is Never a Permanent Status Quo or
Stability (1:1-11)
The king’s
condemnation of unbridled optimism (1:2) has challenged translators as to how
to render it into English. The
traditional reading is, “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; vanity of
vanities; all is vanity.”[1] In modern English, “vanity” makes us think in
terms of looks and outward appearance.
The person (traditionally a woman) who is so preoccupied with the
exterior physical image that matters of substance
become irrelevant. Think in terms of
plastic surgery and face lifts and inordinate expenditures on clothing. Hollywood, of course, has vividly
demonstrated the ability of both genders to fall into this trap—making obvious
what had always been true.
Every one but the
person involved eventually recognizes that it is all show and appearance and
nothing of substance. Daniel C.
Fredericks notes that outside Ecclesiastes the translation has much to commend
itself since it clearly carries the idea of “vain and valueless” in its
application to evils such as idolatry.[2] Ecclesiastes, however, seemingly applies it
to be just about everything in life (1:2; 12:8). Yet if the author intended it in this sense,
how could he possibly give words of praise to certain phenomena of life such as
joy?[3] Hence one looks for a different connotation
in some or all of its usages in the pages of this work.
Though thinking of life as a whole as
“vanity” (in its modern connotations) requires a great mental leap, it is not a
totally unreasonable one. When one
“must” wear the right clothes with the right designer labels, when one “must”
go to the right schools and the right college, when one “must” have the best of
cars and the best of homes, it doesn’t require a great effort to recognize that
people, by their behavior, are applying to all of their life a
term that, in its strictest sense, applies to appearance.
An older generation recognized this
lifestyle by calling it “keeping up with the Joneses.” It didn’t matter what you were; life
was all about what you appeared to be—especially in relation to others.
As a ruler, the author was
obviously subjected to this temptation.
In about as close an overt self-criticism as the book contains he
clearly includes himself as guilty of the offense. Otherwise, why such intense frustration over other
people’s [Page 31] weaknesses that did
not affect him personally unless he sensed something of the failure in himself
as well?
As king he would have
had access to the finest attire the nation’s revenues could purchase. Foreign potentates seeking favor would find
the giving of such garments as natural as modern ones give expensive gifts to the
President of the United States, as a sign of both good will and as examples of
the finest quality products from their homeland.
As the decades went
by, as perceptive a mind as the author’s could hardly avoid looking at himself
and his court and think in terms of aging peacocks: vividly attired but inevitably growing older
and with nothing to stop it. The outward
vestments as glorious as ever, but the bodies they hide, slowly declining and
growing ragged. Vanity it would all
appear and so it was.
But even though this
gap between reality and veneer represented the tension between human physical
vanity and actual decay, one has to “work at it” to make the connection. Hence it would be far better to seek out the
underlying concept “vanity” conveys and utilize that idea instead.
The original Hebrew
word is hebel (some prefer the transliteration
hevel).[4] Literally, it means “breath, vapor”[5] or
such parallel conceptions as “puff” and “breeze.”[6] (Elsa Tamez
suggests that the term is used literally only in Isaiah 57:13.)[7] Demonstrating that it is one of Qohelet’s key images or concepts, it is utilized on
thirty-eight occasions in the book of Ecclesiastes and five times in 1:2 alone.[8] In the entire Old Testament it is used only
seventy-three times altogether.[9]
If one desires to retain the type of
imagery carried by the original term, then “hot air” (= empty, useless, futile,
frustrating, etc.) provides the same general conception, though the colloquial
nature of the phrase argues against it being used as an actual translation. Duane A. Garrett suggests that the English
equivalent concept would be “insubstantial and transitory,”[10]
just as a breath and breeze are.
Hugo Odeberg opts
for “emptiness and inanity” both in order to provide a
roughly literal meaning as well as a symbolic one at the same time.[11] H. C. Leupold
suggests “fleeting and transitory”[12]
which both describes what a breath or vapor is as well as providing a
metaphorical concept of impermanence, instability, and inevitability of
change.
The Septuagint chose mataiotes,
which connotes “emptiness, futility, purposelessness, transitoriness.”[13] The Latin Vulgate selected the more specific vanitas, which conveyed the meaning of “emptiness”
and thereby omitted the other connotations the word could carry.[14]
The situation is further complicated by the
possibility that the actual meaning shifts from passage to passage (rather than
maintaining the same strict intention in each).[15] This scenario has in its favor the fact that
in any language a single word can significantly shift in connotation
according to its context.[16] Even so, it would still be useful to
recognize the basic conceptual intent that is being modified and adapted
throughout the book.
Furthermore, the emphasis on “all” being hebel (1:2) argues for an underlying consistency of
intent.[17] Yet when the contextual approach to
translating hebel is carried out, the
suggested translations represent “distinct qualities, not [Page 32] merely different nuances or colorations of
one concept”—arguing that Qohelet’s basic point is
being miscommunicated in one or more sets of
renditions.[18]
The NKJV marginal note on this verse
suggests several terms that might convey the underlying sense: “Absurdity.
Frustration.
Futility.
Nonsense.”
All share in common somewhat similar (but not identical) diagnoses of
how to describe that tension between reality and appearance. Of them, I personally prefer “absurdity.”[19] (See the discussion at the end of this
chapter “On Translating Hebel.”)
A
recognition of life’s absudity and its inevitable
futility, emptiness and frustration was recognized by others who we would not
normally connect with the wisdom tradition.
The Psalmist refers to it upon varied occasions (Psalms 39:5-6; 62:9-10;
144; 4). In the New Testament Paul
alludes to it as well (Romans
Yet in interpreting Qohelet’s thoughts we need to always keep in mind that he
avoided despair (especially its suicidal forms) by taking the approach that
through all is ultimately hebel yet, even
within that context, causes of joy and happiness can still be found and--when
found—should be enjoyed to the fullest.
As Elizabeth Huwiler rightly observes,[20]
In counterpoint to the relentless
insistence on hebel is a series of
affirmations of joy or pleasure in human existence—in eating, drinking,
working, loving (2:24-26; 3:22; 5:18-20; 8;15; 9:7-10; 11:7-8). . . . Such positive expressions most often occur in
complicated contexts that also include some negatives. These commendations of pleasure serve
multiple functions. They provide some
balance for the frequent “meaningless” judgments and underscore Qohelet’s conviction that there is some good in life. At the same time, they qualify and restrict
that goodness, putting it into the context of human limitations.
A particular challenge for interpreters is
the fact that Qohelet clings tenaciously to both
claims: all life is hebel,
and yet joy is both possible and good.
It is important not to make one of these claims the only message of the
book and dismiss the other as either a distraction or a grudging
qualification. Qohelet
insists on both, and often in the same passage.
Thus any interpretation that attempts to separate them to exclude one is
a distortion.
Having laid down his
premise of the absurdity of life, the monarch then illustrates the every
changing nature of life by both human and natural phenomena.
1. No one can fully profit from his hard work
because we die and leave it all to the next generation. In contrast to such human fragility, it is
only the earth that abides forever (1:3-4).
Although through the ages religious
theorists have used “the earth abides forever” as proof of the eternal
existence of the planet, in context the point is simply the earth’s permanence in
comparison with that of the individual human being. In comparison, the triviality of our sixty or
seventy or even eighty years of life is a mere second on the clock of the
earth’s lifespan, past and present.
[Page 33] The hard work an individual engages in is
not directly for the next generation (at least not beyond the time they become
adults), it is for his or her own advancement and prosperity. Yet all the countless hours of intensive
labor—both mental and physical—provides only a short-term advancement. The hour of death inevitably arrives and,
with it, the passing on to the next generation of what we have left
behind. That is fine and good, but that
does not alter the fact that we were primarily laboring for the improvement of
our own situation in life (even when that was intended to assist others
as well) and now all that has gone down the tubes.
From the standpoint of
the ruler, this is even more galling than to others. He--that age had very few “shes” in the position of monarch--could delegate only a
certain amount of work to subordinates.
No matter how much there was, there were decisions that could only be
made by the king. There were
disagreements among counselors that had to be decided. There were appeals from those outside the
government power structure.
The physical strains were few but the
mental ones many. And in the case of
Solomon we know that the outward appearance was one of vast prosperity and
success. Yet the recognition that all
the skill and work that had made it possible would be only of temporary value
to himself had to be galling. Inevitable, true, but
galling to the pride and self-respect.
When Jesus dealt with
the inevitability of death, He used it to raise two inter-related issues. The first was how can
even the greatest earthly success truly and permanently benefit you, if you
lose your soul in divine judgment? Then
you are in an even more tragic situation than if you had never had the wealth (Matthew
2. Perhaps at this point, the
king is seeking a logical palliative to relieve the grief that this brutal fact
of absurdity conveys to both his mind and emotions, for he next turns his
attention to the surrounding world and reminds himself that nowhere can this situation
be escaped: both the world and life is
always a system of continuous change in which nothing is ever permanent (1:5-7). The sun rises and sets every day (1:5). The wind is always moving from one direction
to another (1:6). Perpetual
cycles that never cease.
Another such phenomena: The rivers run into
the sea and yet they are never full.
Somehow the waters manage to return to the rivers to flow into the sea
yet again[21]
(1:7). An acute deduction but he makes
no pretense to understanding the means by which it occurs. We would think of the evaporation of water
into the sky and its transformation via rain clouds into water which returns
the water back to the rivers; whether some vague form of this idea was in his
mind or some other scenario or whether it was viewed as just one of the
“unsolvable mysteries of life” we do not know.
So far as his argument goes, the solution
is totally irrelevant. He just accepted
the fact that somehow it happened.[22] And, when one has no full or
[Page 34] adequate explanation
for a phenomena, what else can be done except accept the obvious even if we
can’t explain it?
3. Mortals are malcontents by nature (1:8): what we do is never enough. What we see never brings full
satisfaction. What we hear in the way of
compliments or possible future plans is never adequate to fully satisfy our
souls and dreams. We always feel there
is something “more” somewhere out there, something that will fill the void in
our emotions or thoughts or plans.
Rulers, of all people,
knew this specialy well. By the very fact that they were
blessed—sometimes cursed—with numerous advisers, they recognized that there was
always going to be more than one option available to them. Yet the king who was determined to serve the
best interests of his people could easily second guess himself: is this really the best approach? Will this really make the situation
better or is it only a band-aid when a more fundamental difficulty needs to be
addressed? Should I have chosen the
policy that other adviser recommended?
Yet at some point a
decision has to be made and the plans have to be made to implement it. Whether it is the “best”
decision or even only an “adequate” one.
There is nothing wrong
with making plans or taking advantage of opportunities that come our way. Even if they are only
“good” choices rather than the “best.”
The problem lies in never learning to be content while striving
for betterment. In that vein of thought,
Paul urged slaves to be reconciled with their slavery but if the opportunity
came to be freed to take advantage of it (1 Corinthians
Dealing with ancient Christian businessmen
who thought they could lay out their plans for success far into the future,
James warned them to hinge all their hopes on the strategies being in accord
with God’s purposes for them and others (James 4:13-16). Paul could even cite himself as an example of
the man who could go through anything yet not despair (Philippians
Yet none of this removes the pain. None of this alters the frustration, the
discontent, and, yes, the recognition of how absurd it is that such good
intentions, good plans, and hard work come to naught. At such points we walk in Solomon’s shoes.
4. However much change,
things never really change (1:9-11).
Technologically speaking this is absurd, but that is a twenty-first
century viewpoint and one that only became rational about a century or two ago.
Prior to then, technological changes were so few—and over such a
prolonged period of time--that they were aberrations even when they ultimately
altered society dramatically (such as in the printing press).
a. A “literalistic” approach to
the language. But our text is not
talking about technology. It is talking
about how society works and functions.
Corruption never dies out.
Time-servers never perish. Even
ideas never die, but are recast in accord with the stereotypes and illusions of
a changed culture. In the middle ages we
spoke of angels intervening on earth.
Today it is space aliens. The
labels differ but the underlying concept remains remarkably similar. Demons are obsolete. But among [Page 35] millions there is the belief that evil
aliens are putting implants into selected human beings and otherwise
experimenting with the human race.
b.
We turn
“forever” into a description of our own and possibly the past generation. The commonly accepted moral assumptions of
the society of my youth (1943-1961) were those that seemed to “always have been
this way.” Those growing up from say
1994-2012 likewise tend to assume that their moral views and cultural
assumptions reflect the way things “always have been.” But how diametrically contradictory those
moral assumptions actually are in the two periods!
We assume perpetuity because it has
remained the same so long as we are aware. In other words, we actually tend to describe
“always” as meaning “always in our lifetime” and, sometimes, even
including that of our parents through that second-hand knowledge.
c. Yet the image of permanence is
an illusion (
I write history. I will abstain from the ranting and raving
that could justifiably be included here.
But we might well re-word the old adage about those who forget history
will relive it: those who are
uninterested in history will ultimately be bitten by it (as its modern
equivalent takes us down a parallel road of tragedy and disaster). But those are the negative things of
history. Sadly we forget the successes
and positive ones as well.
How applicable is this
principle to Solomon? Rulers want to
make a mark, to do something distinctive.
Make war. Make peace. Gain their nation an international reputation
in one form or another. Yet try as they
might, whatever they’ve done has been done before. And even if they do defy the odds and
do something unprecedented, the world is more likely to forget about it than
remember it.
At its human most extreme, even genocide is
not unique to any one nation or any one century. It simply gets repeated, but with a different
set of victims.
Yet whatever happens—however tragic--it all
creates a temporary mark on the world but nothing more. The expanded borders you have earned at great
cost and blood your grandson loses. For
that matter, is there a large chunk of territory anywhere in the world that has
not gone through a succession of rulers, most of whom would have no use for
what came next and even less the regime currently in power?
The author could see enough of this happen
in his own lifetime and that of his contemporaries to have the dread
feeling—no, the grim acknowledgment of the hated fact—that his own
accomplishments would make no more permanent a mark than that of others of his generation. He might, hopefully, accomplish great
good. But it would soon be forgotten.
Verse 11 notes that
the “now equals forever” reflex is a permanent plague on society, “There is no
remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things that
are to come by those who will come after.” In other [Page 36] words, they will share our short-sightedness,
converting “today” into “forever.” And
forgetting how things used to be.
That is a poignant concept to me as a
historian. World War One
was once simply known as “the Great War” and “the war to end war.” Today I attended the birthday of my
son-in-law and my daughter asked me what the First World War was all
about. Millions of
dead. The borders of
On his own lesser scale, the ancient king
had recognized this reality. Of what
value is it to be the wisest king who ever lived (cf.
A consumer society
such as that of the western world—and to the extent practical, the competing
local equivalents throughout the world—encourage the very conspicuous
consumption that Ecclesiastes implicitly mocks.
It creates ever changing “styles” which are called “better” but
are actually only “different.”
Our western society
brags of its vast and unprecedented accomplishments. Yet it was not the technological west but untechnological antiquity that built the pyramids.
We have reached the
“end of history,” to use the conceited and foolish terminology of not that many
years ago. We have not created the
synthesis for all of the future. The
Greeks erected an impressive and influential culture, but they vanished, with
only key remnants preserved in later ones.
Likewise the Romans. Likewise medieval
Catholicism.
Each represented a powerful consensus of
educated opinion and seemed destined to rule forever, just like we think
our cultural-technological-ideological world will. But if our world is still around a thousand
years from now, our descendants will look back with just as much amazement at
our conceit as we do upon those of past centuries who thought that in them
the definitive and permanently defining point in culture and politics and
economics had been reached.
B. Hence We
Also Can Not Trust Wisdom to
Bring
Satisfaction
in Spite of
Its Rightful Appeal (
[Page 37]
The author consciously
set out to “seek and search out by wisdom” everything that could be learned and
deduced about the nature of the surrounding world (
One of the besetting sins of the college
world is a strange despising of even the educated outside their ranks. When I was a typesetter we once processed a
manuscript where the author dismissed a certain historian as a mere “writer”
while reserving the term “historian” solely for fellow academics. Yet that mere “writer” had uncovered
invaluable source documents that the professionals had overlooked or been
unable to talk the holders into sharing.
The challenge was not to their genuineness nor
to the interpretation placed upon them by the “writer.”
No, they lacked acceptability solely
because the right intellectual class had not handled, touched, and given them
their formal blessing. This ancient
ruler would have been appalled at such egotistical indulgence. To him knowledge and insight was to be the
right of one and all.
Yet wisdom-knowledge
seeking had a built in problem: it was a
“burdensome task” (
Proverbs 2:1-5 speaks of how one must
search for wisdom and insight anywhere and everywhere, treating the result as
being as valuable as silver. Paul does
not use the language, but he certainly conveys the “work” aspect of it in his
instructions to Timothy to “meditate” upon the Pauline writings (1 Timothy
Any one who has ever tried to establish the
historical truth on any major controversial topic will sympathize with
the Preacher in describing how “burdensome” the search for accurate understanding
can be. The checking
of facts. The
verifying of their credibility. The cross-checking against rival claims. Equally importantly,
evaluating the reasonableness of the reasoning being invoked.
After all, you can prove anything if you
“polish” the facts sufficiently. As an
under-graduate I was once assigned the task of proving the existence of
Atlantis, but I was limited to the six or seven sources quoted at length in a
certain textbook. I did very well on
that paper (an A- if my memory serves me correctly—and that was before
the more recent infamous era of grade inflation) but the teacher was astute
enough to add a telling note that she recognized full well what I had done,
“You’ve twisted, misrepresented, and distorted every fact you’ve presented.”
She was right. And I learned an invaluable lesson in how
easy it is to do it and to be on guard against it when I’d writing what I really
stand behind.
Someone once said that
inspiration (in the human sense) is 1% genius and 99% perspiration. We think of Solomon on his throne, calmly
conjuring up nuggets [Page 38] of
wisdom and insight. He knew better. Much of it had to be sweated out of himself and the sources he utilized.
The Lord assured that the finished product
came out right, but the king himself had to play his part as well. He was seeking, after all, not “revelation”
(as in the prophets, where everything came from God) but “wisdom” (which, in
this context, surely implies a degree of personal input and consideration not
required when everything is being directly revealed.)
This hard thinking had
brought him to a disturbing conclusion:
the unchangeability of the world in which we
live (
Furthermore, as a ruler, with the power of
life and death, he would never be so naïve to be an absolutist in such an
assertion: if you are executed, the
world has changed; if your life is spared at the last minute, the world has
changed—at least your world. In
the broader fields of taxation and foreign relations, decisions also have a
real impact.
His point is not to deny the obvious, but
to stress what change so often causes us to forget: that so much remains fundamentally impervious
to our attempts at alteration. And that
which does occur, will soon go unrecognized by future generations, so
preoccupied will they be by the “here and now.”
The author of The
New Class, decades ago, summed it up well:
Every revolution creates a new class of oppressors. It eliminates one set, but at the cost of
establishing a new one. Communism
suppressed the tyranny of the capitalists and replaced it with the tyranny of
the Communist bureaucracy.
We have abolished
slavery in most parts of the world. But
there are many places where if you wish to join a union you are in danger of
being fired and even death. On the other
(and equally repugnant level) there are places where if you don’t want
to join a union, you face unremitting harassment and even death threats.
The list could go on
endlessly. We can change so much. But never, ever enough. It drove the Preacher to distraction.
This literally pained
him: he had so diligently sought wisdom
and yet in that which he discovered he found disillusionment and sorrow (
And even the fact that we both “know” and
“understand” is no absolute assurance that we “know” and “understand” the right
things. For example, to understand the
economic underpinnings that often encourage international war can easily blind
us to the existence of tyrannies of left and right who act the way they do out
of pure self interest rather than anything economic.
At the other extreme, it is equally easy to
disguise every war as one of unmitigated idealism against tyrants while
ignoring those whose economic interests are injured or promoted by the
conflict. And the supreme irony: even when we fully recognize the existence of
both economic and personality predispositions, if we [Page 39] are the leaders of a nation we are still
going to have to do something. Whatever
it is, it is unlikely to be “purely” good or evil in either intent or result. Because of that need
to act in some manner.
The frustration such
insights created in a monarch had to be immense. Rulers have power. Rulers expect to use power. And rulers expect to see things change
when they use that clout. The
frustration comes not in gleefully looking over what has altered but at the
perception of how much one has utterly failed to change.
In
this section the author deals with two problems that plague much of thinking
today just as did that of the ancient world.
(1) First, that change will make things better. (Isn’t that the very rationale for change in
any positive sense?) There is a
tremendous “drag,” however, that resents fundamental changes and, when they
occur, prefers to ignore them and revert to the old ways. In some ways and in some fashions, of course,
change does “stick.” But there is
a fundamental inclination for reversion to what has been expected as the norm.
Hence, though some changes seem to
alter a society, yet in other ways, the same old problems remain. We alleviate poverty, but we never eliminate
it. Few would think of openly ridiculing
those who have less, but through “gratuitous consumption” they mock through the
ultra-expensive “prestige” clothes and vehicles they utilize. Are mocking words necessary
when visual insults do such an adequate job of “putting us in our place?”
We avoid most international wars, but at
any given time it seems a dozen or more major insurrections and civil wars burn
around the globe. Not to mention
“insurgent” groups of non-government forces who think it’s a holy cause to
distribute dead bodies in countries they aren’t from and, often, have no
interest in living within.
Back in the 60s or 70s I happened to read
through my mother’s copy of the newspaper published by the cigarette maker’s
union that she was a member of. The
topic of an editorial was how little peace there ever is in the world. It claimed that since the twentieth century
began there was only one year in which there had not been a major international
or intranational conflict being waged. I wouldn’t be surprised if they overestimated
the number of years of peace.
Peace is, to be blunt, a delusion, but we
can still pray for it, labor for it, and hope for it. Not because it can be, but because it should
be. And because wars’
excesses can be minimized and the number of conflicts reduced in number. Better “peace for some or more” than “peace
for none.”
(2) Secondly, Ecclesiastes shows us the delusion
that insight will cure a problem.
Critics have sometimes called this the fundamental failure of
psychoanalysis: that if you know why
you do something, that will enable you to avoid the failure in the
future. In the “real world” it rarely
works out that way. For example: You hate, perhaps, because you were abused as
a child. But that neither removes the
hate nor guarantees that you won’t act in a similar abusive manner.
A change of behavior requires the substitution—the
conscious substitution—of a different manner of action. When John the Baptist spoke of the need to
“bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8), that is what he had in
mind. In
[Page 40] accomplishing that,
there will be failures, there will be relapses, there
will be moments of despair. But so long
as we are alive there is still the possibility of change. But only if we persist
in the internal fight to bring it about.
On Translating Hebel
David A. Hubbard’s
commentary translation varies between individual passages with “mystery,”
“enigma” and “futility” being the most common renderings.[24] R. N. Whybray
believes that hebel is “mainly” used by Qohelet in the sense of “futility.”[25] Tremper Longman
opts for “meaningless” or “completely meaningless”—the latter when the plural
form is used.[26] More off-the-beaten path suggestions have
been “mystery,” “enigma,” and “irony.”[27]
Much scholarly debate has raged over which of these to use
and additional possible alternatives as well. One would be hard pressed to find any that has
not been challenged.[28]
As to the individual
translation alternatives, “vanity” deserves attention because it is the
traditional one. Yet (as we saw earlier)
it so heavily emphasizes the element of pride[29]
that its use in other contexts does not represent normal or natural English
usage.
“Meaningless” seems an
absurd translation for a work whose intent is to give meaning to what
has been observed and seen. Why even
make the effort if you really believe it is all meaningless? (As part of a suicide note,
perhaps, but surely not in a “philosophical” treatise to be shared with others
while one is still alive!)
“Futility” has been objected to by R. N. Whybray on the grounds that the author would not have
wasted his time in giving “practical advice to young men about the way they
should live if he had thought that life was ultimately futile.”[30]
Harold I. Leiman
believes that the word has two variable meanings, according to context. One is “worthlessness” and the other is
“futility,” the word we currently have before our attention. “Worthlessness,” Leiman
tells us, “refers to a situation where the objective is attainable but hardly
worth the effort, whereas futility refers to a situation where the objective is
impossible of attainment.”[31]
Yet the role of wisdom teacher assumes that
at least some of the goals can be reached and some are worth
obtaining: otherwise we make mincemeat
of the values the book of Proverbs was preserved to meet and encourage. Even assuming a different author(s) from that
book, the Preacher is clearly walking in the “wisdom tradition” which sought
wisdom to make the current life better and more understandable. To so thoroughly label anything and
everything (in 1:2 in particular) as “worthless” or “futile” seems an utter
repudiation of the very basis of the craft.
Even “absurdity” is not without grounds for challenge. Eric S. Christianson, who prefers this
alternative, concedes that the paring of hebel
“with phrases such as ‘a grievous ill’ and so on, carry a moral aspect.” Therefore, at least some of the [Page
41] things critiqued as hebel “Qoheleth often
clearly regards to be evil or unjust in themselves
(especially
Indeed, perhaps the word would be even more
appealing to Qoheleth since he is writing “wisdom”
type literature, in which the specifically religious element is secondary in
emphasis to the “this worldly” aspect of the teaching. Furthermore an outcome may be absurd either
because we did it, knowing it to be wrong, and should not be shocked at the
result or because there is a result that seems inappropriate and
uncalled for and it is absurd for that very different reason.[33] The first involves a religious or moral root
for the absurdity; the second roots it in the incongruity between intent and
result.
Footnotes
[1] For an attempt to prove that the author
did not intend for the reader to take his words seriously, see Harold I. Leiman, Koheleth: Life and Its Meaning (Jerusalem: Feldheim
Publishers, 1978), 30-31.
[2] Daniel C. Fredericks,
15-16, citing such texts as Deuteronomy 32:21 and Psalms 31:6.
[3] Ibid., 15-16.
[4] Such as Ibid., n.
1, p. 12.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Tamez, 34.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., n. 7, p. 156, although shifting the
number of usages in Ecclesiastes from the thirty-eight already noted to
forty-one.
[10] Garrett, 282-283. He regards the term as so flexible in actual
usage that it needs to be rendered variably, in accord with the different
contexts.
[Page
42] [11] Hugo Odeberg, Qoheleth: A Commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes
(Uppsala, Sweden: Almqvist
& Wiksells Boktryckeri,
1929), 100.
[12] Leupold, 41.
[13]
[14] Ibid.
[15] The shifting approach is the view of such
individuals as Kamano, n. 115, p. 56, and R. J.
Kidwell, “Ecclesiastes,” in Ecclesiastes [and] Song of Solomon, edited
by R. J. Kidwell and Don DeWelt (Joplin,
Missouri: College Press, 1977), 10.
[16] Cf. Kaiser, 48.
[17] Michael V. Fox, Qohelet,
36.
[18] Ibid.
[19] For a detailed defense of “absurdity” as
the preferred rendering, see Ibid., 29-51.
[20] Elizabeth Huwiler,
“Ecclesiastes,” in Roland E. Murlphy and Elizabeth Huwiler, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, in
the New International Biblical Commentary:
Old Testament Series (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers/Paternoster Press,
1999), 165.
[21] Longman (70) argues that in a Palestinian
context, the most likely sea for the author to have in mind would be the
[22] Leupold, 47.
[23] Buck, 514. In a similar vein, Longman,
75. Loyal Young, A Commentary
on the Book of Ecclesiastes (Philadelphia:
Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1865), 50, takes a very different
approach: he suggests that the author is
speaking subjectively rather than objectively, i.e., even if new things
occur they will not bring ultimate satisfaction to us any more than do the
things of the current world.
[24] Hubbard, 44.
[25] Whybray, Ecclesiastes
(Century), 36.
[26] Longman, 59, and n. 11, p. 59.
[27] See the citations in Ibid.,
n. 25, p. 62.
[29] Hubbard, 44, argues that the term “may”
carry such connotations and hence is inappropriate. If anything, “usually” would seem a more just
judgment on its English usage.
[30] R. N. Whybray, “Qoheleth as a Theologian,” in Qohelet
in the Context of Wisdom, edited by Antoon Schoors (Leuven-Louvain,
Belgium: Leuven
University Press, 1998), 264.
[31] Leiman, 31.
[32] Christianson, 85. We have inserted the scriptural references
from Christianson’s footnote.
[33] Cf. Fox, Qohelet,
46.