This week I’ve been reading one of my favorite books (if not my favorite) in the Hebrew Bible: Ecclesiastes. If you’ve never taken the time to read through the prologue (1:1-11) slowly you’re missing a real literary treat. Qohelet says, “Absolutely absurd! Everything is absurd!” (See Peter Enns, Ecclesiastes, 4, 31-32 for the logic behind this translation) Then the narrator goes on to use proofs/examples from creation: the sun rises, descends, and then goes “panting”(שׁואף) back to its place to do it again (v. 5); the winds blow to the north and to the south without end (v. 6); the rivers bring water to the sea, but the sea is never satisfied (v. 7); our eyes can never see enough nor can our ears hear enough (v. 8). Qohelet tells us this to remind us that everything is circular. One generation appears on the scene as another leaves the stage (i.e., dies), and this is all there is to it, always (v. 3).
The narrator summarizes Qohelet’s message before Qohelet is introduced: it is all absurd. There is nothing new (vv. 9-10). One day you will die, you will be forgotten, and your children and grandchildren will go about doing the same cyclical things you did until it is their turn to die, be forgotten, and give way for the next generation (v. 11).
Yes, this is a bit pessimistic. Yes, it presents a worldview void of the resurrection of Jesus. Yet I think it is one of the most real, gritty, earthy, existential sections of Scripture. Much like the psalms of lament, so Qohelet (and his narrator) give us permission to have those days when we wonder if there is any meaning in it all. It seems like we wake up Monday, run until Friday, relax for a weekend (for those of us lucky enough to have a M-F job), then repeat, until we die. Sometimes it seems meaningless. Where is it all going? What is the point?!
The image of the sun “panting” as it runs to move back into position to do it all over again makes me smile. It reminds me that we are part of this creation. We move in rhythm with nature and we share its plight. The earth was spinning around the sun before I was born and it will do the same when I decompose in my grave. In some sense this is freeing. Our insignificance should free us from having “messiah syndrome,” while allowing us to find surprising worth in the words of the psalmist (8:4) who wrote, “What is man (and woman!) that you are mindful of him (and her!)? and the son (and daughter!) of man (and woman!) that you care for him (and her!)? We are born, we live, we die, and this seems quite depressing….well, unless there is a resurrection from the dead, but that’s another topic for another time.
Hi Brian,
Have you ever read J. Stafford Wright’s brief on Ecclesiastes? It has had a profound effect on me. It can be found here: http://rediscoveringthebible.com/InterpretationOfEcclesiastes.html. His conclusion: “God has the key to life, and He is not going to give it to you.” Wright mentions Schofield’s take on it (the Reference Bible Schofield that is), and takes him to task. It might be dated, but most studies I found from the past twenty years reference it. Thought you might find it interesting if you haven’t already come across it.
Mark
I think Ecclesiastes is mainly written from the view of an apostate thinker.
Mark:
No, I had not heard of Wright’s piece. Thanks for pointing it out.
Patrick:
Uh oh! What does that say about my appreciation for its message?!
Hi Patrick: Your take on Ecclesiastes is the same as Schofield’s was. That view has taken hold of a large population of evangelicals because of his Reference Bible. And on the surface, given the suggestion that King Solomon is speaking in his “apostate stage” it would come across as you say. You might find J. Stafford Wright’s view challenging – and refreshing….and exegetical! (the link to his paper is in my post above). Mark
I read Ecclesiastes a number of times, but the last time I read it, I was in a battle-zone where stress levels were through the roof. I was stunned by the otherworldly wisdom of the book when I read it last. It really was a lightning rod that didn’t seem to be the product of human thinking.
The ‘all is vanity’ theme doesn’t strike me as the product of an apostate thinker, rather it strikes me as the product of ‘your ways are not my ways’. When a little hamster runs on a treadmill in a cage, he runs and runs and runs. He’ll get off for a bit, dig through some sawdust and get back on the treadmill and run some more. To the hamster, it is not vanity, but to us who watch from outside of the system it is vanity.
So too with all of the examples in Ecclesiastes which touches upon all human endeavours, which we absorb ourselves in, that consume us. The wisdom in the book is genius for a number of reasons. First, it shows how the foundation of human wisdom devoid of considerations of God, is grief and folly. Second, it considers human endeavours and shows them to be folly, but so too their opposite (i.e. the folly of toiling one’s life long; and for what? against the folly of leisure). Third, and most significantly, it begs the question ‘if human endeavour is folly’ what is the purpose of life?
It provides the answer that what God does stands forever [Ecc 3:10-14], suggesting that what isn’t folly is doing God’s work. Everything else is simply a blessing (including the previous things shown to be folly).
No, Ecclesiastes does not strike me as the product of an apostate mind, rather it strikes me as the only example we have of a type of genius thinking reflecting other-wordly wisdom, untainted by human limitation. Of all of the books in the bible, it is the purest.
I haven’t read enough to know if he’s right, but Greg Mobley has an interesting take on Ecclesiastes in his book “Return of the Chaos Monsters. He says that “meaningless” or “vanity” is better translated as a “breath” or “vapor”, and that the message of the book is that there is a divine blueprint and plan behind the universe but that it is beyond human understanding besides our occasional glimpses at a part of it.
Mobley is not a conservative, which makes his rejection of the nihilistic interpretation that much more interesting.
I don’t get the comment about Mobley not being a conservative. Does not being a conservative increase or decrease his ability to reason correctly?
Well, I’ve seen liberals who point to Ecclesiastes’ pessimism and say “see, this is an example of why we can’t follow the Bible too slavishly.”
So this is apparently a view held only by ‘liberals’, and are only liberals saying we can’t follow the Bible slavishly? I’m still not seeing the connection …
The “apostate view” may be inaccurate. I just see the comments and they don’t seem to conform to a man who is experiencing the joy and grace of God. I probably need to re-examine it.
It may be that Ecclesiastes was penned physically by Solomon (it’s not clear), however I agree that it doesn’t appear to be penned by someone ‘experiencing the joy and grace of God’, but I wouldn’t say that means it was penned by someone in need of the joy and grace of God either.
The writer is speaking ‘matter of factly’. The reason there seems to be little ‘joy and grace of God’ is because it was written by God Himself (Yahshua as wisdom personified as a Christophany). We see things like wealth and poverty, toil and leisure, portrayed as folly and cannot relate for either we are rich, or poor, or slaves to our industry or enjoy leisure, and so envy the opposite – so how can both be folly? This is evidence the writer had beyond normal human wisdom.
I see comments that expose the cyclic futility of life on earth like “All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.” and recognize it to be anachronistic knowledge (scientific even) beyond that of the science of the time, all further evidence this stated wisdom is not human (kind of like [Job 26:10] or [Isa 40:22]).
I don’t think the writer was a man at all, so clearly not a man experiencing God in an experiential way because the writer was God so God (as He experiences Himself). (Of the truth found in the bible, the truth here seems expressed in its most unadulterated form)
“for those of us lucky enough to have a M-F job” my evangelical quote of the week
Great article on a great book. Thanks for the article.