Ecclesiastes: An Earth Bible Commentary: Qoheleth’s Eternal Earth 9780567674593, 9780567674579

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For Colin By wisdom a house is built (Prov. 24:3)

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Abbreviations ATF

Australasian Theological Forum

BibInt Biblical Interpretation BHS

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia

BTB

Biblical Theology Bulletin

CBQ

Catholic Biblical Quarterly

JBL

Journal of Biblical Literature

JJS

Journal of Jewish Studies

JSOT

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

NRSV New Revised Standard Version SBL

Society of Biblical Literature

SJT

Scottish Journal of Theology

VT

Vetus Testamentum

WBC

Word Biblical Commentary

WJK

Westminster John Knox

ZAW

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

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Introduction

Long before human beings became familiar with the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’, Qoheleth pondered the workings of a perplexing world and announced that Earth1 is olam, eternal: ‘A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever’ (Eccl. 1:4). Scientists may wish to modify the claim of Earth’s eternity, but environmentalists, poets and readers of the Bible are surely united in the hope that Earth as we know it will not pass away. This present ecological reading and, indeed, this series of ecological readings,2 is undertaken in the hope that people of good faith will become more aware of the need to recognize Earth’s priority. Earth’s priority over humankind is chronological, but ecojustice now demands that that priority must not only be chronological. For the sake of the survival of all creation, humankind must take seriously the need to renew radically its stance towards Earth and to orient that stance towards prioritizing environmental ecojustice. To refuse to do so will consign Qoheleth’s claim of Earth’s eternity to a ‘vanity of vanities’.3 Ecological readings come under the umbrella of hermeneutical approaches to biblical texts, approaches that are accepted readily in the contemporary biblical world. What insights, if any, can the book of Ecclesiastes offer twenty-first-century biblical readers who take environmental responsibility seriously? Various strategies are possible in ecological readings, and it is wise to identify the particular hermeneutical approach that will be utilized in the course of this present reading of Ecclesiastes. One of the stated aims of the Earth Bible series is to recognize Earth not simply as a topic to be explored in the text, but also ‘as a subject in the text with which we seek to relate 1 2 3

It is common practice in Earth Bible Commentaries to capitalize ‘Earth.’ The Earth Bible Commentaries. Th is translation will be discussed at various appropriate points, and alternatives offered.

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empathetically’.4 An ecological reading need not simply mean identifying ‘Earth themes’ in Ecclesiastes with a view to encouraging responsible ecojustice behaviours. A more profound ecological approach, and one which is well suited to Ecclesiastes, is outlined in the ‘Introduction’ to this present Earth Bible Commentary series, which states that the preferred approach is one that attempts ‘to move beyond a focus on ecological themes to a process of listening to, and identifying with, the Earth as a presence or voice in the text’.5 In this vein, my discussions in the present book will focus mainly on two voices in Ecclesiastes, the voice of Earth and the voice of economy. Besides these two, there are other voices in the book of Ecclesiastes. These include the narrator, the writer of the book generally referred to as Qoheleth, King Solomon, the persona adopted by the narrator, the epilogist in 12:9–14 and, not least, the creator God, who is sometimes named but more usually an elusive presence with unspoken but insistent claims upon humankind’s behaviour. On a first reading of the book of Ecclesiastes, there can be confusion over just who is speaking at any one time, since the author appears to be speaking from more than one perspective. Kyle R. Greenwood conveniently names the various personae of the author as Qoheleth the Preacher, who speaks in the voice of true wisdom, Qoheleth as King Solomon, whose sometimes misguided wisdom causes the reader to reflect upon the nature of wisdom, and Qoheleth the ‘frame narrator’, to be found in the thirdperson narrative sections of chapters 1 and 12 and who speaks for and about Solomon.6 Throughout the book, the voice of Earth is subtly present, often seemingly unheard. Earth from an Earth Bible perspective is inclusive of the sun and the moon, the stars and the clouds and all that makes up the cosmos (Eccl. 12:2). It includes humanity and all the creatures that live together in the expectation of a safe habitat. Without Earth, there is no Earth community. When Qoheleth declares that Earth is olam, that is, eternal, he is speaking more particularly of Earth as the terrain from which we come, on which we act out our lives, and to which we return.

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Norman C. Habel, ‘Introducing the Earth Bible’, in Readings from the Perspective of Earth, ed. Norman C. Habel, Earth Bible 1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 37. Norman C. Habel, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening of Earth:  An Ecological Reading of Genesis 1–11, The Earth Bible Commentary series 1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011), 1. Kyle R. Greenwood, ‘Debating Wisdom: The Role of Voice in Ecclesiastes’, CBQ 74 (2012), 480.

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Distinct from the voice of Earth is the voice of economy. This is not necessarily an opposing or antagonistic voice in Ecclesiastes. It is simply a part of the reality of Earth community. But it is not a benign voice either. It is responsible for the rising and falling of people’s fortunes; it can bring wealth and security to a citizen, or it can consign the subject to poverty and misery. This ecological reading will not be treating economy as an enemy per se, but it will be most attuned to the voice of Earth as the primary patron and preserver of ecojustice. Sometimes Earth’s voice must take a stand against economy. The book of Ecclesiastes belongs in the body of biblical literature we know as the wisdom literature. In 1964 Walther Zimmerli’s ground-breaking article on wisdom and creation was published in English. In this article Zimmerli alerted us to the notion that ‘wisdom theology is creation theology’.7 Zimmerli made this claim in relation to the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. His argument is that in the wisdom literature, human beings are seen to be going out actively into the world created by God, evaluating it, and deciding how to live wisely in that world. In its search to understand the created world, and consequently in the richness of its reflections on creation, the wisdom literature of the Bible is especially attuned to hearing the voice of Earth. When we listen for the voice of Earth in Ecclesiastes, we are listening for a voice that resounds throughout creation, addressing humankind.8 There are several steps in an ecological reading as we listen for the voice of Earth. The primary task is to identify Earth’s presence in the text. Another step is to ascertain whether the voice of Earth is ‘suppressed, oppressed or celebrated’. To help with this process, a categorizing of the texts under discussion as ‘green’ or ‘grey’ is useful: Green texts are those texts where nature, creation or the Earth community is affirmed, valued and recognised as having a role and a voice. Grey texts are those texts where nature, creation or the Earth community are devalued, oppressed, deprived of a voice or made subject to various forms of injustice at the hands of humans or God.9

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Walther Zimmerli, ‘The Place and Limit of the Wisdom in the Framework of Old Testament Theology’, SJT 17:2 (1964), 146 –158. Gerhard von Rad uses this image of wisdom as the voice of creation in his Wisdom in Israel, trans. James D. Martin (London: SCM, 1993). It is appropriate to use it of Earth. Habel, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening, 2.

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The book of Ecclesiastes is a rare find in biblical literature. To my mind there seem to be no texts within the book that are clearly inimical to Earth. In that sense, then, ‘grey texts’ do not feature strongly in Ecclesiastes. Qoheleth consistently turns a positive gaze on Earth. There are some verses that speak of hard toil, but these do not seem to imply that Earth is alienated from humankind. Indeed, hard toil is constantly depicted as an enjoyable state for human beings. During the course of this reading of Ecclesiastes, I will make reference to the treatment that work receives in Genesis 3, where the ground is cursed and toil is arduous because of Adam’s action in eating of the tree. The Genesis 3 text serves as a ‘touchstone’ against which an Earth reading of Ecclesiastes might be compared or contrasted. This is not to prejudge the Genesis text, but to look to this major Earth text to see what light it can throw upon the treatment of Earth in Ecclesiastes, either by contrast or comparison. Two works are particularly helpful in this regard. Norman Habel’s treatment of Genesis 1–11 in this series is directly relevant to Earth in Genesis. The other book that offers insights for exploring what it means for the ground to be cursed is Francis Landy’s work, which compares the garden of Eden in the Song of Songs and in Genesis.10 The claim that Qoheleth views Earth in a consistently positive light needs to be qualified in two ways. First, this reading must come to terms with the most challenging of Qoheleth’s claims, that all is ‘ habel habalim, hacol habel ’, usually translated as ‘vanity of vanities, all is vanity’. What encouragement does Qoheleth give that justifies Ecclesiastes’ status as a permanently valid word for the ecological reader? How can Earth’s voice prevail, if all is vain anyway? And pertinent to this reflection, is ‘vanity’ a valid translation of hebel? A second way in which a rider should be placed on the claim that Qoheleth views Earth in a consistently positive light concerns the competing voice of economy. Contemporary ecological readers live in a world where environmentalists are often pitted, often too starkly, against workers who depend for a living on work that may be damaging to the environment. Although we are more aware of this dilemma today because of new understandings in climate and environmental science, an ecological reader of Ecclesiastes with an ear attuned to Earth’s voice will encounter texts where the voice of economy 10

Francis Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise:  Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983).

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may take precedence. Qoheleth’s world is one where slaves are a given, where treasure is hoarded (Eccl. 2:7–8) and siege works are raised, in violence, from Earth (Eccl. 9:14). We cannot judge Qoheleth anachronistically. It is unlikely that he would have thought of his work as a ‘green text’, or of himself as a committed environmentalist; nevertheless, an ecological reading of the book uncovers an ancient mind that is truly attuned to Earth and wary of the vagaries of economy. Earth is Eternal, but economy is volatile and unpredictable.

Habel Habalim The first qualification that needs to be addressed when claiming that the book of Ecclesiastes is well attuned to the voice of Earth is Qoheleth’s overarching claim that all is habel habalim (NRSV:  vanity of vanities). It is apposite to use the Hebrew term, rather than attempt a translation at this stage, because of the lack of consensus over the most appropriate English translation. If Qoheleth means that everything is futile, then Earth’s voice may as well fall on unhearing ears. The term has posed a problem for biblical scholars, Jewish, Christian and secular, since the earliest days of the canon discussions, with its apparent declaration that there is no meaning to be found under the sun. In practice, the question of the book’s canonical status has been settled. As far as all the Christian traditions are concerned, the book is accepted among the poetic books of the Old Testament, and in the Hebrew Bible it finds its place in the kethuvim, the Writings. Yet, in the hearts and minds of some, questions remain. Writing in 1955, but in a tone that still resonates today, Robert Gordis cautions his readers that ‘as a rule, modern students of Ecclesiastes have tended to regard it as basically heterodox if not downright heretical’.11 If this is indeed the case, then its canonical status is at least ambivalent! Much scholarly work has been done on the meaning of habel habalim. Time and again, Qoheleth states his position on some significant matter, only to subvert that position with that puzzling phrase. Qoheleth uses the word hebel or its equivalent habel more than thirty times in his work, and it is variously translated as ‘vanity’, ‘absurdity’ and ‘emptiness’, among others. The phrase

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Robert Gordis, Koheleth  – the Man and His World (New  York :  Bloch Publishing Company, 1955), 5 – 6.

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is a ‘crux interpretum’: it cannot be ignored, or glossed over, or consigned to the ‘too-hard basket’, because it is a key for unlocking Qoheleth’s philosophy. In the face of conflicting interpretations of the phrase, and almost neverending possibilities, this volume, Ecclesiastes:  An Earth Bible Commentary, will be guided by contemporary literary theory to draw some conclusions. An important contribution to the literary function of ambiguity has been the work of William Empson and his book Seven Types of Ambiguity. Doug Ingram draws upon this work to investigate whether these levels of ambiguity can be applied to Ecclesiastes.12 Ingram suggests that Qoheleth is in fact deliberately ambiguous. While the presence of ambiguity in Ecclesiastes poses difficulties for the commentator, it also allows new possibilities to emerge for an ecological reading, always provided that as much respect as possible is paid to the meaning of the text, where it is possible to ascertain what Qoheleth intended. The linguistic theory of Jacques Derrida on the propensity of language to deconstruct also proves helpful for understanding such an enigmatic and ambiguous work as Ecclesiastes.13 Derrida’s work alerts us to the importance of reading texts with a microscopic eye in order to be aware of the gaps and contradictions that exist in all texts. This is especially true of Ecclesiastes, where, indeed, such a microscopic eye is not so essential to observe the contradictions. Habel habalim is not simply a contradiction that has slipped through unwarily from Qoheleth’s pen, but is the macro-contradiction that challenges the whole raison d’être of the entire work. Can there be any wisdom if all is hebel? Is this the inescapable deconstruction:  just when some meaning seems settled, is there a constant deferral of that meaning so that it is ultimately elusive? If Earth’s voice in Ecclesiastes is to have any authority, this challenge needs to be confronted. Derrida’s notion of ‘executive force’ is helpful in deciding what meaning might be taken from the phrase habel habalim. ‘Executive force’ entails a decision the reader must make in the face of otherwise indeterminable texts. If Qoheleth has indeed intended Ecclesiastes to be deliberately ambiguous, then there is good reason to draw upon this executive power, which is the 12 13

Doug Ingram, Ambiguity in Ecclesiastes (London: T & T Clark, 2006). See, for example, the work of Jennifer L. Koosed, ‘Decomposing Qohelet ’, in Derrida’s Bible:  Reading a Page of Scripture with a Little Help from Derrida, ed. Yvonne Sherwood (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 247–259.

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prerogative of the reader of indeterminable texts. Qoheleth has implicitly given authority to the reader to do just that. As Derrida has argued, in dealing with language a decision is always needed, because there is no ‘natural’ status to language. That is to say, language does not have one absolute, determinable meaning, but is always understood in relationship to other words and concepts and to the experience of readers. In determining meaning in texts, the reader must make decisions about what meaning a word has in a particular context, and must be aware that decisions are made, not on the basis of some natural or objective force of language, but on an ‘executive force’ exercised by the reader. This does not mean that the reader can assign meaning arbitrarily, but it does mean that at some point the reader must be the determining authority for meaning. There is no ‘authorial presence’; there is only ‘the text’.14 In the case of Ecclesiastes, as with many other biblical books, this is patently clear. In a peripheral but opportune way, it leaves space for the voice of Earth to speak from the text. We have no way of being certain of the mind of Qoheleth. A survey of commentaries on Ecclesiastes reveals a wide range of opinions on Qoheleth’s philosophy, and those commentaries that are significant for scholarship are written in a careful and scholarly fashion, resulting from much research. Yet, habel habalim remains enigmatic. An ‘executive decision’ is needed to make sense of the phrase in the book of Ecclesiastes. This will entail a careful reading of the various contexts in which Qoheleth uses the phrase, some attention to the range of meaning of the words in the Bible and consideration of the work already undertaken by scholarship. Two translations of hebel in particular will be favoured. One is ‘absurdity’, based upon Camus’ understanding of the term, which is favoured by Michael Fox;15 the other is ‘breath’, which is the root meaning of the word ‘ hebel ’. Closely associated with the word ‘breath’ is the meaning ‘elusive’. ‘Breath’ is a particularly apt translation in an Earth Commentary, as it is the very ‘stuff ’ 14

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See discussion in Richard Beardsworth, Derrida and the Political (London and New York : Routledge, 1996), 8–10. See also Marie Turner, God’s Wisdom or the Devil’s Envy:  Death and Creation Deconstructing in the Wisdom of Solomon (Adelaide:  ATF Press, 2009), 38. See Derrida’s works, De la grammatologie. Collection Critique (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit), 1967 and in particular, ‘Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences’ in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass, Routledge Classics 2001 [1978] (London: Routledge). For those unfamiliar with Derrida, a clear explanation is given in Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson and Peter Brooker, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 4th edn. (London: Prentice Hall, 1997), 170–175. Michael V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 8–11.

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of life, and recalls the Genesis text where God breathes into the earth creature Adam, thus bringing him to life out of adamah (Earth). This Genesis text is echoed in Ecclesiastes 12:7, Qoheleth’s final text before the ultimate habel habalim of 12:8: Remember your creator in the days of your youth, . . . before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath (ruach) returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity. (Eccl. 12:5a, 6–8)

The word for breath is ruach, and this is the same word Qoheleth uses for ‘wind’, which is used in parallel with hebel: ‘all is vanity (hebel) and a chasing after wind (ruach)’. In Hebrew, therefore, ruach and habel, wind or spirit, share the same semantic range. In English translations, ‘vanity’ has been used in Ecclesiastes for hebel, but that is not the most appropriate translation; it is rather an attempt to make some sense of its usage in Ecclesiastes. Ingram reminds us of the difference between ambiguity and ambivalence. The term ‘ambiguity’ implies ‘some indeterminacy of meaning’,16 whereas ‘ambivalence’ suggests that the meaning of a word can be fi xed, but the fi xed meaning in one context may be in contradiction to its fi xed meaning in another context. Ingram offers the concept of ‘wisdom’ as an example, since Qoheleth at times portrays wisdom in a negative light (e.g., 1:18, 2:14, 6:8, 7:16, 9:11, 10:1) and at other times praises wisdom (e.g., 2:13–14, 4:13, 7:5, 10, 23, 8:1, 5, 9:17, 10:10, 12).17 The phrase habel habalim can be regarded as both ambiguous and ambivalent. The great variety of translations it has incurred attests to ‘some indeterminacy of meaning’, and a survey of the various contexts in which it is used suggests that it carries different connotations, depending on its context. In determining meaning of a particular verse where ambiguity or ambivalence makes settling on a particular sense difficult, we can combine insights from Ingram and Derrida to come to a decision that is helpful for making sense of Qoheleth’s stance. In the case of hebel, decisions will be made according to context and an appropriate understanding of the meaning in that context.

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Ingram, Ambiguity, 5. Ingram, Ambiguity, 12–13.

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Eternal Earth In the introduction to the Earth Bible series, Habel gives examples of hierarchical pairs relevant to an ecological reading. Some of these include the wellknown hierarchical oppositions such as culture/nature, male/female, mind/ body and reason/emotion. Habel adds to this list some other pairings that are relevant to the Earth Bible Project, such as animate/inanimate, spiritual/ material, heavenly/earthly and sacred and profane.18 The hierarchical oppositions that inhere in Western thought have been critiqued by Derrida, who argues, in part, that each member of an oppositional pair cannot be understood without reference to its opposite.19 Thus, the hierarchy tends to ‘deconstruct’, and in this way the margins and barriers between the pairs become blurred. An oppositional pair that is especially pertinent to this present reading of Ecclesiastes is ‘culture and nature’ or, the way this pair might be more specifically articulated in regard to the book, ‘the socio-economic environment and Earth’. The socio-economic environment is of course important for the survival and welfare of humankind, but one of the key themes of Ecclesiastes is the caution against the prioritizing of wealth when it impedes rather than expedites the welfare of Earth’s community. It has already been implied by at least one scholar that Qoheleth may be a ‘deconstructionist’, if it is acceptable to use an anachronistic term to describe this most puzzling of sages.20 In terms of the deconstruction of the hierarchy, it will be seen in the course of this present ecological reading that Earth and the socio-economic environment need to be understood and engaged with in relation to each other. Earth community presumes a socio-economic environment as well as an Earth environment. Qoheleth may be described anachronistically as an ecologist, if we consider that his so-called contradictions make sense if they are seen in the light of a basic contradiction inherent in his world: the instability of socio-economic realities in opposition to the stability of ‘Eternal Earth’. It is the stability/instability opposition that is most relevant to Ecclesiastes. Possibilities emerge for an ecological reading of Ecclesiastes when we allow the voice of Eternal Earth to be heard side by side with, and yet 18 19 20

Habel, ‘Introduction’, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening, 8. See Derrida’s concept of différance, in Writing and Difference, 1978, 38–39. Greg Dawes, ‘Derrida among the Teachers of the Law:  Deconstruction and Biblical Studies.’ Pacifica 9 (1996), 301.

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struggling against, the dominant, prevailing and yet unstable economic voice of Qoheleth’s world. Qoheleth’s frustration, so evident throughout the book and giving rise to his notorious contradictions, may be explained against the failure of his world to suspect the inability of the economic voice to bring stable prosperity. It is perhaps gratuitous to say that there is a lesson here for our world, and that the conflicting voices of economy and Earth in Ecclesiastes may offer insights for our time. The irony is that neither party is independent of the other. In the steps towards an ecological reading, identifying the voice of Earth is of primary significance. Another step in the process is deciding whether the text is ‘green’ or ‘grey’. Qoheleth regards Earth in almost unequivocally positive terms, and thus Ecclesiastes can be viewed for the most part as a ‘green’ text. It would be pointless, however, to sit back on our ecological laurels, having identified Ecclesiastes as one of the few biblical texts that are almost unequivocally ‘green’. A necessary step in an ecological process concerns action, and an ecological reading becomes truly ecojustice when it leads to transformative attitudes and action. Transformative action requires moving beyond identifying themes in theologies of creation to a stage where the reader takes up ‘the cause of the Earth and the non-human members of the Earth community’ in an ecojustice struggle.21 It is important to understand from the outset what is meant by the terms ‘Earth’ and ‘Earth community’. According to the series introduction, ‘the term Earth refers to the total ecosystem, the web of life, the domains of nature with which we are familiar, of which we are an integral part and in which we face the future’.22 Eternal Earth in Ecclesiastes has a slightly narrower focus, referring rather more closely to the natural world on whose stage human and animal action takes place. Seen as such, it is the necessary ground for survival of the ‘web of life’ and in this sense, then, it is the focus for ecological action. Without Earth, in Qoheleth’s sense, there is no Earth community, in a contemporary ecological sense. In another sense, Eternal Earth in Ecclesiastes is also the ground on which, and from which, the Creator interacts with and sustains creation, human and non-human. In Derridean terms, Eternal Earth subverts the opposition between 21 22

Habel, ‘Introduction’, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening, 2. Habel, ‘Introduction’, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening, 3.

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Earth and the divine. It is only to God and Earth that the word olam, referring to eternity, is ascribed in Ecclesiastes, and this remarkable insight of Qoheleth will be explored in the course of this reading. Olam is the Hebrew word used by Qoheleth for ‘enduring time’, that is, for eternity (1:4 and 1:10; 2:16; 9:6; 12:5). It is first used in 1:4 in reference to Earth, and elsewhere to indicate the ‘forever time’, which is normally the domain of God. From the beginning of the book, therefore, Earth hovers between the place of the created world and the domain of God. Its status is ambiguous. Qoheleth chooses a concept, olam, which is a concept properly of the divine, to describe Earth. As we move through the book, it becomes ever clearer that Earth bridges the perceived distance between God and creation. In view of the book’s claim that all is hebel, what hope and encouragement does Qoheleth offer the ecological reader? The introduction to this ecological series expands the question and asks how ecology ‘contributes to our world view of cosmology and how, in turn, this new ecological awareness influences our interpretation of that biblical tradition’.23 The biblical ecological approach is therefore double-faceted. It seeks to arouse awareness of our environment, and it seeks to use that awareness to read biblical texts with new eyes, as it were. This is the approach that the voice of Earth in Ecclesiastes would encourage us to exercise. If the book of Ecclesiastes is so challenging and confronting, how might we meet Qoheleth’s challenge? How might our interpretation help us to envisage a new world where Earth can make its voice heard? Considering the dire circumstances the world currently finds itself facing, the epithet ‘eternal’ may seem implausibly optimistic, indeed even deluded. That is why we need to differentiate between Qoheleth’s understanding of the term and our current scientific context. Science is making us more and more aware that Earth is in trouble; in fact, some scientists tell us that it is already too late to save Earth in its present state.24 This makes our current enterprise more crucial, and the term ‘Eternal Earth’ even more poignant,

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Habel, ‘Introduction’, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening, 5. During my writing of this commentary I attended a conference entitled ‘The Future of Homo Sapiens. A Conference in Honor of Phillip Adams at the National Library, Canberra, Australia’. The speakers included, among others, scientists, theologians and philosophers. One philosopher, Clive Hamilton, was adamant: the world will not survive the present crisis. Others offered more hope: life will survive (Andrew Gliken); another suggested that science will find a way through the crisis, although we currently do not know how; and another, Bishop George Browning, offered a Christian position that out of present suffering will come constructive action.

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and yet meaningful. But is it realistic in an evolutionary world view to speak of an Eternal Earth? Cosmologically speaking, we know that Earth will one day come to an end. Viewed from a pragmatic human perspective, however, Earth could be considered eternal, since Earth could conceivably go on forever without humans. Even if Homo sapiens and life as we know it are obliterated, Earth may remain as a desert unable to sustain life. On the other hand, humankind cannot survive without Earth. Thus Earth’s ‘death’ means the death of humankind. It is well-nigh impossible that Qoheleth had such a scenario in mind when he wrote ‘A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever (1:4)’. For the contemporary reader, there is something of scientific truth in his statement, at least comparatively speaking. Earth’s lifespan is unknown, but lifespan is quantifiable for the ‘generations’ who inhabit Earth. If Earth is the stage upon which the generations live out their existence, there will be no existence if the current generation does not face the ecological crisis. It is in our power to ensure that Earth is able to sustain its inhabitants for as long as its allotted time remains.

‘Of What Advantage?’ Juxtaposed with a stable Earth sits the instability of economic fortune. Qoheleth constantly poses the question, ‘Where is the profit?’ ‘Where is the advantage?’ The most frequent word is yitron, with associated words being yoter and motar. Yitron is used ten times, yoter seven times, and motar once. The triliteral root is ytr (fifteen times, according to Roland E. Murphy)25 and its basic meaning is ‘surplus’ or ‘advantage’. It is most likely that the basic meaning of yitron derives from the world of the economy. Underlying its usage by Qoheleth, then, is a constant reminder that human beings are at the mercy of life’s economic ebb and flow. Throughout the book, however, the word is used in its broader sense. In 3:19 the narrator wonders what advantage the human has over the animal, because both will return to dust; in 5:9 he ponders the issue in reference to the land, but here the text is too corrupt to make sense; in 6:8 he wonders what advantage the wise have over fools. In 25

R. E. Murphy, Word Biblical Commentary 23: Ecclesiastes (Dallas, TX : Word Books, 1992), xxix.

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light of its usage in verses such as these, some argue for an existential rather than a utilitarian meaning, that is to ask, where does value lie for the human being?26 If the dust of the Earth is the final end for all, human as well as animal, and if wisdom is of no more value than folly, is there any point to the search for meaning and, indeed, to a worthwhile existence? In 3:9 Qoheleth asks, ‘What gain have the workers from their toil?’ In view of the recurring theme of enjoyment of Earth’s produce as a reward for toil, this question has overtones in both the economic and the existential sense. Since the boundary between the economy and ‘the good life’ is so fluid, it is appropriate to ponder the way in which the voice of Earth and the voice of economy may indeed overlap, and indeed deconstruct. Some of the most intriguing comments on Ecclesiastes by biblical scholars relate to its contemporary relevance. Sidney Greidanus rightly claims, ‘Ecclesiastes offers a unique perspective on human life – a perspective that is extremely relevant for the church today’.27 In an earlier period, Robert Gordis had this to say of the book: There will be times when it will not suit the temper of the age, but it will never be outmoded as long as the systole and diastole of human life survives, and men [sic] fluctuate between progress and reaction, growth and decline, hope and disillusion.28

Poignant and accurate though these sentiments may be, the very relevance of Ecclesiastes to everyone who has experienced the ebb and flow of life seems to pose a problem for some who would like to think that every biblical book somehow needs to be specifically and explicitly ‘religious’. A work of universal human value, even when it is a canonical biblical book, does not seem to be acceptable in its own right, unless it refers consistently to the divine presence. Thus some Christian interpreters seek to read the book in the light of Christ, some mindless of Jewish concerns, and others more sensitively. Even 26

27

28

Ingram, 133, referring to Ellen F. Davis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000). Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from Ecclesiastes. Foundations for Expository Sermons (Grand Rapids MI/Cambridge, UK, William B.  Eerdmans 2010), 2 . Greidanus also quotes Ryken, who calls Ecclesiastes ‘the most contemporary book in the Bible. Ecclesiastes is a satiric attack on an acquisitive, hedonistic, and materialistic society. It exposes the mad quest to find satisfaction in knowledge, wealth, pleasure, work, fame and sex’. See Philip Graham Ryken, Ecclesiastes. Why Everything Matters (Wheaton, IL: Crossways, 2010), 274. Gordis, Koheleth, 3.

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within the ranks of those who value the Hebrew Bible in its own right, the abiding worth of Ecclesiastes is often under attack. According to Gordis’s reading of Qoheleth, because all events are predetermined, human activity, including the search for ultimate truth, is useless.’29 At the same time as he cautions his readers, Gordis can also assert with conviction that the book of Koheleth ‘is dedicated to teaching men [sic] of every age and clime to love life and to understand it, and, accepting its limitations, to rejoice in its glory’.30 These are the fundamental questions that Qoheleth ponders. At times he even suggests that non-existence may be preferable to a life beset with trouble (6:3). Indeed, death is a constant presence in the book, as we shall see. Yet pervading the book is an insistent voice that there is joy to be had under the sun. An authentic ecological reading of the book of Ecclesiastes does not simply pose the utilitarian question of whether there is an advantage for humankind in looking after the Earth; it seeks rather to respond to the wisdom Earth offers for a life of integrity as responsible members of Earth’s community.

The Author and His World There can be confusion over the names Ecclesiastes and Qoheleth. In the English translation, which in turn comes from the Latin, the book is usually referred to as Ecclesiastes, while ‘Qoheleth’ is derived from its title in the Hebrew Bible. It is a helpful convention to use Ecclesiastes when speaking of the book, and to use Qoheleth when speaking of the author, and that will be the approach in this work. Despite careful and extensive scholarship, there are many questions that remain unanswered about the book and its author, and they will most probably remain unanswered. But some information can be established, sufficient to allow readers to perceive something of Qoheleth and his world. The name we give to the author, that is, Qoheleth, is in itself a puzzle for biblical scholars. The best clue we have for its meaning is the root form of the word, qhl, with its likely meaning of ‘assembly’ and often used of the ‘assembly of the Israelites’ as the people of God. Thus in Deuteronomy 31:30, Moses

29 30

Gordis, Koheleth, 52. Gordis, Koheleth, x.

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calls together the qol qahal Israel, the whole assembly of Israel, as he prepares to give his last address. Similarly, in Joshua 8:35, Joshua reads the words of Moses to the whole assembly of Israel, the qol qahal Israel. The word qoheleth is based on the same triliteral root. The name is constructed grammatically as masculine, but the qhl root is a feminine singular active participle.31 This mixed construction has parallels in other words that indicate an office, such as Ezra 2:55 and Nehemiah 7:57 where hassophereth is the same pattern and seems to indicate a proper name or possibly an office-holder.32 It may well be that Qoheleth is simply the writer’s name, but if we take Qoheleth as a name, but eponymous for an office, one meaning we could reasonably assign to it is ‘an assembler of sayings’, useful in his office as a wisdom teacher. The danger here, though, is an oversimplification of the complex nature of his work, if we were to understand his name to indicate simply an assembler and instructor of someone else’s wise sayings. There are many identifiable themes consistently threading their way through the book, which argue against a disparate collection of sayings simply assembled by a detached sage. The ideology and passion of the book speak volumes about a sage deeply concerned with ‘the way of the world’. Qoheleth himself does not help us much as we seek to discover more about him. Within the world of the text, the writer identifies himself as ‘I, the Teacher . . . king over Israel in Jerusalem’ (1:12). In the superscription, the narrator narrows the identification further to ‘the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem’ (1:1). It was only during the reigns of David and his son Solomon that Jerusalem was considered to be in the united kingdom of Israel. The north seceded under Rehoboam, son of Solomon (see 1 Kings 12). Thus Solomon is the most probable contender for the title in 1:1, ‘son of David, king in Jerusalem.’ However, the book clearly reflects a later provenance than the Solomonic era. Since Solomon’s wisdom is legendary, it was not unusual for his name to be adopted pseudonymously (see the Wisdom of Solomon (also known as the Book of Wisdom), The Song of Solomon, and The Odes of Solomon). As a literary construct, the identification ‘King in Jerusalem’ means that the book is attributed to Solomon only indirectly, and is an example of one of the book’s ambiguities. An advantage of this 31 32

Murphy, Ecclesiastes, 1. See an explanation of the grammatical form of the word in Fox, A Time to Tear Down, 160–161.

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ambiguity is the potential it offers for exploring the literary symbolism of the character of Solomon as the sage par excellence without being overly confined by the real historical context. Combined in the one voice is therefore a doubly authoritative persona: the Teacher, and Solomon. Indeed, as noted already, in terms of its literary construct, this voice takes on several personae. The ambiguity continues as we seek to place the work in a historical context. There is no certainty over the date of writing, with both the Persian and the Hellenistic periods competing among scholars as likely contenders. That places the book somewhere between the fift h and the second centuries BCE. Most scholars opt for the Hellenistic period, but a credible alternative for the Persian era is proposed by C.  L. Seow. Basing his arguments on linguistic and socio-economic grounds, Seow places the book’s origin in the Persian period, ‘specifically between the second half of the fift h and the first half of the fourth centuries B.C.E’.33 He argues in particular that Qoheleth’s use of the word šallit (2:19, 5:18 et  al.) reflects the legal documents of the Persian period, and by the Hellenistic period it was used more generically and not in this technical sense. A cautionary note must be exercised since it is feasible that Qoheleth may have used the word in its earlier more technical sense although writing in a later period. Seow backs his claim of the book’s dating to the Persian period with evidence of two Persian loanwords (pardes in 2:5 and pitgam in 8:11).34 Since there is no clear evidence of Persianisms in the Bible prior to the Achaemenid period,35 this would establish an earliest dating point for the book, rather than a definite dating. Seow’s claim that the book reflects the socio-economic conditions and language is not irrefutably convincing, and his dating has been challenged,36 with most scholars dating the book in the later Hellenistic period. A final dating point is provided by the discovery of textual fragments of the book in Cave IV at Qumran dating from the mid-second century BCE, and by the probable use of the book

33

34 35

36

C. L. Seow, Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Yale Bible). New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 21. Seow in particular points to the pattern of the name ‘Qohelet’ itself, which fi nds parallels precisely in the Persian period and no other. Seow, 20. Seow, Ecclesiastes, 21–36. The self-designation of the Persian rulers, c.  550–330 BCE. Also known as the First Persian Empire. See the carefully argued treatment of Seow’s conclusions by Dominic Rudman, ‘A Note on the Dating of Ecclesiastes,’ CBQ 61 (Jan. 1999), 47–52 . Rudman concludes that the Persian period is feasible, but the use of the word does not preclude a later period.

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by Ben Sira (180 BCE; Greek trans. 164 BCE).37 Once again, linguistic clues are garnered to promote the claim of a Hellenistic context. According to this school of thought, there are similarities with Mishnaic Hebrew that indicate a date towards the end of the second century BCE. A pressing claim for a Hellenistic milieu concerns the thought world of the book, with its positive attitude to pleasure. Dating from the fourth century BCE, the Epicureans believed that pleasure was the greatest human good. This philosophy did not propose that any extravagance of pleasure was the way to happiness, as is sometimes popularly supposed, but it rather advocated limitation of desires in harmony with the way of the world. While Epicureanism may not be a direct influence on Qoheleth, there are some similarities to Qoheleth’s thought. Both Qoheleth and the Epicureans see pleasure as a human good, and neither approves the exploitation of the pleasures that Earth can offer. As such, neither is inimical to ecojustice. The later Stoics (third century BCE) reacted against the philosophy of pleasure, but as with many reactions, a trace of the opposing thought world remained. For the Stoics, the way to achieve happiness was to shape one’s will according to the workings of the world. One of their chief concerns was the relationship between cosmic determinism and human freedom. A similar issue occurs in Ecclesiastes, where a key issue is the apparent irreconcilability of God’s inscrutability and autonomy, side by side with a just world order. It is notoriously difficult, however, to base an argument for a book’s provenance on similar intellectual propensities. As can be seen with the Stoics and the Epicureans, opposing philosophies may be constructed on the basis of a reaction against the other, and therefore may operate with similar language and concepts. A later book may be based upon concepts from a much earlier era; or an earlier work may give rise to later ideologies. As Zimmerli pointed out in his article, ‘The Place and Limit of the Wisdom in the Framework of Old Testament Theology’,38 a chief concern of Ecclesiastes was how the human being could live in the world with a measure of freedom in the face of the divine freedom and inscrutability. This concern could be seen as a concern of any sage observing life within the framework of a religious belief, and is therefore

37 38

Murphy, Ecclesiastes, xxii. Zimmerli, ‘The Place and Limit of the Wisdom in the Framework of Old Testament Theology’, SJT 17:2 (June 1964), throughout.

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a universal theme, able to speak to readers of any era and not bound to philosophies of any particular era. Notwithstanding the uncertainties of Seow’s comments in regard to the dating and therefore the setting of the book, from the author’s general depiction of the milieu of the book, the reader is enabled to envisage Qoheleth’s world in vivid and lucid terms. It is a world where the money economy impinges heavily on its inhabitants and may be part of the reason Qoheleth imparts such a sense of frustration to his readers. Qoheleth’s frustration comes from his life experiences in an unpredictable world where fi nancial stability can never be taken for granted, for his world was one of fluctuating economic fortune. Archaeology attests to the prevalence of coins from the fi ft h century BCE onwards, in Israel as well as other Ancient Near East settings, and epigraphic evidence provides numerous references to taxes, wages, loans, rent and costs of goods and services. 39 Gift s and bribes were prevalent and patronage was a way of life. Property grants were given to favoured individuals, who could in turn grant portions of the property to others in return for taxes and military service, as needed. The right to the property was not absolute, however, nor was there an automatic right of inheritance, and the property could be taken away or, upon the death of the grantee, could be given to another rather than an heir. Although the system was somewhat arbitrary, there was some means of appeal. There were opportunities for socio-economic advancement. Slaves, for example, might borrow money, invest it wisely in business ventures, and accumulate wealth. At the same time, the possibility of a reversal of fortune hung heavily over the population. It may be that the term šallit (master) refers to the land barons who were instrumental in the rise and fall of fortunes.40 Against this background, much of the anxiety and exhortations of Qoheleth to enjoy what pleasure one may, while one can, begins to make sense. Qoheleth warns the reader that ‘the lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is vanity. When goods increase, those who eat them increase; and what gain has their owner but to see them with his eyes?’ (5:10–11). Qoheleth pits the fluctuation and 39 40

Seow, Ecclesiastes, 21. See the helpful discussion in Seow, Ecclesiastes, 23–28.

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arbitrariness of economic fortune alongside the stability of an Earth which is olam, and finds the economic system sadly wanting and a chasing of the wind. Ironically, it seems that Qoheleth’s vision of God is somewhat akin to his view of the unpredictable overlords who had the power to give and the power to take away one’s portion. In Qoheleth’s world nothing can be taken for granted, including life itself. That is why the spectre of death is an everpresent consideration in the book. Notwithstanding this view of God who can give and take, almost on a whim, that same God is depicted as one who has given to humankind the voice of Earth to urge insistently, in the caprices of fate, for a better way of living and a better way of seeing. The ambiguity inherent in Qoheleth’s view of God raises ecojustice questions of how the will of the Creator may be carried out by those at the mercy of cosmic and divine uncertainty. In opposition to the vicissitudes of the money economy, Qoheleth recommends the things of Earth: ‘Sweet is the sleep of laborers, whether they eat little or much’ (5:12). It is a message that our own times should heed. As ecologically attuned readers, we might hear these cautionary remarks as the voice of Earth informing us and speaking through the sage. Since our approach in the present series is focused upon ‘a process of listening to, and identifying with, the Earth as a presence or voice in the text’ in order to ‘take up the cause of the Earth and the non-human members of the Earth community by sensing their presence in the text – whether their presence is suppressed, oppressed or celebrated’,41 texts such as 5:12, quoted above, remind us that the voice of Earth, when we listen to it, encourages us to celebrate Earth in harmonious and mutual enjoyment. In turn, Earth is then secure from human attitudes of greed and exploitation. In a world of unstable economic fortune, the voice of Earth is a muted yet powerful force in the text. It speaks of life cycles that ebb and flow and will outlast the most vociferous and self-interested economic system. As we begin our ecological journey through the book of Ecclesiastes, the time is opportune to attune our ears to the wise voice of Eternal Earth, speaking through the words of Qoheleth.

41

See Habel, ‘Introduction’, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening,2.

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2

Ecclesiastes 1:1–18

Contents In chapter 1 of Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth proposes his steadfast belief in two realities. The first of these is that all is ‘ habel habalim’ and the second is that Earth will endure forever: Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.1 (habel habalim amar qoheleth habel habalim hacol habel) What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever (olam). (1:2–4)

An understanding of these two statements is crucial for undertaking an ecological reading of the book. If all is ‘ habel habalim’, what does it mean to say that Earth is ‘olam’, eternal? Are they mutually exclusive concepts? If all is ‘vanity of vanities,’ as the NRSV translates the phrase, is Eternal Earth 2 a travesty, an absurdity itself? At the start of this ecological reading, therefore, this text needs to be carefully explored and the parameters set for an understanding of hebel. As we explored in Chapter 1, there are several ways in which we can understand the term, and some of these offer possibilities that are in harmony with Eternal Earth. Two meanings in particular I will settle upon. The fi rst is a particular meaning of ‘absurdity’, and the second is the meaning ‘breath’. Both of these have a claim to Qoheleth’s intended purpose. 1 2

All translations come from the NRSV unless otherwise indicated. I capitalize both words when the sense indicates personification.

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Structure of Ecclesiastes 1:1–18 1:1–3 Setting the scene for perplexity: Of what advantage? 1:4–11 Eternal Earth and its cycles: generations come and go 1:12–18 Solomon’s quest: the search for wisdom is a chasing of the wind

Analysis of the Text What Do People Gain if All Is habel habalim? (1:1–3) The term habel habalim emerges first in Ecclesiastes 1:2. If ‘vanity’ and ‘futility’ are indeed the only possible meanings, then this opening sets the scene for an overarching ethos of pessimism throughout the book. It seems at first reading that Qoheleth is saying that there is endless frustration in trying to work out the ways of the world, because in the end everything is habel anyway. The Hebrew text habel habalim is a construct form where normally hebel hebalim might be expected. In its emphatic expression, as here, it indicates an absolute. That is to say, it is often translated as ‘vanity of vanities’, but ‘absolute vanity’ might be better idiomatically. Another reading, among many others, could be, ‘Utter absurdity, says Qoheleth, utter absurdity, everything is absurd’. It is not a foregone conclusion, however, that habel is unambiguously negative. Several interpretations of the word are possible, and many have been employed throughout the history of interpretation. Other possibilities are ‘absolute emptiness’ and ‘absolute futility’. The Greek of the Septuagint uses mataiotes, which signifies emptiness, vanity or futility. Michael V.  Fox is prominent among those who favour the translation ‘absurd’, based upon his understanding of the concept of absurdity in the work of Albert Camus. In particular, Fox sees an analogy for Qoheleth in Camus’ work, The Myth of Sisyphus, in which Meursault, the chief character, challenges the common belief that there is some innate logic guiding the world. Through Meursault, Camus explores the issue of suicide and asserts, ‘It is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning.’3 He comes to the conclusion that ‘even 3

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York : Vintage International, 1955), v.

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if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate’.4 In his preface to the 1955 work, Camus explains the stance he takes in the book: Written fifteen years ago, in 1940, amid the French and European disaster, this book declares that even within the limits of nihilism it is possible to find the means to proceed beyond nihilism. In all the books I have written since, I  have attempted to pursue this direction. Although ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ poses mortal problems, it sums itself up for me as a lucid invitation to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert.5

The connection Camus draws between suicide and the apparent absence of meaning in life calls to my mind a poignant newspaper article I  read some time ago concerning a young British artist’s suicide alone in a wood in Scotland, immediately upon the closing of his very successful exhibition. It sums up for me the sense and the tragedy of the word ‘absurdity’. The article concluded with this summation of the tragedy offered by one of the artist’s friends: People so often forget that artists aren’t just showmen . . . So much is measured in terms of money and celebrity. You have a big show  – as Angus (Fairhurst) did – you give everything to everybody and then suddenly you are sitting all alone in an empty studio waiting for the inspiration for your next work to come. If you are not money-driven, you are left with this terrible emptiness. You are struck by the ridiculousness of it all.6

The questions raised by Camus and the above statement remind us that Qoheleth was not alone in his struggle with the creative process, and it would seem that a sense of the absurd is indeed a constant in human existence. Key words in the above quotation from the newspaper are ‘emptiness’ and ‘ridiculousness’. These are not simple words. In the vignette referred to above, they connote something of the vulnerability and the profundity of the universal condition and the overwhelming grief that takes root when it seems that life has lost its meaning. And yet, amidst the nihilism, art works endure, encouraging humanity to hear a different voice. Within the framework of the human-made ‘absurdity’ of World War II, and during his relatively short life, 4 5 6

Camus, Sisyphus, v. Camus, Sisyphus, v. Sue Webster on her friend, the young British artist Angus Fairhurst, quoted by Rachel CampbellJohnston in a report in The Times, London, Wednesday, 2 April 2008, 13.

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Camus sought to create life in the desert. Like Camus after him, Qoheleth faced the desert of life’s frustrations, and pressed on in the search for wisdom. The question of the ‘innate logic’ of the world, which Meursault challenges, is a classic question of the wisdom tradition. In the specific approach of Qoheleth, the answer may well be that Earth is innately logical in its enduring cycles of life, but it is constantly frustrated by the vicissitudes of fortune and the exploitation of economic masters. The voice of Earth has constantly to be filtered out against the often strident voice of economy. Through Qoheleth, Earth’s voice may have something very important to say to contemporary ecology in a world that must somehow balance economic realities with environmental responsibility. Etan Levine makes the pragmatic assessment that Qoheleth was aware that all wisdom is about the absurdities and follies that people commit and about the accidents that happen. Levine says, ‘Biblical hokmah is no less than the art and science of how not to be a damn fool’. He adds less bluntly, but perhaps no less profoundly, ‘Through personal experience as well as by empirical observation, Qohelet was well aware that ultimate wisdom is a chimera and can never be attained’.7 With these examples in mind, ‘absurdity’ is an appropriate term to express the ethos of the book: that even amidst the frustrations and disappointments of life, there is a belief that the search for wisdom is worthwhile. When we consider the wider structure of the book, the poem of 1:3–11 is paralleled by the poem of 11:7–12:7, and, framing this structure and lying on either side, is the thematic statement of 1:2 and 12:8, ‘Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity’. Addison Wright refers to the sections as ‘Poem on Toil’ (1:3–11) and ‘Poem on Youth and Old Age’ (11: 1:3– 11).8 Anton Schoors is less poetic but no less descriptive in his terminology of ‘impossible to do something new’ and ‘enjoy as long as you can’.9 The poems express two of the themes that recur throughout Ecclesiastes: that toil is an inescapable human activity, that life is transient and that death is inevitable. Considering the existential realities of toil, life and death in human existence, 7

8

9

Etan Levine, ‘Qohelet’s Fool: A Composite Portrait ’, in On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990), 279. Anton Schoors, Ecclesiastes. Historical Commentary on the Old Testament (Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 2013), 15; he refers to Addison G. Wright, ‘The Riddle of the Sphinx: The Structure of the Book of Qoheleth ’, CBQ 30:3 (1968), 313 –334. Schoors, Ecclesiastes, 18–19.

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there is undoubtedly a satirical quality in the ‘absolute absurdity’ refrain. Whether the mocking is deliberately contemptuous on Qoheleth’s part, or whether it is cautionary counsel, it is an example of the quintessential ambiguity of Qoheleth’s stance. To my mind, however, it is well-nigh unthinkable that Qoheleth would treat his existential themes so exquisitely, and then dismiss their significance with deliberate contempt by means of his ‘absurdity’ refrain. Camus’ idea of ‘life in the desert’ sits more easily with Qoheleth’s philosophy. In the poem of 1:4–11, Eternal Earth makes its first appearance. If the word hebel carries the negative connotations that so many biblical interpreters believe, we are faced with the question of whether Earth has any value in its own right and what kind of witness it can give to its Creator. Indeed, we must assess whether any ecological reading is possible, or at least, whether there is any point to an ecological reading of Ecclesiastes. Doug Ingram’s suggestion that hebel is deliberately ambiguous is particularly helpful, as it offers another approach to translating the word, and understanding the meaning of the phrases where it is used. Deliberate or not, ambiguity allows for a variety of legitimate interpretations, if supportable by the text. ‘Breath’ is the basic sense of the word hebel, with ‘ephemeral’, ‘insubstantial’, ‘unknowable’, ‘incomprehensible’, ‘mystery’ and ‘irony’ also offered as possibilities.10 To narrow the margin of misunderstanding Qoheleth’s intent, perhaps the word’s basic meaning of ‘breath’ or ‘vapour’ might offer the touchstone for keeping within a legitimate range of meanings. It is also the word most connected with Earth, where, with its connection with ‘wind’, we might think of it as Earth’s own breath. By logic or creative association, ‘breath’ lends itself to meanings such as ‘insubstantial’ or ‘elusive’, words already offered by interpreters. ‘Meaningless’ seems to be outside this range of possibilities, unless by a derived understanding of ‘insubstantial’. The word hebel occurs sixty-six times in the Hebrew Bible, with five of these being the name Abel and two in the extant Hebrew versions of Ben Sira. Thirty-eight (nearly 60%) occur in Qoheleth alone.11 Usage of the 10

11

See for example W. Sibley Towner, ‘The Book of Ecclesiastes. Introduction, Commentary and Reflections’, in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 5, ed. Leander Keck et al. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997). James L. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), discusses ‘absurd’, 23; and ‘futile’, 35. William P. Brown, Ecclesiastes (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 2000), 22 , gives a helpful survey. Michael V. Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), 30.

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word in Deuteronomy 32:21, Isaiah 57:13, Jeremiah 8:19, 10:8 and 51:18 indicates that it connotes powerlessness or uselessness in reference to the idols.12 Isaiah 57:13 pairs the word with ruach, as in Ecclesiastes 1:14, ‘All is vanity and a chasing after wind’: When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you! The wind (ruach) will carry them off, a breath (habel ) will take them away. But whoever takes refuge in me shall possess the land and inherit my holy mountain (Isa. 57:13).

Again the word is used in reference to the powerlessness of idols vis-à-vis the power of YHWH in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah: They made me jealous with what is no god, provoked me with their idols (habelim). So I  will make them jealous with what is no people, provoke them with a foolish nation (Deut. 32:21). Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols [habel]? (Jer. 8:19) They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction given by idols (habalim) is no better than wood! (Jer. 10:8) Everyone is stupid and without knowledge; goldsmiths are all put to shame by their idols (pesel); for their images (nisek) are false, and there is no breath (ruach) in them. They are worthless, a work of delusion (habel); at the time of their punishment they shall perish. Not like these is the LORD (Jer. 51:17–19).13

C. L. Seow claims that however we translate the word it always connotes a negative meaning.14 This position is challenged by Ingram with his suggestion of ‘mysteriousness’. This is also the sense favoured by Staples in earlier times.15 Once again, we are faced with ambiguity, since ‘mysterious’ can mean something profound and of God, or something unknowable in a purely neutral sense. 12

13 14

15

Ingram, 94, citing Graham S. Ogden, Qoheleth, second edition (Sheffield:  Phoenix Press, 2007), 19. See also the use of hebel as ‘insubstantial’ or ‘worthless’ in Proverbs 13:11, 21:6 and Psalms 78:33. See C. L. Seow, Ecclesiastes. A New Translation and Commentary, The Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven, 1997, 102. Cited in Ogden, Qoheleth, 32.

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If we accept the translation ‘breath’ as one of our preferred options, the sense becomes, ‘All is breath and a chasing after wind’. A ‘chasing after wind’ is also an ambiguous statement, because when it occurs in its construct form it can mean ‘a chasing of the wind’. The question then is whether it is the seeker of wisdom doing the chasing, or whether it is the wind that is doing the chasing. If it is the seeker, the phrase implies impossibility; if it is the wind doing the chasing, the phrase takes on an ominous tone. The sense of the phrase is probably best understood in relation to hebel as ‘breath’, with its sense of elusiveness. The human seeker can no more grasp the meaning of wisdom than she can catch the wind: ‘And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind’ (1:17). These two senses of hebel, as ‘absurdity’ and ‘breath’, go some way towards an understanding of Qoheleth’s perspective on the vexations of life and the impossibility of human beings grasping any absolute meaning. It is not that there is no wisdom to be eventually found; rather, terms such as ‘breath’ and ‘wind’ remind the reader that wisdom is elusive. Against the stability of Eternal Earth, the human seeker is involved in a Quixotic, never-ending quest.

Qoheleth’s Introduction to Eternal Earth and Its Cycles (1:4–11) The basic cosmic elements of Earth are identified in the poem of 1:4–7. A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow.

Earth, breath and wind, the fiery sun and the endless sea are the elements that form the eternal cyclic movements of Earth community. Against this cyclical background individual humans live and pass on, unremembered (1:9–11): What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.

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Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been, in the ages before us. The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.

Unlike many biblical texts, Qoheleth’s treatment of Earth is not inherently anthropocentric, but arguably, Earth-centred. Qoheleth speaks of the going and coming of generations, but it is only of Earth that he makes the claim of absolute constancy. Yet there are interpretive difficulties in Qoheleth’s stance. In 1:4–7 Qoheleth speaks of Earth as stable, unchanging, even eternal, while nature ebbs and flows. Commentators generally fall along clearly defined lines of anthropocentric and cosmological understandings of Qoheleth’s treatment of Earth. They are divided on the meaning of ‘generations’ in this verse and divided on whether Qoheleth refers to Earth itself, or to humankind, or to the whole cycle of nature. Is the sage’s primary focus on the contrast between a cyclical movement within nature on the one hand and Earth’s permanence on the other, or is he referring to ‘the passing of human generations across the stage of an unchanging world’?16 In his interpretation of ha-aretz, the Earth, Michael Fox interprets the text through an anthropocentric lens, claiming that ‘The key to understanding this verse lies in recognizing that ha’arez here does not mean the physical earth, but humanity as a whole –“ le monde” rather than “la terre” ’.17 He offers as examples of this usage: ●

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Genesis 11:1, which reads, ‘Now the whole earth had one language and the same words’ 1 Kings 2:2, which expresses King David’s dying words, ‘I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, be courageous’ Psalm 33:8, which reads, ‘Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him’

Fox’s interpretation of ‘Earth’ as all humanity in the texts to which he refers is debatable. Genesis 11:1 at least seems to be unambiguous since in its reference to ‘one language’, humanity would seem to be indicated. But 1 Kings 2:2 is more muted in its reference and Psalms 33 even more so. Either 16 17

Graham S. Ogden, ‘The Interpretation of dwr in Ecclesiastes 1.4,’ JSOT 34 (1986), 91. Michael V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up. A Rereading of Ecclesiastes. (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 171.

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could refer to Earth per se just as easily as to the inhabitants of the Earth. Further, the inhabitants of Earth could include flora and fauna. However that may be, these references, while enlightening, do not categorically determine the meaning of Earth in Ecclesiastes. Similarly, Ecclesiastes 1:5–7 gives rise to scholarly divisions on whether the verses refer to the human situation or simply the cycles of nature. R. N. Whybray argues from an anthropocentric viewpoint that the purpose of verses 5–7 are ‘at least in part – to set the human situation in a wider context by the use of these three analogies drawn from natural phenomena: the behaviour of the sun, the wind and the rivers’.18 His argument implies, therefore, that ha-aretz is to be seen primarily as the context for humanity rather than as a character in its own right. Writing in his Anchor Bible Commentary Proverbs, Ecclesiastes of 1965, R. B. Y. Scott says that the expression ‘under the sun’ in 1:3, ‘What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?’ means ‘on earth’, and he summarizes vv. 5–9 as being a reference to the natural world. He sees in Qoheleth’s cycles of nature and the passing generations the Heraclitean notion of the perpetual flux of all things. Here Scott has moved into the language of eternity, a word that Qoheleth more directly attributes to the Earth. Qoheleth’s doctrine of the periodic destruction and renewal of nature may have been influenced by the Stoics, although not exclusively, as the concept of the destruction of nature followed by a new cycle of creation was also common in Pythagorean thought.19 In Scott’s approach, the centres of meaning begin to shift as the phrase, ‘under the sun’ becomes equivalent to ‘the earth’, but in effect this interpretation means that Earth loses its unique character and simply becomes a geographical, or at least a spatial, topos. In the later Anchor Bible volume on Ecclesiastes, written more than thirty years after Scott’s commentary, Seow interweaves cosmological and anthropological themes. Reminding the reader of hebel ’s negative implications, he states ‘It is important to note . . . that hebel in Ecclesiastes is used specifically of human existence and human experience of earthly realities, and not of God or of the cosmos in general’. Seow further argues, ‘the view that ‘everything’ is hebel, then, reflects not so much Qoheleth’s cosmology as 18 19

Roger Norman Whybray, Ecclesiastes. Old Testament Guides (London, T&T Clark,1989), 106. Charles Francis Whitley, Koheleth. His Language and Thought (Berlin and New York : Walter de Gruyter, 1979), 170 –171.

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it does his anthropology. What is hebel cannot be grasped – neither physically nor intellectually. It cannot be controlled’.20 By associating the negative concept of hebel with anthropology, Seow sees the cosmos as ‘good’ in Qoheleth’s thought, and without the negative connotations associated with the claim that everything is absurd. We may surmise from Seow’s interpretation, that ‘everything is absurd’ is used only in relation to humankind and its endeavours. Earth becomes detached from absurdity and is therefore qualitatively different. Here there are implications that Earth is a subject in its own right. When considering Qoheleth’s view of Earth as a constant, central to his world view and around and through which all things move, it is timely to recall the difference in cosmological world views between the ancient world and ourselves. We are of course familiar with the Copernican notion of our planets moving around the sun, and therefore, scientifically speaking, we should have a solar-centric rather than an earth-centred view of the cosmos. Qoheleth, however, is not thinking purely in physical, scientific terms, but in ideological terms. In reference to the relationship established between God and Earth, it is worth noting that the word olam occurs also in Proverbs 8:23, where hokmah  – Wisdom  – is creating alongside God from olam, and Daniel 7:14, which speaks of sholtan olam, the eternal dominion presented to the one ‘like the human being’ (NRSV). Earth in Ecclesiastes shares common biblical ground with Wisdom of Proverbs 8 and with the eternal dominion of the ‘son of man’ (in Hebrew bar enash) of Daniel. Moreover, in Ecclesiastes 3:14 Qoheleth reminds us that whatever God does endures forever, that is, olam. Earth’s endurance is related directly to the work of God. This relationship drawn between God and Earth, through the use of olam for both, becomes crucial for an ecological reading.

Solomon’s Search for Wisdom Is a Chasing of the Wind (1:12–18) With the stage set in 1:1–11 against the backdrop of the Earth and its cycles, 1:12–18 progresses to the idea of the search that occupies the sage: I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy

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C. L. Seow, Ecclesiastes, 102.

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business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I  saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. I said to myself, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.’ And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I  perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow. (1:12–18)

In 1:13–14, the sage states two things quite clearly: ●

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His task is the search for wisdom in all the created realities under Heaven, that is, on Earth and It is a God-given task.

It matters not that Qoheleth finds the search frustrating and in the end the cause of much anguish; as he has said in 1:8, ‘All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing’. Notwithstanding his frustration, he pursues his allotted task with dedication. Qoheleth’s frustration comes about because he feels powerless to effect change. This is clear from the proverb of verse 15 where the Solomonic persona expresses his frustration that the world sets up a barrier in the effort to effect change: ‘What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted’. Exactly what the crooked back symbolizes is not clear. It may refer to the ‘crooked back’ of the elderly, as Norbert Lohfink argues, and some support for his belief is to be found in the claim that God is the one who makes crooked. Since the couplet is in the passive, it is likely that it is a divine passive and the agent is God – that is, God is the one who makes crooked, and God is the one who causes something to be lacking.21 As Bernon Lee points out, if quoted outside a specific historic and literary context, the proverb loses some of its 21

Norbert Lohfi nk, Qoheleth: A Continental Commentary, trans. Sean McEvenue (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 48.

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force.22 We do not have access to the original thrust of the proverb. At the same time, it is clearly significant to Qoheleth placed so near to his opening argument, and in a sense it summarizes his entire message. If we may paraphrase Qoheleth’s statement, his sense is that he goes in search of universal wisdom, his task is God-given, he is the most fit for the task in his persona of Solomon, he seeks also to understand the opposite of wisdom – that is, madness and folly – and yet the search is unrewarding, for meaning is beyond even the wisest of human beings. The difficulty inherent in interpreting this enigmatic verse is clear when we look at the history of its interpretation, which Aaron Pinker usefully provides.23 Pinker himself sees the aphorism of 1:15 as an expression of a fundamental law of nature, that the principles built into God’s creation cannot be reversed; indeed, Pinker sees a similarity in modern chaos theory, where a succession of probable events, including Earth itself, undergo irreversible processes over time.24 Some help in interpreting the proverb, and some backing for Pinker’s hypothesis, may be found by looking at 7:13, where the proverb occurs again. Here Qoheleth explicitly identifies the one who makes crooked, namely, God: ‘Consider the work of God; who can make straight what God has made crooked?’ A converse statement can be found in 7:29, ‘See, this alone I found, that God made human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes’. Here a moral judgement against humans is implied, with the implication that humankind makes crooked what should be straightforward. Ecclesiastes 7:13–29 comes in a series of proverbs, seemingly disjointed but in fact having a noticeable theme of death and aging and nostalgia for the ‘good old days’. It is highly unlikely that in the proverb of 1:15 Qoheleth would be attributing to God anything morally ‘crooked’. Michael Fox points out that ‘twisted’ (or crooked) and ‘lacking’ in 1:15 cannot refer to human actions ‘as if to say that no one can right wrongs that others have committed’.25 Michael Carasik, however, speaking on the parallel thought of 7:13, claims 22

23 24 25

Bernon Lee, ‘A Specific Application of the Proverb in Ecclesiastes 1:15’. JHS, www.jhsonline.org/ cocoon/JHS/a006.html Accessed 3 October 2016, 1. Aron Pinker, ‘The Principle of Irreversibility in Kohelet 1,15 and 7,13’, ZAW (2008), 387– 403. Pinker, ‘Irreversibility’, 400. Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions, 176. When Michael Carasik refers to Qoheleth’s mention of ‘crooked’ in 1:15, he notes that Qoheleth does not name the ‘perpetrator of the crookedness’, and

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that Qoheleth ‘places the responsibility for the difficulty of straightening things out in a perverted world on the one who created them that way’.26 Both Lohfi nk and Daniel Fredericks see an existential theme in the reference. For Lohfi nk, the focus is on the difficulty of changing an alreadyordained world, and he sees 1:15 as suggesting ‘the bent back of an old man  – the subtext is an early reference to death’.27 Taking both lines of the proverbial statement together, Fredericks says:  ‘The days or years not assigned to a life, event or activity cannot be counted: they do not exist!’28 In this interpretation, 1:15 is a reference then to the fragility of existence, human or non-human. Lohfink again turns to the natural world to explain line 2 of the couplet, ‘what is lacking cannot be counted’. He offers two explanations of the saying, one referring to the merchant but the other referring to farmers who are faced with a meagre harvest. If God is indeed the agent, we can assume that the line does not refer to anything morally crooked. We are therefore in the realm of events that are beyond our control. Qoheleth’s frustration is understandable. Human beings have to work within the limitations of the given world and certain realities cannot be changed.29 As Fox says, ‘Our life, including the work God gives us, lies within the realm of that which we cannot fully comprehend, the enigmatic’.30 One understanding of the phrase ‘chasing the wind’ includes the meaning ‘shepherding’,31 as the shepherd attempts to herd the wind as he would herd the sheep and goats. Offering another perspective on the re’ut ruach, the chasing of the wind, Fredericks reads it as a subjective genitive, that is, the wind is the one who is the agent of the striving or chasing, and translates it, keeping to Qoheleth’s alliteration, as ‘the whim of the wind’.32 Fredericks’ translation of ‘the whim of the wind’ does focus on what is one of Qoheleth’s

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he suggests that the reference could be ‘Qohelet’s clever warning about the curves and switchbacks the reader may expect to find in the book’. Michael Carasik, ‘Qohelet’s Twists and Turns’, JSOT 28 (December 2003), 206. Carasik, ‘Qohelet’s Twists and Turns’, 206. Lohfi nk, Qoheleth, 48. Daniel C. Fredericks and Daniel J. Estes, Ecclesiastes & the Song of Songs (Nottingham: Apollos, InterVarsity Press, 2010), 82 . Lohfi nk, Norbert. Qoheleth:  A  Continental Commentary. Translated by Sean McEvenue, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). Fox, Contradictions, 171–172. Seow, Ecclesiastes, 122. Fredericks and Estes, Ecclesiastes, 82.

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main grievances, the powerlessness of human beings in the face of a challenging world as ordained by God. It is clear from verses 1:16–18 that Qoheleth is under no false illusions about the world. He finds pain in it, but he also finds joy. He discerns, but fails to penetrate, the world’s enigma, but he is also absolutely convinced of the presence of a God in control of everything. Qoheleth does not seek to reconcile the paradoxical realities. In that way lies frustration. Qoheleth investigates the world as it is. He is not naïve enough to try to change what he cannot, but that does not stop him seeking to live wisely.

Hearing Qoheleth’s Earth As a book whose central tenets include the powerlessness of human beings to find wisdom and effect change in an enigmatic world, what enduring word of hope and encouragement can Ecclesiastes offer? As we summarize Qoheleth’s quest, we find that his stated God-given task is the search for wisdom in all the created realities on Earth. Qoheleth uses his literary construct of the persona of Solomon to symbolize the seeker after wisdom. Several human figures share a speaking place in Ecclesiastes: the Teacher (Qoheleth); the narrator, hidden from us but present in voice; and Solomon. In 1:12 the sage claims the persona of Solomon for himself. It is accepted by all but the most fundamentalist of readers that Solomon is a literary construct for the purposes of the book. The ecologically aware listener should discern the voice of Earth speaking through each of these characters. The overall picture of the character behind the book is of a Teacher, gathering his various sayings together, studying them, coming to the conclusion that what meets the human mind as it pursues wisdom is confusion and frustration. To use the persona of Solomon as the one in pursuit of wisdom but who finds only frustration is surely a mark of genius on the part of Qoheleth. The figure who sets out to seek wisdom is the one in the Jewish tradition who is most qualified to do so, the one to whom God gave ‘a discerning heart’ (1 Kgs. 3:12), Solomon himself. Yet Qoheleth’s Solomon is singularly unsuccessful, at least on a preliminary reading of the book, and the contemporary reader might well consign Qoheleth to the disheartening category, rather

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than the uplifting category that we might hope for from the biblical wisdom literature. To use Solomon as the exemplar of the failure of wisdom is a bold, imaginative step. Ecclesiastes is full of nature references. Whether or not we accept Lohfink’s argument that ‘crooked’ and ‘lacking’ are to be understood in reference to the natural world, they are undoubtedly references to the world as God created it. In Ecclesiastes 1:12–18, Qoheleth shares with the reader the frustration he encounters as he searches for wisdom amidst the realities of the created world. Qoheleth is not seeking God; for Qoheleth, God is a given. But the modern reader can take a lesson from this ancient sage who never gave up the quest for wisdom, even when it all seemed a ‘chasing of the wind’. Two tasks, it seems to me, might be regarded as the God-given task of the ecologically aware biblical reader: to search for wisdom in care for the Earth, and in some way to effect change for the better. Qoheleth has set an enduring example for the ecologically aware person of faith who is sometimes at a loss to understand how to live wisely in a perplexing world. The voice of Earth through the words of Qoheleth is a testimony to the mystery of God underlying the universe, and all that we do and all that happens within it. Even Solomon fails, according to Qoheleth. Solomon is the Wise Seeker par excellence and therefore is the perfect persona for Qoheleth in his quest for wisdom. Qoheleth’s Earth has an important message for the ecological imperative. Earth consists of a world in constant flux, an enigmatic world under the domain of an inscrutable God. Tantalizingly, God and Earth share the common attribute of olam, the eternal presence. When Qoheleth claims that it is a world crooked and lacking, he is not passing judgement on God or Earth. Instead Qoheleth’s Earth might counsel us to live within the uncertainty, enjoy what can be enjoyed and endure what is painful. Nevertheless, Qoheleth refuses to give up the task that is wisdom, and he is resolutely convinced that the mystery that is God pervades all our doings. On one level it seems that the idea of the ultimate grasp of wisdom is absurd. As Qoheleth says, ‘I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind’ (1:17). Levine’s statement reminds us that Qoheleth’s conviction is based upon his empirical observation. For the contemporary reader used to the scientific mindset,

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‘empirical observation’ is a prerequisite for any scientific theory. Does our empirical observation of global warming and climate change discourage us from action and lead us to see rather that the search for wisdom in this crisis may simply be madness and folly and a ‘chasing after wind’? Or does the voice of Earth in Ecclesiastes insist, against the prevailing economic wisdom, that it is possible to create life in the desert? As we read these early lines of the text of Ecclesiastes, it should not be missed that Earth offers the attuned listener a voice that argues against nihilism and despair. Where the ecological crisis at times threatens to engulf us, quite literally in some areas,33 the continuance of the cycles of life offers hope and encouragement. Earth, and not humankind, is olam, but in the cycle of generations that come and go, human beings are continuously included. These lines serve as a reminder to contemporary humans that the present generation will pass, but our conduct now needs to ensure that Eternal Earth will still exist for those who will come after us.

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I am thinking here of the tsunamis of recent history, and of landscapes disappearing in Pacific Islands such as Kiribati.

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Ecclesiastes 2:1–26

Contents In chapter  2, Qoheleth develops his theme of pleasure. He has already expressed his disappointment that the search for wisdom brings only frustration. Now he opts for the pursuit of pleasure when wisdom eludes him. That is not to say, however, that Qoheleth believes that wisdom and pleasure are opposites. Laughter he casts aside as folly, but he tests pleasure to see if it plays its part in the gaining of wisdom: ‘I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” ’ (2:2). In seeking pleasure, Qoheleth is still engaged in his search for wisdom.

Structure of Ecclesiastes 2:1–26 2:1–11 The king’s search for pleasure: productive work 2:12–23 Of what use is wisdom? 2:24–26 God’s gift: eat, drink and find enjoyment in toil

Analysis of the Text: Ecclesiastes 2:1–26 Solomon’s Search for Pleasure; His Building Works; He Gains Greatness (2:1–11) What counts as pleasure for Qoheleth, in the persona of Solomon, includes the enjoyment of the fruits of Earth and a bond with Earth through labour. For Qoheleth the fruits of Earth are not to be enjoyed frivolously; rather, he garners Earth’s produce in his industrial efforts. He drinks wine to cheer his

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body, but not so that it affects his mind in the pursuit of wisdom. The wine he drinks, he replaces by planting vineyards. He builds houses but while his works indicate a taming of nature, as was expected in the ancient agricultural civilization, they are productive, ordered works. He does not acquisitively rob Earth of her water, but collects water in small dams to water Earth’s own fruit trees and vineyards: I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. (2:4– 6)

This is not a ‘grey’ text where Earth’s voice needs to rise in protest against the activities of Solomon. All is done with care for Earth’s commodities so that waste does not occur. Solomon does not treat Eternal Earth as a limitless resource, but by his works he ensures there is plenty to be left for the generations that come after him. He plants trees and garners water for them. Labour is extolled as something that can bring enjoyment. It is pertinent here to recall the Epicurean philosophy that may have influenced Qoheleth, although because of dating complexities (Epicurus: late fourth to early third centuries BCE) there is no guarantee of a direct influence. Pleasure does not necessarily imply wastefulness or frivolity. The Epicureans believed that pleasure was the greatest human good, and they extolled it as such, but they also urged the limitation of desires in tune with the way of the world. In this way harmony and the absence of pain could be achieved. They did not approve the exploitation of the pleasures that Earth can offer. There is a sense of harmony in this text when the speaker refers to productive work. This, too, is a source of pleasure. Speaking from an ecojustice perspective, the worker gives back to Earth what Earth has first given. In this way, Eternal Earth and its community are perpetuated. In contemporary society, organic vegetable growing is no longer seen as the domain only of the committed idealists or even, in the opinion of some, of the eccentric fringes of society, but is becoming mainstream. Market demand is the reason given. It seems that consumers are realizing that Earth can offer gifts in a chemical-free environment. Of course, it is easy for middle-class Western society to have the choice, but regardless of the scientific debate, the

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acceptance of this way of growing could be indicative of a raised awareness of a more natural way of relating to Earth, a more ‘hands-on’ relationship. Even as I write this, a scare has erupted in Australia in regard to frozen berries imported from China. A  comparatively large number of consumers of the berries have contracted hepatitis A. The outbreak of the disease has convinced many consumers of the wisdom of sourcing fresh berries. Fresh berries are plentiful in a country such as Australia, but of course they are seasonal. The wisdom of the ages would have us eat according to Earth’s cycles, but the convenience of snap-freezing and plastic packaging have overridden this wisdom. There is something deeper in these occurrences than simply health issues. The human desire for fresh and organic produce suggests a movement towards, rather than away from, a more immediate experience of the things of Earth. At the same time, the use of plastic wrapping is at a dissonance with the natural produce, and often, catastrophically, ends up in the stomachs of marine animals and fish. In spite of the harmonic tone of Ecclesiastes 2:4– 6, the reader can detect an ominous thread running through the ensuing verses, which speak of slaves and concubines, of possessions and treasures taken from the provinces: I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house; I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces; I  got singers, both men and women, and delights of the flesh, and many concubines. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. (2:7–9)

It is clear that it is indeed the persona of Solomon who is intended. Solomon was known for his many wives and concubines, for his treasures and his building projects, as well as for his wisdom. Yet all these comforts and treasures cannot satisfy him, because he knows that it is a chasing of the wind: Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing of the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (2:10–11)

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Wisdom Is Greater than Folly, but Death Overtakes Everyone (2:12–16) Here the ambiguity attached to the phrase ‘chasing of the wind’ is particularly apposite. Is the message simply that Solomon is wasting his time in seeking pleasure through possessions? Or, poetically speaking, is it the wind who is the agent, the very breath of Earth urging Solomon that wisdom is not to be gained in the accumulation of the marks of kingly power? In the end, whether or not wisdom is beyond even the wise Solomon’s grasp, the search for wisdom for its own sake is still worthwhile: ‘So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what can the one do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness’ (2:12–13).

The Fruit of Labour Will Be Left to Those Who Come After (2:17–23) Qoheleth returns to his much-favoured theme of toil in the next verses. The text does not claim that the sinner dislikes his toil; rather, the worker is frustrated because there is no guarantee that he or she will be able to enjoy the reward that Earth gives to the labourer. This is not a case of envy of the other, but rather the speaker endures a sense of regret that he may not live to enjoy the fruits for which he has toiled: So I  hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is hebel and a chasing of the wind. I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me – and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I  toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is hebel. (2:17–23)

There is tiredness and vexation in toil, but it does not lie in the hardship inherent in the toil itself. The frustration comes instead from knowing that

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the fruits of labour will be passed on to anyone whom God favours. The cycles of existence take effect as the next generation continues to pass on the fruits of its toil, and the pattern recurs. A deeper cause of regret for Qoheleth is the knowledge that those who come after may not treat Earth’s produce with wisdom. The speaker has no control over the work, but must relinquish power to another who may not act with wisdom. Regardless of Qoheleth’s apparent frustration at the futility of life in the long run, there is no doubt that he values wisdom; otherwise he would not continue his struggle to find it wherever he can.

Eat, Drink and Enjoy Work, for These Come from God (2:24–26) Qoheleth advocates that enjoyment of Earth’s produce is the highest pleasure and divinely approved: There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind. (2:24–26)

The text here suggests that there is an inherent pleasure in toil. There is a sense of harmonious relationship between the worker and Earth. This attitude is quite different from that of Genesis 3:17–19. In his ecological reading of the Genesis text, Norman Habel focuses on the suffering of Adamah (Earth) at God’s hand, in retaliation for the sin of Adam. Habel sees the Genesis text as depicting the alienation of Adamah and Adam. According to the narrator, the enlightenment of humans is translated by God into the devaluation of nature. Instead of simply enjoying the fruits of the forest, Adam must now toil in such a way as to produce ‘field crops’ in order to survive. In the process, Adamah will also produce thorns and thistles which will make agriculture more difficult. In fact, thorns and thistles thrive especially where soil has been disturbed. The fertility ecosystem of Adamah is upset by humanity’s move into arduous agriculture.1 1

Norman Habel, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening of Earth: An Ecological Reading of Genesis 1–11. Earth Bible Commentary Series. (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011), 62.

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Death, one of Qoheleth’s key themes, is explicitly raised here in the context of Solomon’s reflections. The opposing themes of ‘seeing’ and ‘walking in darkness’ deconstruct in view of the overarching reality of death for all, and the apparent division between wisdom and folly becomes blurred as death overtakes all: The wise have eyes in their head, but fools walk in darkness. Yet I  perceived that the same fate befalls all of them. Then I said to myself, ‘What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?’ And I said to myself that this also is habel. For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How can the wise die just like fools? (2:14–16)

On first reading, these lines may seem to indicate that Qoheleth sees no advantage in wisdom when it comes to human mortality and that the absurdity of the human condition lies precisely in this universal fate. However the ambiguity of the thematic refrain of hebel should be respected. Whether we think of hebel as absurdity, or breath, the overarching effect is of enigma, of elusiveness in the face of humankind’s need for certainty, and the irony that the only certainty is death. Herein lies the absurdity. Yet is appropriate to keep in mind Camus’ insights on absurdity, and his conviction that life is still worth living, even in the most barren time or place. Qoheleth does not say that there is no point in being wise. Wisdom for its own sake is clearly to be desired. As he says in 2:12–13, where he uses the contrast between light and darkness to illustrate his position: ‘So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what can the one do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. Then I  saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.’ What Qoheleth bemoans is the transience of life. All the wisdom in the world, all the wealth and status, disappear like a breath in the face of death. His question, ‘How can the wise die just like fools?’ goes to the very heart of theodicy. Death is an ever-present and unpredictable reality, ready to cut short the wisest lives at any point. The lines hint at an even deeper predicament. When there is no clear belief in an afterlife, memory is the guarantee of immortality. But like the ungodly of the Wisdom of Solomon, here the wise Solomon despairs even of that. As Wisdom 2:1–4 laments:

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Ecclesiastes 2:1–26

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For they [the ungodly] reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, ‘Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. For we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been, for the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts; when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air. Our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will remember our works.’

It is likely that the ungodly of Wisdom are familiar with Ecclesiastes, since there is an echo of their stance in Qoheleth’s words, although they would not agree with his conclusion as expressed in 2:1: ‘I said to myself, “Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But again, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” ’ In the reality of death, the hierarchical divisions between wisdom and folly, the wise and the fool, even good and evil deconstruct and collapse. The human condition is the great leveler, the reconciler of the opposites. In death we all meet, metaphorically speaking. There is no consolation to be had, either, in the thought that the memory of the good one has done will live on. Everything will pass into oblivion. Yet there is an irony in the recognition that ‘the wise die just like fools’. We know nothing historical of the writer that we call Qoheleth, and he has certainly died, but his wise work has gained a vast measure of immortality. In an analogous ecological vein, the state of Earth we bequeath to our descendants we will not go unjudged, for better or worse.

Hearing Qoheleth’s Earth Chapter 2 of Ecclesiastes is permeated with references to toil. This is no complaint, however, about the sweat of one’s brow and the endless drudgery that must have been the common experience of the poor in the ancient world. Toil, for pseudo-Solomon, produces palaces and vineyards, gardens and forests. Whatever judgment we make upon the historical Solomon, with his conscripted slave labour and his extensive building projects, this is not the image of Solomon that Qoheleth wishes to bring to the forefront. We know from 1

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Kings 12 that Solomon was partly responsible for the break-up of the united kingdom that David had established: ‘Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke that he placed on us, and we will serve you’ (1 Kings 12:4). His son Rehoboam refused to heed the counsel of the wise elders, choosing instead to follow the oppressive way of his younger cronies. Qoheleth’s Solomon echoes the Solomon of the Deuteronomistic history with the mention of slaves, building works and treasures. But the overriding message is the advice to enjoy the fruits of one’s labour. If we make allowances for the ancient context, there is much wisdom to be found here for contemporary readers. Very few workers complain about having work. They may complain about having to work, they may be glad when the end of the working week comes, but they are for the most part aware that work is indeed a blessing. In the wake of the financial crisis that affected much of the Western world from 2008, steady and profitable employment is much valued. Workers need to see what their efforts produce. Certainly they collect their salary, but deeper than this monetary satisfaction is the satisfaction that comes from a task well done and a task that is useful to the community. At the same time, the Western world is finally becoming more vocal in its criticism of policies and industries that pollute and ravage. Earth’s voice needs to be heard alongside the voice of economy. Earth is a life-producing, fertile presence. If the voice of economy becomes so strident it is allowed to override ecological concerns, then Earth’s fertility is endangered. In the final analysis, there will be no produce for the worker. Qoheleth’s concern is that he might die young and leave the fruits of his toil to others: ‘So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil’ (2:20–21). We might turn his message around to a more positive one. If we toil with wisdom and knowledge, there will be produce to bequeath to the generations who follow us. Qoheleth fears that God will show favouritism to whomever God pleases: ‘For to the one who pleases him God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping, only to give to one who pleases God’ (2:26). It surely would be most pleasing

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Ecclesiastes 2:1–26

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to God if all who follow are able to enjoy Earth’s fruits because of the present generation’s responsible attentive ear to Earth’s voice. As a generation who comes after Qoheleth, we have the advantage of viewing Earth from a more expansive framework of knowledge than Qoheleth had. We are able to see on our television current affairs programmes and on our electronic devices the effect, for example, of the palm oil industry on the local communities. We hear the voices of farmers in Queensland, Australia, struggling against the arguments of the economic voice, which sees the benefits of the coal seam gas industry. This voice argues that it is economic salvation in desperate times when drought or floods have threatened livelihoods, but others are deeply aware of the environmental danger of ‘fracking’ to the underground artesian water system. Economic security is an enticing promise, but the greater wisdom cautions against it in the face of long-term ecological catastrophe. Indigenous communities are likewise pulled in opposing directions, some drawn by the economic benefits that mining companies offer depressed and oppressed communities, but leadership voices warn that there is no turning back once permission is given for exploration to go ahead. The voice of economy is heard against the voice of Earth, and most often the voices are not in harmony. Contemporary society, despite the naysayers, is acutely aware that Eternal Earth is in danger from the folly that believes that ‘greed is good’.2 A more subtle danger, of course, is not the blatant call of greed, but the pressing needs of the poor for the respectable livelihood that a good economy should provide. We should not have a sense of chronic guilt when we enjoy Earth’s produce with prudence. Nor should we be quick to assume that farmers and indigenous communities who seek economic stability in difficult times are not attuned to the voice of Earth, for they are often the ones closest to Earth. What the dilemma of opposing voices means is that climate scientists and environmentalists need wisdom in dealing with Earth’s resources and in reminding the wider community that generations to follow us will rightly judge our present generation on whether or not we have responsibly cared for the Earth community. It goes without saying that Earth community includes our indigenous population most acutely, for they are very often the 2

Spoken by Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street.

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ones most dependent upon Earth for food and shelter, and, more importantly, for their sense of identity. The indigenous Australian population has a deep-rooted sense of ‘country’, from which they draw nourishment, form their laws, and acknowledge kin. Any destruction of Earth in a very real sense robs them of their identity.

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Ecclesiastes 3:1–22

Contents Between the texts of 2:1–26 and 3:12–27, both of which deal with the fruits of one’s labour, comes the poem of Ecclesiastes 3:1–8. It is the most telling section in the book for an understanding of time and eternity. The poem might be thought of as Earth’s voice elucidating the wisdom of the ages, because Eternal Earth has indeed experienced all these temporal events.

Structure of Ecclesiastes 3:1–27 3:1–8 The Poem of Earth Olam: Earth’s Seasons and Purpose 3:9–22 Eat, drink and enjoy work, for all return to dust

Analysis of the Text: Ecclesiastes 3:1–27 The Seasons Poem (3:1–8) The ‘Seasons’ passage is one of the most well known in Ecclesiastes. Indeed, many who can quote from it are quite unaware that it comes from the Bible. They are familiar with it from the Byrds’ song of 1965, ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’.1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;

1

The music was written by Pete Seeger in 1959 and recorded by him in 1962. Seeger used the words from Ecclesiastes, adding only the words ‘I swear it’s not too late’ to the phrase, ‘a time for peace’ (3:8) and giving it its title. (Wikipedia, accessed 20 August 2012.)

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a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. (3:1–8)

The fact that the song was a major hit in the pivotal social setting of the 1960s testifies in some measure to the universalism of the poem. During my writing of this book, I was grieved at the very sudden death of my best friend from the days of my youth. It gave me no small comfort to read the poem at her funeral service. The pervading sense of the poem is one of acceptance of all that happens to the whole Earth community in the course of existence, both individual existence and the eternal movement of nature. The cycles of nature have their eth, but Earth is olam. As in Ecclesiastes 1:5–7, where there is an appointed place for the natural phenomena, so too in this poem there is an appointed time for all the activities and events that take place on Earth. The text expands the thought of 1:3–11, in the sense of a place and time for the cycles of life.

Earth Olam Earth comes into its own in no insignificant way in these lines of Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, for in the book of Ecclesiastes olam is said of only two subjects: God and Earth. If Earth alone shares this quality with God, this says something unique about Earth. It can claim priority of creation, not necessarily in a chronological sense of priority, but in the sense of prior significance. The use of olam for ‘Earth’ recalls the Sophia creation poem of Proverbs 8:22–31,

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Ecclesiastes 3:1–22

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where olam is used to describe that moment in eternity when Sophia’s existence coincides with God’s primordial creative act: The LORD created me [qanani; or utilized me or brought me forth] at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I  was set up, at the first, before the beginning of Earth. (Prov. 8:22–23)

In these lines Sophia is said to be created, acquired or begotten as the beginning of YHWH’s creative works;2 she is there from eternity, from olam, even before Earth. In Proverbs olam is also said of the righteous, but here the sense is that they will remain into eternity rather than that they have existed from eternity:  ‘When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are established forever (olam)’ (Prov. 10:25). It is notable, too, that olam is mentioned in Proverbs in connection with an ancient landmark, ‘Do not remove the ancient (olam) landmark that your ancestors set up’ (22:28), and again in 23:10, ‘Do not remove an ancient landmark or encroach on the fields of orphans’. It is clear that olam is used to inspire a respectful demeanour in Proverbs towards the entity it describes. Thus it is all the more noteworthy that it is used of Earth as well as God in Ecclesiastes. In Genesis 49:26, the mountains are said to be eternal, ‘The blessings of your father are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.’ The same thought occurs in Habakkuk 3:6:  ‘He stopped and shook the earth; he looked and made the nations tremble. The eternal mountains were shattered; along his ancient pathways the everlasting hills sank low.’ Although it is said of Earth itself, its use is also extended to the mountains and sea, that is, to the inhabitants of Earth community that have existed with Earth from the ancient days. In the Bible, therefore, the concept of olam as an attribute is used of God, Sophia and Earth, with its related elements. By its very nature, olam commands reverence in these texts. Olam should not be confused with a linear idea of time. In poetic terms, it denotes the concepts of eternity, forever, and ancient time, which in turn connote a sense of majesty and reverence. Were we to apply the word to a modern scientific concept, the Big Bang would be an appropriate recipient of the concept and its meaning. 2

The Hebrew word qanani can have any of these meanings, ‘created’, ‘acquired’, or ‘begotten’.

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The numbers associated with the Big Bang are unimaginably immeasurable except by the professional physicist; for the layperson, olam would come very close to expressing the ‘eternal mystery’ of the universe.3 While Qoheleth could not have known of the Big Bang, nevertheless it is not outside the realm of possibility that his idea of Eternal Earth encompasses no small measure of that eternal mystery. As John Gribbin expresses the numbers: Taking the hypothetical singularity as ‘time zero’ – the moment when the universe came into being – everything we can see today would have been in this nuclear state just one ten-thousandth of a second after the beginning. And everything that has happened since, for the ensuing 13 or 15 billion years of the history of the Universe, can, in principle, be explained by the same laws of physics that have been tried and tested many times in experiments here on Earth. It is the early phase of the life of the Universe, from about an age of one ten-thousandth of a second onwards, that is usually referred to as the Big Bang . . . In round numbers, we can say that the Big Bang lasted for about half a million years  – from one ten-thousandth of a second to the time when electromagnetic radiation and matter went their separate ways.4

Even as I write, the latest exciting scientific discovery is making news. The gravitational waves that were predicted by Einstein have now been observed, even though Einstein did not expect that they would ever be witnessed. Scientists can thus observe the evidence of the beginnings. When we begin to grasp the numbers and eons involved, we cannot help but think of the fascination they would have held for Qoheleth, had this knowledge been available to him; and while we can almost guarantee that the same space of time does not lie ahead in our finite universe, science does allow us to enter, however naively, into the mystery of Eternal Earth – naively in the sense that even the most educated reader can grasp but a fraction of the workings of creation. A study of olam in the poem offers some remarkable insights for an ecological reading. Even though the things that have their eth belong in an unending cycle, nevertheless by his use of the language of olam only in reference to Earth, Qoheleth singles Earth out as being qualitatively different.

3

4

John Gribbin, with Mary Gribbin, Almost Everyone’s Guide to Science:  The Universe, Life and Everything (London: Phoenix, 1999), 138, quoting Einstein. Gribbin, Almost Everyone’s Guide, 238–239.

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Ecclesiastes 3:1–22

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Qoheleth names the cycles that have their own season in 3:1–8 as birth and death, planting and reaping, killing and healing, breaking down and building up, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, discarding and gathering, and so on. All of these refer to human actions or the cycles of nature in conjunction with human action and being. Against this background of human activity, it seems that Qoheleth wants us to view the ever-present Earth as the stable ground and possibility of all human and natural action. Merryl Blair is helpful in summarizing Qoheleth’s perspectives on time. He uses three words for time concepts in chapter 3, namely, zeman (3:1), eth (3:1–8), and olam (3:11). Eth is the most commonly used, and its meaning corresponds to the wisdom tradition’s concern for recognizing the ‘right time’ as a prerequisite for living in harmony with ‘the times’. Generally zeman would be translated into Greek as kairos, a word that is used in English in the form ‘kairotic’, in the sense of ‘a kairotic speaker’, that is, one who knows how and when to say the ‘right word’. Blair adds, however, that it is difficult to argue unambiguously that there is a difference between zeman and eth.5 While olam is not used in the poem of Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, it occurs almost immediately after the poem, in 3:11: ‘[God] has made everything suitable for its time (eth); moreover he has put a sense of past and future (olam) into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end’. Eth is present and manifest time while olam denotes the utterly remote, unknowable time. This sense is based upon its triliteral root, ayin, lamedh, mem, (olm) meaning ‘to hide’. Against the ebb and flow of things of Earth, God is olam. This olam, this eternity that belongs to God, is what brings about awe in humankind, a sense that we stand in the presence of the divine. Olam does have a qualitative difference from the other two words for time, with its connotations of mystery, as in the word used for wisdom in Proverbs 8:23. This meaning is also evident in the description of Sophia in the Septuagint Greek of the Wisdom of Solomon, 6:22: ‘I will tell you what wisdom is and how she came to be, and I will hide no secrets (musteria) from you, but I  will trace her course from the beginning of creation (ap’ archēs genēseōs), and make knowledge of her clear, and I will not pass by the truth’. 5

Merryl Blair, ‘ “Beautiful in Its Time”: An Optimist Reads Qoheleth’, in Michael A. Kelly, CSsR and Mark O’Brien OP (eds), Wisdom for Life (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2005), 53.

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The text refers to the writer’s desire not to ‘hide (apokrupso) the mysteries’ (musteria) of Sophia’s existence, even from the very beginning of her origins (ap’ archés genēseōs). There are clear echoes of the Septuagint translation of Proverbs 8:22. The mysterious Sophia/wisdom, present with God at the beginning, encapsulates the sense of the divine mystery. The catalogue of the seasons in the poem of 3:1– 8 comprises everything that we might call works of nature and works of humankind in a joint creative enterprise. The chapter starts off with the word lecol, ‘to everything’. If we summarize what Qoheleth means by ‘everything’, we see that the events occur in pairs, which serve to highlight the whole breadth and depth of created and, indeed, creative existence. Murphy interprets the passage anthropocentrically, thus, ‘The events in [3:]2– 8 are presented as simply elements of human experience, some of them peak experiences (birth and death).’6 All creation is subject to birth and death. Human beings, animals, plant life, all have their origins and all face mortality. In keeping with Qoheleth’s vision of Eternal Earth, the cycles of life are endlessly repeated. Between the beginning and the end, the core of human and non-human activities is played out. The simple, elegantly structured poem is a fitting vehicle for Qoheleth’s reflection of the universal fate and the everyday activities of the whole Earth community. Qoheleth sets the scene with his opening line, ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven’ and proceeds to outline the ‘everything’ that makes up the web of life in eight pairs of pronouncements. On the surface the pairs suggest oppositional, hierarchical elements, but if that is the case then Qoheleth is suggesting that there is a time for each of these opposites. Time is the unifying factor, ensuring that all activities have their place, and any sense of hierarchical opposition breaks down. The events mentioned are a holistic part of the one existential reality. For everything living, apart from the divine and Eternal Earth, there is a time to die. For every vegetable planted, there is a time for eating. Even killing and hating have their place in Qoheleth’s world. Indeed, in Qoheleth’s thoughtworld, one is never sure if life is better than death or whether breaking down is better than building up. The hierarchies are constantly being overturned. 6

Roland E. Murphy, Word Biblical Commentary vol. 23:  Ecclesiastes. (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1992), 32.

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Two overarching themes of time are interwoven here, but a substructure exists where Earth provides the stage on which the activities of the created world, human and non-human, take place. It is appropriate here to recall that our ecological definition of Earth is ‘the total ecosystem, the web of life, the domains of nature with which we are familiar, of which we are an integral part and in which we face the future’.7 Chapter 3:1–8 poetically recounts the whole experience of creation, human and non-human. At the same time it would be an inaccurate reading of the text to presume from the inclusion of these pairs that Qoheleth is approving these actions as moral choices. The overriding sense from the poem is one of acceptance: these things all exist within the world as Qoheleth, and indeed the contemporary reader, knows it. For some commentators the feeling is one of a preordained fate, and therefore of oppression. Graham Ogden queries its origins and decides that it is not originally part of Qoheleth’s work. He cites as evidence the language and verbs that occur only here and not in other parts of the book; nevertheless, it is either composed or cited by Qoheleth and is therefore part of the original text of Ecclesiastes, as far as scholarship is aware. The poem gives the impression of an ordered world, the kind of world which is the ideal of the wisdom tradition. Some of the events of an earthly existence are self-explanatory. The ancient and the contemporary reader share an awareness that there is a time for being born and dying, a time for sowing and reaping. All share in laughter and grief, and express fundamental human emotions in terms of mourning and dancing, embracing and refraining from embracing. Others are not so self-explanatory. Scholars puzzle over ‘a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together’ (3:5). Most scholars are guided by the rabbis who interpreted this to mean sexual intercourse, once again a fundamental human and non-human activity, necessary to continue the cycles of the generations (1:4).8 While several of the pairs state simply the ebb and flow of life, some do entail moral choice. Our modern consciences wrestle with issues such as the criteria, if any, for a just war, but moral choice in killing (3:3) was certainly an issue among the ancients. The voice of the ‘son of David’ in our present text recalls 2 Samuel 11–12 and the catastrophic outcomes of David’s

7 8

Habel, The Birth, The Curse and The Greening, 3. According to the Midrash, Qoheleth Rabbah. See Graham S.  Ogden, Qoheleth, 2nd ed., (Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2007), 57.

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ordering of the killing of Uriah and the moral issues involved. Yet Qoheleth is an acute observer of his world; he is not necessarily in this poem offering to play the part of a moral conscience for the world. In some of the pairs, moral choice would not have been an issue in Qoheleth’s context. The ebb and flow of life has continued inexorably, however, and contemporary ethics and medical technology allow us to make moral choices in regard to human life and death that would not have been possible in the ancient world. An ecojustice conscience demands choices of life and death in relation to the whole of the Earth community.

Of What Advantage to Humans? The Inscrutability of the Eternal God (3:9–22) Against this poem, we can then view the more specific experiences of humankind that Qoheleth explores in 3:9–22, wherein he asks the key question, ‘What advantage . . .’? Earth may have its rhythm and harmony, but the economic vagaries of human existence are constantly on the horizon. There is some debate over the meaning of olam in Ecclesiastes 3:11: ‘[God] has made everything suitable for its time; and moreover has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end’ (3:11).9 Gordis and Whitley both opt for its later meaning of ‘world’,10 but Seow 11 points out that ‘eternity’ is its most obvious meaning, and also the meaning it has in its other occurrences in the book (1:4, 10; 2:16; 9:6; 12:5). Ogden understands the sense of this to be that human beings have a consciousness of the eternal, and this seems to capture the essence of the verse. Two things combine in our passage then: humankind’s intellectual grasp of the eternal, and at the same time the frustration of being faced with God’s inscrutability. There is something of Qoheleth’s irony in the juxtaposition of humankind’s yitron and God’s olam.12 Against the mystery of God’s olam sits the ordinariness of the human search for survival 9

10

11 12

I have slightly changed the NRSV translation here in the interests of inclusive language, which in no way affects the meaning of the text. Robert Gordis, Koheleth  – the Man and His World (New  York:  Bloch Publishing Co., 1955), 221–222. See also Charles Francis Whitley, Koheleth. His Language and Thought (Berlin and New York: Waler de Gruyter, 1979), 31–32. Seow, Ecclesiastes, 163. Ogden, Qoheleth, 61.

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in an arduous economy. Earth offers a harmonious existence, but humankind is ‘out of kilter’ because God has placed a sense of ‘timelessness’ in the human heart. Olam (1:4 and 1:10; 2:16; 9:6; 12:5) indicates the ‘forever time’ that is the domain of God. As 3:14–15 says: ‘I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.’ While le’olam, eternity, belongs specifically to God and Earth, God’s eternity and humankind’s yitron, or advantage, are bound together. A careful reading of this passage suggests that the meaning ‘eternity’ comes closest to understanding Qoheleth’s sense of olam: ‘God has put a sense of past and future into the mind of humankind, yet one cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end’. The sense of eternity carried by ‘past and future’ is reinforced by the apposite phrase, ‘from beginning to end’ in reference to God, which generally indicates the origins of all things right through to infinity. The works of God endure forever; it is God who puts into human hearts this sense of time beyond the human experience (3:14). The reader is aware that according to Qoheleth two things endure: God and Earth. People of past ages are forgotten: ‘The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them’ (1:11). Qoheleth ponders the afterlife, and what he can be sure of is that we all return to the Earth whence we came. Earth will be our eternal home (12:5). Qoheleth can say that there is nothing new under the sun, because Earth has seen it all: ‘Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been, in the ages before us’ (1:10). What becomes clear in Ecclesiastes is the divide between humankind and God as wholly other. God’s otherness is specifically encapsulated in the notion of God as gift-giver of the fruits of creation in Ecclesiastes 3, and holiness for humankind entails a gracious and responsible acceptance of these gifts. Qoheleth leaves us in no doubt that the conferral of gifts is very much unpredictable. The question, however, is whether this unpredictability comes about because God is, according to Qoheleth’s perspective, by nature capricious, as some scholars claim, or whether it might be better termed the inscrutability of the divine. In this second option, the focus falls not on the actions of God as unreliable and subject to whim, but rather on the near impossibility of

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humankind’s ability to predict God’s actions. The one possibility for humans to deduce something of the nature of God would be gleaned only from God’s actions in the world of creation. It is God’s will and God’s gift that we enjoy the fruits of the Earth and take pleasure in productive work, and to reject these pleasures would be in effect a rejection of the gift. To be holy we must respond to God’s nature as gift-giver; to reject this invitation would result in a break in the relationship between humankind and God. When the Genesis text of 3:17–19 is contrasted with Ecclesiastes 3:9–22, we find that Qoheleth is for once an optimist, at least more of an optimist than the Yahwistic writer of these Genesis verses:

And to the man [God] said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ (Gen. 3:17–19)

I know that there is nothing better for [workers] than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. (Eccl. 3:12–13)

When we compare the two we find a clear difference. The expression, ‘by the sweat of your face’ in the Genesis text implies suffering. From a sociological rather than from a theological perspective, the ‘curse’ is probably simply a reflection on the human condition: heavy work requires effort of the normal human being. But theologically, it is evident that toil is intrinsically connected to the curse. In the Ecclesiastes text there is no mention of the curse. Quite the opposite: for Qoheleth, toil is a pleasurable state when it is efficacious. It is wise, of course, to take our cue from Habel and read the Genesis text with some subtlety, rather than simply compare it unfavourably with Ecclesiastes. The Genesis text offers fertile ground for ecological readings, as we find in the work of Francis Landy as well as that of Norman Habel. Landy’s ecological approach to the Genesis text resonates with that of Habel. Both observe the alienation of humankind and Earth, and both see the return to dust at death as a return to Earth. According to Landy, the curse of Genesis is consequential upon ‘an act that was undertaken facilely, but

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will be paid for grievously’.13 Earth becomes the enemy and produces thistles and thorns, a seemingly deliberate act on the part of Earth to make sure that from now on the act of eating will be hard toil, and at the end, all that awaits is a return to that same dust of the Earth. Landy detects an ecological but ironic twist in the return to dust. While death is the only means of escape from toil, the human being finds his/her true being in being ‘re-integrated with the earth in death’. Qoheleth is more ambivalent about the return to dust: ‘All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?’ (3:20–21). Landy finds that the irony lies in the paradox between humanity’s true identity being in communion with Earth, while at the same time the curse ensures a continued dissociation between Earth and humanity. As Landy says, ‘Man [sic] is taken from the earth and to it he returns; he is the precondition for its fertility and it is cursed for his sake. Death thus restores the original unity of man and the earth, while the curse ensures their continued dissociation’. The temptation has further sinister implications, for ‘the fruit and thus the temptation of the tree is thus the product of the earth’. This product of the Earth leads to disaster. In Genesis, eating the produce of the Earth is not a gift from God; rather, eating the fruit has been barred, and the crossing of that barrier has meant alienation from both Earth and God. It is probable that the Genesis text is based upon a source text that may have had a more positive thrust. Reinhard G. Kratz points out the difference which the Genesis source has made to the Ancient Near East motif of labour in the service of the gods. Kratz argues: ‘Whereas the earlier material discovered the initial divine ordering of things and human cultural process in the toil of everyday life, the revision made the toil of life the theme and derived it from the connection between sin and punishment and the will of Yhwh.’14 In the source story, with its focus on creation, Eve is made in order to ensure the procreation of human beings. In the Genesis story, however, the traditional creation story is placed into a new context, which makes the foundations of human life disastrous. The curse affects both the ground and childbirth. As 13

14

Francis Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise. Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983), 255. Reinhard G. Kratz, The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament, trans. by John Bowden (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 252 .

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Kratz describes it, ‘Birth becomes a torment and work on the field forced labour . . . caused by Yhwh’.15 Unlike Genesis, there is no reference here to the pains of childbirth. In fact, the only reference to the bearing of children is in Ecclesiastes 6:3, where it is the father’s role that is mentioned. As commonly accepted in the ancient world, many children and many years of life are seen in a positive light, but Qoheleth uses this as a caution to enjoy life while one may; otherwise, life is in vain: ‘A man may beget a hundred children, and live many years; but however many are the days of his years, if he does not enjoy life’s good things, or has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he’ (Eccl. 6:3). In Ecclesiastes 3, eating Earth’s produce is a means of relationship with God rather than alienation: ‘It is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil’. Unlike the God of Genesis after the actions of Adam and Eve, Qoheleth’s God invites us to eat and drink and intends work to be purposeful rather than punishment (cf. Gen. 3:17–19). The emphasis does not fall on the idea of toil as forced labour, as in Genesis 3:17. The curse is twofold. The man will have to toil for what little produce he can glean from the thorns and thistles, and the very Earth itself is cursed. For Qoheleth, toil is difficult, but it is not to be seen as an evil. The word for ‘work’ that Qoheleth favours is amal. He uses the word thirty-three times in various forms in the book.16 It can refer to the product of the work or to the work itself. As Michael Fox indicates, the word amal has the usual meaning of burdensome work.17 In the passage under discussion, two words for work occur: amal in vv. 9 and 13, and ma’aseh in vv. 17 and 22. Amal is used in the rhetorical question of 3:9: ‘What gain, what yitron, have the workers from their toil’? Qoheleth does not answer the question directly in the negative, as might be expected. Rather, the following verses are a response that leaves the answer open to a sense of the mysterious ways of God. Humans ‘cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end’. In the next breath he refers to his ‘carpe diem’ counsel: Accept and enjoy what life has to offer while we are able. In 3:13 the same word for work (amal) is used positively: ‘moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil’. In v. 13, toil is not 15 16 17

Kratz, Composition of the Narrative Books, 252. Murphy, Ecclesiastes, xxix. Michael Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), 54.

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presented as a fruitless task; rather, toil is productive and thus gives pleasure. While amal nearly always has a negative overtone in the Hebrew Bible, in this passage work is at least neutral and more specifically positive, as something to be enjoyed, presumably because it is productive. In 3:17, ma’aseh is a neutral term, simply designating work: ‘I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work’. Indeed, the statement takes us back to the poem of 3:1–8. While the pair, work and rest, are not specifically named there, they capture the tenor of the poem, and Qoheleth moves seamlessly from the poem into the wider discussion concerning work. The constancy of God’s actions is set alongside human work, not in contrast with human toil, but as work in a class of its own, specific to the divine: ‘I know that whatever God does endures forever (le’olam); nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him’ (3:14). There are several ways in which this verse can be interpreted. It could be that the sense of le’olam here is that ‘it is always the case that what happens is what God has made happen’. Another emphasis could be on the translation of le’olam as God’s works enduring forever, so that one can neither ‘add nor take away from all that God does’. Both explanations suggest the idea of constancy and endurance in God’s actions. In this way God is identified as being wholly other than humankind, whose works in a contingent world are fragile and ephemeral. When Qoheleth says, ‘All should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil’, it presumes a productive toil, otherwise there would be no produce of the Earth to eat and drink. At the same time, the productivity will not last into eternity. This is why Qoheleth is sure in his very being that happiness, while it is available, is to be savoured: ‘I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live’ (3:12). The constancy of God’s work is to be seen against the uncertainty of humankind’s enjoyment. The historical background is helpful in explaining Qoheleth’s concerns about the ways of his world. It was a time of economic opportunity, but also of risk. Qoheleth does not have any qualms about enjoying economic prosperity. He is constantly aware, however, of its ephemerality and volatility. According to Seow, Qoheleth sees God in similar terms to the

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earthly rulers who give grants of land.18 The grantee can enjoy the fruits of such economic activity, but at the cost of uncertainty and possible disaster. Against a background of the concept of eth, the constant ebb and flow of fortunes, it makes sense to enjoy whatever one’s work produces while it is available. Scholars such as Fox interpret God’s ‘gift’ in 3:13 in such a way that the focus falls on God as controller rather than as generous benefactor. Fox claims, ‘As in 2:24f, the advice to enjoy life comes in the context of God’s control of all that happens’.19 ‘Control’ does not seem to indicate that God gives the gift of pleasure out of some kind of affection for humankind. Indeed, Fox claims quite bluntly that ‘Qohelet’s God is a hard ruler. He shows the world a steely countenance. He does not seem to love mankind [sic], nor does Qohelet seem to love him’.20 God’s works steamroller over man’s puny efforts, and nothing substantially new can interrupt the awesome course of events that God has ordained. This God of Qoheleth, in the view of these scholars, is in control, proffering gifts at God’s will, controlling the passage of time, allowing and causing things to be. Even Matthew Rindge, more positive in his recognition of God’s gift-giving, argues, almost half-heartedly, that ‘Qoheleth’s perception of these activities as divine gifts shows that his apophatic tendencies are not absolute. God is, if nothing else, a giver’.21 Yet it is hard to see how this meagre or even hostile assessment of God can be justified in this passage. Fox conducts a lexicographical study of tob, the word used in the NRSV translation for ‘pleasure,’ since Qoheleth’s statement in 3:13, ‘moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil’, could literally be translated as ‘I saw that it is good for humankind to eat and drink, for this is God’s gift’. Qoheleth’s use of tob here is used in reference to humankind as enjoying oneself, feeling pleasure. This seems to indicate that enjoyment is more than simply an anaesthetic for the frustrations of life. It is a desire of God that humans should enjoy a good and wholesome existence. If the ecological reader is alert to the nuances of this passage, he or she might hear an echo of Earth’s olam in the statement in 3:14:  ‘I know that 18 19 20

21

Seow, Ecclesiastes, 24–25. Fox, Qohelet and Contradictions, 194. Michael Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up. A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1999), 136. Matthew S.  Rindge, ‘Mortality and Enjoyment:  The Interplay of Death and Possessions in Qoheleth’ (CBQ 73, 2011), 271.

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whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him’ (3:14). God and Earth are eternal. If Qoheleth’s Earth is olam, then we expect Earth’s works to endure forever. Earth’s wind and seas, its generations of people and animals, have their cycles of life, but Earth is the stable ground on which the cycles of life recur. Rather than depicting God as one like the earthly ruler who gives and takes on a capricious and detached whim, the epithets applied to God in this text suggest constancy, stability and graciousness. This is what it means to ‘stand in awe before God’. Yitron is a term that invites scholarly debate. Qoheleth’s so-called nihilism stems from his apparent conclusion that, in the end, all is hebel, all is absurd, or at least inexplicable, from the perspective of mortals and there is no advantage, no profit, for humans. Jacques Derrida has made the nowaccepted observation on the nature of gift, that ‘a gift must be freely given and freely received. It must not be part of any system of exchange, barter or debt. If it is, it ceases to be a gift and enters into an economy of exchange’.22 There is no indication in the passage that God expects anything in return for the gift of enjoying the fruits of humankind’s toil. God’s motive seems to be twofold: to inspire in humankind a sense of awe, and to ensure that life holds benefits for them. It might be argued that God’s wish to inspire a sense of awe is a return for the gift. As in Genesis 1, it is God’s action that ensures that all creation is tob, is good. The question still teases the reader: Is the gift because of the absolute graciousness of God, without any thought of return, awe or otherwise? Does it indicate the detachment of a God who creates what is good, and then allows whatever is, to be? Does God positively and without qualification will good for humankind through the works of creation? The answer may be found in the concept of olam. If God and Earth are both Eternal, then Earth, like Sophia, is the first of God’s works. It is clear from Proverbs 8:22 that ‘the first of God’s works’ does not mean simply chronological priority. God creates through wisdom/Sophia; thus Sophia’s existence coincides with God’s creative act. Sophia is ever-present with God as Creator. This is how the concept of priority needs to be understood. Sophia is not 22

Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1995), 96.

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created first as though the poem is listing a basic numerical order. Sophia is necessarily first because without wisdom/ Sophia, God is not Creator. In a comparable way, if Earth is olam, then Earth is ever-present with the Creator God. There is no Creator without a creation. The corollary of this is that should Earth cease to exist, the Creator as we understand Creator will no longer exist. Our very understanding of God is bound up with Earth. As members of Earth’s community, we perceive God only because we are part of Earth. In Ecclesiastes 3:19–22 Qoheleth states: For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is absurdity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work, for that is their lot; who can bring them to see what will be after them?

Qoheleth’s apparent cynicism has been criticized for his cynical view of humans, which is often attributed to such confronting comments as those in 3:19–22. Yet scholarship often pays little heed to hope in the line:  ‘Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?’ It is not an explicit expression of an afterlife. In true ambiguous Qoheleth style, he leaves his question unanswered. The first unequivocal expression that life goes on with God after death was left to the Wisdom of Solomon, which expressed a belief that the righteous would have an existence with God after death. The theology was developed in response to an issue of theodicy, namely, if justice belongs solely in this world, how can the righteous who die young experience justice in this life when the wicked seemingly flourish? While the writer of Wisdom expressed a clear hope in an afterlife as a resolution of this dilemma, here Qoheleth expresses a faint hope in a possible afterlife. Whatever Qoheleth’s understanding of an afterlife, however, this text is not concerned with the good and the wicked, but with the nature of the animal vis-à-vis humankind. He does not divide the possibility of an afterlife with God between human and animal, but is more interested in the common fate. This is clearly not an anthropocentric text.

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Qoheleth’s comments on injustice, too, are generally taken to be an expression overloaded with negativity, but in 3:17 Qoheleth’s hope is in God’s justice: ‘I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work’. While the world may be capricious, God can be trusted. There are several things we can say about God from the text of 3:9–22, which argues against the cynical view that is the understanding of many scholars. These can be identified as God’s will that we enjoy the fruits of the Earth, God’s endowment of humankind with a consciousness of past and future, the enduring nature of God’s works, and finally, that God is to be trusted to judge the wicked and the righteous at the appropriate time. From the same text, we can identify things that we cannot know about God: we cannot know the ways of God from the beginning (rosh) to the end nor can we know whether the human spirit is different from that of the animals. What the text does tell us is that God is wholly other in the sense that eternity belongs to God. Qoheleth hints at this in several ways. We can be conscious of a sense of eternity, but knowledge of the things of eternity belongs to God alone. God’s works are not at the mercy of time; they last forever. In this sense, then, there is no capriciousness about God’s actions. What God does remains. In addition, Qoheleth ‘knows in his heart’ that is, in the depths of his being, that God is just. Justice will be done at the appropriate time. These qualities of God do not speak of a capricious God who is detached from humans. They speak rather of a God who is, appropriately, other than humankind. But they speak also of a God whose will is for justice, whose wish is for humankind to take pleasure in the gifts offered, and who has given to humankind the capacity for reflection. What Qoheleth does know is the way of the world. If we take our cue from Seow, we can accept that Qoheleth’s world is one that cannot be trusted. In the way of the world, the wicked sometimes prosper and the righteous sometimes are treated unjustly. Both humans and animals in the end return to the dust of the Earth. We must clearly distinguish, nevertheless, between the way of the world and the way of God. The world is not to be trusted, but God is. Again, we must be clear about the difference between Earth and the ‘way of the world’. The way of the world is inclusive of all the vagaries of the economy, the uncertainty of the time of our death, and the fragility of all existence, an

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existence that is vulnerable to accident, disease and, indeed, simple misfortune of any sort.

Hearing Qoheleth’s Earth In a continuation of the theme set in Ecclesiastes 1:4, the poem of 3:1–8 articulates the seasons of Eternal Earth in unforgettable rhythms. Side by side with the contingency of human and animal existence sits the universality of God’s creation, in which everything has a place and a time. There is planting and there is reaping, and there is a time for the fields to lie fallow, and always the presumption that Earth’s fruit is there for the one who takes the trouble to toil for it. But to jolt us out of any complacency, interwoven in the verses that follow, are two paradoxical themes of the constancy of God, and the uncertain world of the economy. God desires good for the inhabitants of Earth, but this is no guarantee that God will bestow good. The essence of Qoheleth’s paradoxical position is that both realities must be held in tension. Ogden summarizes the current position of the scholarly debate with his observation, ‘The contents of the book appear to be so confusing that two opposite, and not just variant, interpretations seem possible’.23 Izak Spangenberg has argued that the whole of Ecclesiastes is an ironic statement of the whole wisdom tradition.24 The world of conventional wisdom is one in which a righteous God rules over a world that is ordered, but Qoheleth, as that other wise man Job did, believes that this world order is not to be trusted. Qoheleth does not say, however, that God is not to be trusted; his stance is rather that we cannot know the ways of a God, who is not bound to a preset order. The alert reader of Ecclesiastes is reminded of Walther Zimmerli’s observation on the ways of a God who always acts in freedom and whose ways cannot be comprehended.25 Qoheleth claims that God has given humans a sense of past and future, but that we cannot know how to use it. The sense of unknowing the future, according to Matthew S.  Rindge, is what leads Qoheleth to recommend 23 24 25

Ogden, Qoheleth, 11. Izaac J. J Spangenberg, ‘Irony in the Book of Qohelet’ ( JSOT 72, 1996), 58. Th is is the conclusion that Zimmerli adduces in ‘The Place and the Limit of the Wisdom in the Framework of Old Testament Theology’ (SJT 17:2, 1964), 146–158.

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enjoyment. ‘Qoheleth proposes finding enjoyment in one’s deeds precisely because of the impossibility of knowing (or controlling) what will happen in the future (3:22b)’.26 The carpe diem philosophy seems eminently wise in the face of no other option. At the same time, it is little consolation if one’s life is brief, or plagued by illness that might prevent the possibility of productive work or pleasure in eating. J. A. Loader’s commentary gives evidence of a deep pessimism about Qoheleth’s encouragement to enjoy life’s pleasures: The reference to the unpredictable God is quite in keeping with the context (of 3:1–8). [Further] . . . it is characteristic of the Preacher to refer to the joy of life in a context of uncertainty and pessimism. Rather than a softening of the language the reference to God as the apportioner and dispenser of life is a warning. What all this comes down to is that man [sic] had better enjoy himself as long as he can – before the opportunity passes – but must never lose himself in pleasure. So his view of pleasure is anything but shallow; quite the contrary, it is well thought through and therefore demands of his readers deep reflection and seriousness.27

Yet in our era we do have a sense of what happens in the future, in the long term. We do know now that something of Earth’s destiny lies in our hands. We have the legitimation of Qoheleth to enjoy what fruits of the Earth we can in whatever time we may be allotted. But we are to be mindful of the future, for God has indeed put a sense of it in our hearts. When we rejoin the dust of the Earth from whence we came, there will be those after us who will also be heirs of that gift of God to enjoy eating, drinking and toiling. A hermeneutical outcome of the acceptance of the produce of Earth as God’s gift will be to ensure that these gifts are left for the yitron of future generations. This action of humankind in leaving fruits of the Earth for others may well be a way of partaking in the nature of God, the gift-giver. There is a negativity in Qoheleth’s view of God indicated in his statement in 3:18, ‘I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals’. The meaning seems to be simply that God intends humankind to see that they share a common fate with all creation, namely death. Humankind is not immortal, for that is a quality 26 27

Rindge, ‘Mortality and Enjoyment,’ 271. J. A. Loader, Ecclesiastes: A Practical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans), 1986, 42– 44.

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reserved for God. This would make sense of the word ‘testing’. It is a lesson that humankind must learn; they are mortals and not God. It recalls a similar theme in Genesis 3:22–23: ‘Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” – therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken’. In an uncertain world there is one certainty, and that is our return to the dust. Here Qoheleth comes closest to his verdict of ‘all is hebel ’. As God breathed life into the human, so the breath of human and animal alike is finally reintegrated with Earth. A close reading of this passage, 3:9–22, challenges those readings that see only the negative. Our contemporary ears are quite scandalized by past readings, such as the careful, yet time-conditioned reading such as that of J. A. Loader who, in reference to the fate of humans and beast being the same, states, ‘By drawing that conclusion, the Preacher has also lopped the future off the Jewish religion . . . his reproduction of reality is a reliable sketch of what life is really like apart from Christ’.28 While ambiguity is certainly present, this chapter of Ecclesiastes is rich in a theology of mystery, exemplified in a God who wishes us to take pleasure in the things through which God is best known to us, the works of creation. This is made clear by Qoheleth, who transforms the curse of Genesis into blessing. The mention of enjoyment is a striking word in an otherwise bleak message: we have eating, drinking and dying to look forward to in life. We will meet injustice, and while Qoheleth does not exactly say that this is not our affair to be concerned with, the implication is that God will do the judging. When Qoheleth says, ‘I said in my heart’, we have a sense that he trusts in God to do the right thing. We can do nothing about injustice, we do not know what will happen and when we know only that we will return to dust, and at what moment this will strike is entirely in God’s hands. Thus, our enjoyment of the fruits of Earth may be fleeting but the passage ends with an important verse that may offer some sort of expectation for the future: ‘I saw that there is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work, for that is their lot; who can bring them to see what will be after them?’ (3:22). Fox identifies three senses for this verse in regard to ‘what will be after them’: with reference to 28

Loader, Ecclesiastes, 42– 44.

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what happens to an individual after death, with reference to what will happen on Earth after one dies, and what will happen on Earth within an individual’s lifetime. Within the book as a whole, all three are possibilities, but he favours the first. He says, ‘Ignorance of the future, whether before or after death, whether on earth or elsewhere, is a reason to seize the present moment. But in the present context, following upon a verse that declares human ignorance of what follows death, the first alternative is probably in view. The rhetorical question in v. 22b rephrases the one in v. 21 and motivates the advice in 22a’.29 The second and third possible meanings of Qoheleth’s statement, that we do not know what will happen on Earth either during or after an individual’s lifetime, offer hermeneutical possibilities for the benefit of God’s creation. Coal seam gas and ‘fracking’, uranium mining, disposal of toxic waste, to build wind farms or not to build are a few of the decisions concerning modern populations. How do we balance the economic concerns of people struggle to make a living with the desire to avoid exploiting Earth and redress the ravages already brought upon it? When Qoheleth urges in 3:7 that there is ‘a time to keep silence, and a time to speak’, his message is a powerful one for the contemporary reader. If we can do nothing else, we can make our voice join that of Earth in speaking out for ecojustice. The voice in front of the text can acknowledge its part in standing against Earth and realign its allegiance. All the economic advantage in the world will amount to nothing if there is no Earth. The task for the ecological reader is to carry and spread this vision beyond the inspirational world of the text. In one of the most striking of Qoheleth’s ironies, he subverts the expected olam of the divine and applies it also to Earth. In this way, any hierarchical opposition we might expect between Earth and God breaks down. The contingency of our lives is viewed against Earth and the constancy of its recurring cycles, and in the hitherto unbridgeable gap between the human and the divine, Earth is the pathway for humans to come into the presence of the divine mystery.

29

Fox, Qohelet and Contradictions, 199.

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5

Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 (17); 5:1–19 (20)1

Contents Chapter  4 of Ecclesiastes begins with Qoheleth denouncing those in power who victimize the vulnerable: ‘Again I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed – with no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power – with no one to comfort them’ (4:1). Qoheleth’s focus at this point is not on righteous anger against the oppressor, but on compassion for the oppressed. He has observed their tears, and twice he comments on the absence of those who might comfort them. Their fate is so deplorable that death would be better. This section of the book invites the question: Is it better never to have lived, than to have lived and suffered deeply? Chapter 5 offers ecological implications in its verses on the temple: Is there an unbridgeable gap between the sacred and the profane, or does Eternal Earth bridge that gap when its ground is the means by which we approach the temple of the divine?

Structure of Ecclesiastes 4:1–16; 5:1–20 (MT2 4:1–17; 5:1–19) 4:1–16

Better never to have lived than to suffer 5:1–20 Right living is better than offering sacrifice

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2

The difference in numbering occurs because of the discrepancy between the English and Hebrew numbering. MT is the Masoretic Text.

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Analysis of the Text: Ecclesiastes 4:1–16; 5:1–20 (MT 4:1–17; 5:1–19) Is it Better Not to Have Lived than to Have Seen Evil under the Sun? (4:1–16/MT 17) The persona of Solomon does not ring quite true in these verses. The historical Solomon would have been in a position to ease the sufferings of his people to a large extent yet, at least at the end of his reign, he imposed forced labour on others. In 1 Kings 9 there is a description of the forced labour that Solomon imposed upon the descendants of the aliens still in the land in order to have his extensive building projects completed. The text also notes that Solomon did not impose forced labour upon the Israelites, for that would have been ‘reversing’ the Exodus, as it were. His son Rehoboam did just that, and so precipitated the secession of the northern kingdom of Israel from Judah. The depiction of Solomon in this text of 1 Kings is quite at odds with the compassionate persona depicted in Ecclesiastes 4:1. If Qoheleth intends Solomon as the speaker here, perhaps the ‘old but foolish king’ of 4:13 ‘who will no longer take advice’ has something to learn from the ‘poor but wise youth’ of the same verse: ‘Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king, who will no longer take advice. One can indeed come out of prison to reign, even though born poor in the kingdom’ (4:13–14). There might also be an ironic twist intended in this verse, for it is the old counsellors who give the wise advice to Rehoboam and the young men who give him the foolish advice: Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the older men who had attended his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, ‘How do you advise me to answer this people?’ They answered him, ‘If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.’ But he disregarded the advice that the older men gave him, and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him.’ (1 Kings 12:6–8)

As the iconic wise figure, Solomon is an obvious choice for Qoheleth’s persona, but Qoheleth may also expect his readers to associate the oppression of the vulnerable with the historic Solomon, without thereby being accused of criticizing Israel’s renowned king.

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Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 (17); 5:1–19 (20)

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Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 contains a collection of ‘Better than . . .’ sayings, where the old foolish king/poor wise youth contrast occurs. This is a common form in wisdom literature. Several examples are to be found in Proverbs: Better is a little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble with it. Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it. (Prov. 15:16–17) How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver. (Prov. 16:16)

This form has the effect of creating a series of oppositions where one course of action, or attitude, or state, or type of person is pitted against an opposite, which the writer sees as the more desirable. In some cases the author’s preference is quite obvious, as in the case of wisdom in preference to wealth, above. With Qoheleth, however, one is not always sure where the preference lies. For instance, does Qoheleth deem that work is to be preferred to rest? Or is it the reward of work that makes the difference? In Ecclesiastes 3:13 Qoheleth argued that ‘there is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work, for that is their lot; who can bring them to see what will be after them?’ In that statement Qoheleth uses a version of the ‘better than . . .’ comparison, to claim that since work is the natural state of human beings, it is appropriate to find enjoyment in it.3 Now, in chapter 4, toil is compared unfavourably with peaceful rest (nahat): ‘Better is a handful with quiet than two handfuls with toil, and a chasing after wind’. Work of some kind is inevitable for human beings; otherwise, the ideal state would be one of doing nothing. C. L. Seow’s claim that it does not require ‘the instruction of a tob-saying (‘better-than’ saying) to know that any amount of rest is preferable to twice the amount of toil’ is a generalization.4 Qoheleth’s statements on work are not contradictory. Rest is desirable, especially in an ancient setting where work conditions were not governed by reasonable and humane regulations. At the same time, since work is inevitable, it is fitting to find pleasure in it, for the alternative would mean that human beings are bound to a life of misery. The results of the toil 3

4

Ogden connects the ‘nothing is better than . . .’ form of the proverb with the existential question ‘Of what advantage?’ See Graham S. Ogden, ‘Qoheleth’s Use of the “Nothing Is Better” – Form’, JBL 98:3 (Sept. 1979), 339–350. C. L. Seow, Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. The Anchor Bible (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 180.

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are the envy of others, according to 4:4: ‘Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from one person’s envy of another. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind’. This affirms Qoheleth’s general position of seeing productive toil as desirable. There is an economic connotation in the contrast between the handful with rest and the two handfuls with toil in v. 6: tob melo kap nahat mimelo hopnayim amal uwreut ruach. Seow translates v. 6 as, ‘Better is a handful with repose, than two fistfuls with toil and pursuit of wind’.5 He points out that ‘handful’ was the term used for the smallest measure for a ration of grain or legumes, according to the Elephantine Archives.6 The saying that rest is better than toil is set within the context of the oppression of the powerless. The ‘handful with quiet’ therefore presumes that the toil is interspersed with rest, and this is better than overwork that produces more than one’s needs. This is followed by the observations of vv. 7-8: Again, I  saw vanity under the sun:  the case of solitary individuals, without sons or brothers; yet there is no end to all their toil, and their eyes are never satisfied with riches. ‘For whom am I  toiling,’ they ask, ‘and depriving myself of pleasure?’ Th is also is vanity and an unhappy business.

The ‘ hebel under the sun’ of v. 7 might be explicated as ‘work without any purpose other than the acquisition of possessions for their own sake’. Once again the message comes back to a caution against greed. To deprive oneself of pleasure in order to accumulate wealth that will not be passed on to another amounts to ‘an unhappy business’, anyan ra. Earth produces the results of our toil, but wisdom cautions against seeking more than one person needs. The Solomon persona of chapter 4 sees the futility of producing goods when there is no one to inherit, and contemporary ecological wisdom is acutely aware of the need to provide for the future Earth community. Economic considerations of the present must always be balanced with a view to the rights of future generations. If we might learn wisdom from the concerns of Qoheleth’s comparison of the handful of the good (rest) with the handful of the less desirable (toil) to contemporary concerns, it might be

5 6

Seow, Ecclesiastes, 177. Seow, Ecclesiastes, 180.

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Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 (17); 5:1–19 (20)

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expressed as: ‘A handful of limited produce now is preferable to two handfuls of overproduction, which will result in wastage.’ The translation of 4:5 is not clear; it contains a puzzling saying for commentators. Some alternatives are, ‘Fools fold their hands and consume their own flesh’ as in the NRSV translation, or ‘Yet the flesh of the fool who folds his hands is no less consumed’.7 Roland Murphy offers the alternative translation,‘The fool folds his hands and he still has his meat to eat’.8 Accepting the NRSV translation as the more probable, R.  B. Y.  Scott refers to it as a ‘sarcastic popular saying’, which evokes the image of the fool growing thin with starvation because he will not work.9 Nili Wazana connects it with the result of the ‘evil eye’ that could be directed at someone in the ancient world.10 Michael Fox calls it ‘a strikingly crass metaphor for self-destruction’. He refers to the fool ‘cannibalizing himself’, but also offers the rather more ‘palatable’ image of the fool ‘sitting with hands clasped together while he gnaws on his knuckles’.11 A human being self-destructing is a disturbing image, and yet too often, as the human members of the Earth community, we allow the destruction of Earth’s resources without compensating for their use; as the fools expect to eat without toil, we expect Earth to provide resources endlessly and without serious human attempts at revegetation. Oppressors and victims, violence and the tears of the oppressed, power and the vulnerable in need of comfort, the living, the dead and the unborn are some of the oppositions that are depicted in 4:2–3, which serve as the examples of what is not yitron (of advantage) to human beings. Some of these are self-evident choices as opposites, but comparing the living unfavourably with the unborn and the dead is a more intriguing hierarchical opposition, since we would expect that ‘living’ would be always, or at least generally, preferable to non-existence. Death is a major theme of Ecclesiastes, as it was of the wider ancient world. Death, personified in the Greek-speaking ancient world as Thanatos, was sometimes depicted as a beautiful young man. There

7

8

9 10 11

Rami Shapiro (translator), Ecclesiastes Annotated and Explained (Woodstock, VT:  SkyLight Paths, eEdition, 2010), see under 4:4. Roland E.  Murphy, Word Bible Commentary vol. 23, Ecclesiastes (Dallas, TX:  Word Books, 1992) 31. R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 225. Nili Wazana, ‘A Case of the Evil Eye: Qohelet 4:4–8’, JBL 126:4 (2007), 695. Michael Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up. A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1999), 220.

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were two feasible reasons for this. One purpose was to present a less fearful face to the ancient population, much more at Death’s mercy than even our contemporary world, because of a much higher mortality rate. The other was to emphasize the seduction that moral evil, symbolized by Death, offered.12 Qoheleth’s saying need not be understood in its most literal sense. Human beings do not have a choice about being born. Nor is Qoheleth saying that non-existence is a happy fate. What he does say is that all who live have to experience life’s injustices, either their own or those of others. The only common good, then, is pleasure. This is the one advantage for humankind in the face of the cares of life. This is the message Qoheleth asserted in 3:22, which here he expands to show why it is the common good.

Right Behaviour when Approaching the House of God; Economic Risks (5:1–20) The themes of justice and death, prominent in 4:1–3, are continued in chapter 5 of Ecclesiasties: ‘If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and right, do not be amazed at the matter; for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them’ (5:8). In this chapter of Ecclesiastes there is a difference in the numbering of the Hebrew text (4:17) and the Septuagint Greek Text (5:1), with 4:17 of the Hebrew corresponding to 5:1 of the NRSV English text (ET). Here we will work with the NRSV numbering. The text can be divided into admonitions about the cultic worship (ET vv. 1–7), the consequences of prioritizing wealth at the expense of social justice and peace of mind (8–17) and the recurring Ecclesiastes theme of enjoyment as a gift of God (vv. 18–20). Section 5:1–7 begins with an admonition to reverence. An opposing stance between Heaven and Earth is in evidence, with a division drawn between the house of God and the home of earthly human creation: Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools; for they do not know how to keep from doing evil. Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be 12

Lloyd Bailey has alerted us to the masking of Death in order to prevent humankind’s confrontation with Death’s horror, and Yehoshua Amir has referred to the seductive power of moral evil. Lloyd R. Bailey, Sr., Biblical Perspectives on Death (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1979), 82; Yehoshua Amir, ‘Figure of Death in the Book of Wisdom’, JJS 30:2 (1979), 154 –178.

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Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 (17); 5:1–19 (20)

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quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few. (5:1–2)

Other oppositional pairs in vv. 1–7 are silence and verbosity, the sacred and the profane, and wisdom and folly. The house of God demands the reverence that is not proper to the profane; evil is equated with fools, so that wisdom, it is inferred, is equated with good; rashness is opposed to considered response, and Heaven is opposed to Earth as God is to humans. The text stops short of saying ‘God’s in God’s heaven, all’s right with the world’. For Qoheleth, all is not quite right with the world, but all is at least in apparent order. The hierarchical order that is evident in Qoheleth’s vision of the workings of the world indicates where his priorities lie. Silence is better than verbosity, and wisdom is clearly better than folly, even if all end up in the same fate, as Qoheleth continually reminds his readers. The hierarchical pairs that are of particular interest to the ecological reader are the sacred– profane and the Heaven–Earth dichotomies. With verse 2, Qoheleth implicitly admonishes the readers to remember their place in the hierarchy: ‘God is in heaven, and you upon earth’. Ironically, however, Qoheleth has already challenged his dividing line between the worldly and heavenly order. By designating Earth as olam, as Eternal Earth, Qoheleth has already subverted his own perceived hierarchy. Earth as olam dissolves the boundary between God and Earth, the world where human activity takes place and the world to which human beings belong. Earth is thus a means by which humans bridge the divide between God and human. Earth also dissolves the boundary between the sacred and the profane, since there is a close alliance between the Temple and Earth. In 5:1 (4:17) the worshipper is cautioned to watch his/her steps when approaching the Temple (beth ha elohim). The reference is to the idea of sacred ground. Th ings of God are taboo, that is, to be treated with awe, because of the danger inherent in humans drawing too near to the divine presence. The injunction to tread lightly on sacred ground is best attested in the ‘burning bush’ episode in Exodus, where Moses encounters the divine presence: There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the

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bush is not burned up.’ When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground’. He said further, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (Exod. 3:2– 6)

There are several echoes of this text in the Ecclesiastes text, but the admonition to reverence in the presence of God is not confined to Exodus. R. N. Whybray refers to Genesis 28:17, Exodus 19:12 and Numbers 17:13 and says, ‘This feeling of awe in the presence of God is fully in accordance with the Old Testament tradition’.13 The pertinent texts read: And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’. (Gen. 28:17) You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows; whether animal or human being, they shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain. (Exod. 19:12) Everyone who approaches the tabernacle of the LORD will die. Are we all to perish? (Num. 17:13)

Perhaps the most interesting of these texts for our purposes is that of Genesis 28:17. In Jacob’s dream, the ladder stretches from Earth to Heaven, and is thus a connector between the two. Jacob specifically names the place both the house of God and the gate of Heaven. In our text, Qoheleth cautions the worshippers to mind their steps, literally to guard one’s foot (regel) when going to the house of God. There is a barrier to human beings between the house of God and the Earth upon which they walk; at the same time, the Earth upon which they walk is the entrée into the house of God. The dichotomy is continued in 5:2: ‘Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few’. Again, the text of Jacob’s ladder 13

Roger Norman Whybray, Ecclesiastes (London: T & T Clark, 1989), 93.

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Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 (17); 5:1–19 (20)

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reverberates through the Ecclesiastes text. After Jacob has realized the import of his dream, where he has seen the ‘angels of God’ ascending and descending on the ladder, he makes a vow: He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you’. (Gen. 28:19–22)

In beth el, the house of El, Jacob observes the angels (malaki) or messengers, descending and ascending, thus removing the barrier between the heavens and Earth. Jacob is overwhelmed at his experience and vows to accept the Lord as his God, and to set up a stone pillar as the house of God. He is showing his gratitude for bread and clothing, and returning to his home in peace. Earlier God has made the same promise of land and descendants to Jacob, as to Abraham before him. In the Ecclesiastes text, Qoheleth refers to the house of Elohim, beth elohim. The more common expression is ‘house of YHWH’ (normally written as ‘the house of the Lord’), but ‘house of God’ is not unknown.14 Qoheleth warns against verbosity, but the reason he gives in 5:3 is something of a non sequitur, for there is no clear connection between speaking too much and the preoccupations that come with dreams: For dreams come with many cares, and a fool’s voice with many words. When you make a vow to God, do not delay fulfi lling it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Fulfi ll what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not fulfi ll it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake; why should God be angry at your words, and destroy the work of your hands? With many dreams come vanities (habalim) and a multitude of words; but fear God. (5:3–7)

The non sequitur of the dreams and the words of fools is modified, however, in v. 7, where Qoheleth adds ‘a multitude of words’ to the dreams. A deliberate 14

Whybray, Ecclesiastes, 92.

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connection is clear, since habalim is used of the cares that come with the dreams, thus connecting the emptiness of the dreams with the vows of the fools, which render no outcome. Some commentators see in Ecclesiastes a negative attitude towards the Temple. Whybray remarks: Although he says nothing that could be construed as suggesting that he disapproves of temple worship or regards it as of no importance, and even seems to go out of his way to appeal to scriptural precedent, it has frequently been alleged that he [Qoheleth] was indifferent to it . . . – an attitude supposedly characteristic of the earlier wisdom tradition, and also supposedly in line with Qoheleth’s view of God as a Deus absconditus unconcerned with human affairs.15

As Whybray also points out, the concern that Qoheleth shows for proper behavior in the Temple ‘suggests anything but indifference’ on his part.16 Qoheleth is not remonstrating against sacrifice as such. Rather, he specifically mentions the ‘sacrifice of the fools’. This should not be read to imply that all sacrifices are of fools. Bartholomew is more correct when he interprets this to mean that Qoheleth is not speaking of sacrifices in general, ‘but of the sacrifices of fools, which were not an outward form expressing the worship that is in spirit and truth, but the contrary thereof, namely an invitation whose purpose was to appease God and silence the conscience’.17 Qoheleth’s emphasis is on obeying God; the word for ‘listen’ in 5:1 (4:17), shema, means more than simply to listen: it means that having heard, one obeys. This verse evokes the Shema, the prayer of Israel, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one’, which expects the one hearing the prayer to live accordingly (Deut. 6:4). The demand of the ‘listening’ is a wholehearted love of God, which ‘keep(s) these words that I am commanding you today in your heart’ (Deut. 6:7). To listen, then, results not in the rash vows of the fools, but in the keeping of the words of the great commandment. As Deuteronomy 23:23 is at pains to point out: ‘Whatever your lips utter you must diligently perform, just as you have freely vowed to the LORD your God with your own mouth’. Any vow made before God is to be taken with the utmost seriousness. 15 16 17

Whybray, Ecclesiastes, 91. Whybray, Ecclesiastes 91. Craig G. Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic), 2009, 204.

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Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 (17); 5:1–19 (20)

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But the mention of dreams recalls once again the Genesis text and Jacob’s dream of the ladder. It is probably pressing the point too much to argue that Qoheleth had the Genesis text specifically in mind, but the possibility exists. The presence of parallel vocabulary, including dreams, vows and messengers is striking, especially as there seems to be no logical reason why Qoheleth should refer to messengers. Indeed, scholars are quite puzzled by the reference. Ecclesiastes 5:1–7 evokes rich ecological overtones. Qoheleth clearly sees an unimpeachable division between God and humans, Earth and Heaven, the sacred and the profane. The expression, ‘guard your steps’ is in the dual construct form. The import of the admonition is to remind the worshipper, and for our purposes the present ecological reader, that the ground of the Temple is sacred ground, imbued with the presence of the divine. While the very ground of Earth on which the believer walks separates the believer from the divine, nevertheless that ground is also the means by which the believer draws near to the sacred, in the same way that Jacob’s ladder bridges the gap between Jacob and God. On a regular scale, the priest of the Temple offered sacrifice on the seventh day of the month for ‘for anyone who has sinned through error or ignorance; so you shall make atonement for the temple’ (Ezek. 45:20). Qoheleth’s tradition acknowledged that the sacrifice offered by the Temple priests could atone for the sins of the people; further, in an intriguing echo of Ezekiel’s reference to the error or ignorance of the people, Qoheleth challenges the idea that the sacrifice offered by ‘fools’ is effective; he urges instead the ‘listening’ of the worshipper. Gordis adds that in 5:1 shema, listen, can be taken to mean ‘understand’. He bases his interpretation on Qoheleth’s concern, not for religious obedience, but for the contrast between ‘the need of understanding and . . . the conforming empty piety of those he regards as fools’.18 Gordis recalls the phrase of 1 Samuel 15:22, ‘And Samuel said, “Has YHWH as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of YHWH? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams” ’. This text might argue in favour of Qoheleth’s concern for religious obedience, but Gordis claims rather that Qoheleth’s focus lies on the fools mentioned rather than on the issue of sacrifice versus obedience.

18

Gordis, Koheleth, 237.

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The ambiguity in the reference to the fools and evil in 5:1 has given rise to various interpretations. The Hebrew can be translated as ‘To draw near to listen (is better than) the sacrifice given by fools, for they know nothing in the doing of evil’.19 Other possible translations are ‘they know only how to do evil’, and ‘they do not know how to do evil’, which is the literal translation of the Masoretic Text.20 Gordis freely renders the sense of the verse to mean that Qoheleth has contempt for ‘the pious fools who run to the Temple and pay their pledges’.21 This seems to me to be somewhat out of tune with the sense that the verse conveys. Gordis seems to be inferring that what renders the person a fool is the conformity to the pious offering of sacrifice rather than understanding. Seen in the light of all these possibilities, Qoheleth is warning against irreverence and unthinking rashness. In 5:13 Qoheleth uses one of his stock phrases, ‘under the sun’ (tahat hashamesh), which occurs twenty-seven times in the book. There is a grievous ill that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owners to their hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture; though they are parents of children, they have nothing in their hands. As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands. This also is a grievous ill: just as they came, so shall they go; and what gain do they have from toiling for the wind? Besides, all their days they eat in darkness, in much vexation and sickness and resentment. (5:13–17)

The phrase occurs in Hebrew, Phoenician and Greek texts, and is thus a common expression in the ancient world.22 It is an expression that has survived into the modern era. Those who love escapist murder mysteries are familiar with Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun. It may even be that Christie’s Mesopotamian connections23 inspired the title! Derek Kidner sees the expression as referring to the limitations of human existence, ‘the mundane limits which are the same for all men [sic]’.24 The phrase echoes

19 20 21 22 23 24

My translation, from the BHS, 1984 edn. Gordis, Koheleth, 238. Gordis, Koheleth, 238. Murphy, Ecclesiastes, 6; Gordis, Koheleth, 195. Christie was connected through her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan. Derek Kidner, The Message of Ecclesiastes (London: InterVarsity Press, 1976), 24.

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Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 (17); 5:1–19 (20)

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with the contemporary ecological reader, both in its scientific and its symbolic senses. Scientifically, Earth and the Earth community are regulated by the sun’s movements, but the phrase also stands for all creation, human and non-human, who share an existence on our planet and indeed in the cosmos. Christie, in the book referred to, uses the phrase ‘evil under the sun’ in two respects. The usual stereotypical murder takes place on a sunny Italian island; but the more sinister meaning refers to the capacity of human beings for evil, in any place and time. The universality of Qoheleth’s message is undeniable. Greed and oppression are grievous evils, and a surfeit of wealth is of little use when it thwarts such a natural necessity as restful sleep. In these verses, the voice of economy is to be heeded, for investments are never guaranteed. ‘Under the sun’ is a favoured expression of Qoheleth, and it is noteworthy that Qoheleth is the only biblical writer to use it. ‘Under the heavens’ is the more usual expression. Although the two may be synonymous, Seow argues that there may be a subtle difference in the two expressions. 25 Phoenician, Elamite and Mesopotamian inscriptions indicate that ‘under the sun’ refers to those who are in the realm of the living. Thus, the expression should be taken quite literally to indicate those who can see the sunlight. In the ancient world view, the vault of the heavens sat above the pillars of Earth, which in turn separated Earth from the waters of the abyss. When Qoheleth claims that Earth is olam, eternal, he destabilizes the structure. Eternity belongs to the divine, according to Genesis 1–3. Adam and Eve are forbidden to eat of the fruit of the tree of life. This prohibition is underscored in 3:22–23, where the voice of Heaven declares its fear: Then the LORD God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’ (leolam) – therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

In Genesis, the effort of the human being to reach beyond proper limitations in the search for immortality (leolam) leads to the expulsion from the garden. Further, it is immediately connected with the act of painful toiling of the ground (ha adamah). The words used in Genesis and Ecclesiastes are 25

Seow, Commentary, 106.

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different. For Genesis, the adam, the human being before the transgression, is to serve (ebed) the ground (adamah), whereas in Ecclesiastes the human being toils (amal) on Earth (eretz). The difference is more than vocabulary since, as previously argued, toil in Ecclesiastes is not the result of alienation from the garden, whereas in Genesis, painful toil is the result of the curse. In Ecclesiastes 5:18–20, Qoheleth reiterates his belief in the goodness of toil: This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot. Likewise all to whom God gives wealth and possessions and whom he enables to enjoy them, and to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil – this is the gift of God. For they will scarcely brood over the days of their lives, because God keeps them occupied with the joy of their hearts. (5:18– 6:1)

While Qoheleth many times bemoans the difficulties and lack of advantage in toil (amal), here he is quite clear that toil is a gift of God rather than a curse, and is to be enjoyed while the moment of joy lasts. Where the Genesis text can be declared a ‘grey’ text, in the sense that Earth suffers oppression, here Earth and humans are in harmony. The human being toils and receives enjoyment. Not only can toil and its produce be seen as a gift from God, it is also Earth’s gift to humanity.

Hearing Qoheleth’s Earth In the ancient world view a gap exists between the heavens above and Earth below. In the case of the approach of the worshipper to the Temple, there is an apparent division between the sacred and the profane. Yet we have also seen that it is the ground upon which the worshipper walks to the gate of the Temple that enables this rift to be bridged. There is no other way for the Earth-dweller but to tread upon Earth-olam in his or her approach to the divine. Thus, the divide between sacred and profane breaks down, and on Earth we find ourselves already in the presence of the divine. This relationship that exists between Earth and God is reaffirmed in the call to enjoy the gifts of God, given on Earth through toiling ‘under the sun’ for whatever possessions might come. There is an ominous reminder here, though, that the days of enjoyment, if they exist at all, are few.

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Ecclesiastes 4:1–16 (17); 5:1–19 (20)

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From an ecological viewpoint, death is a necessary reality. Without the death of organic creation, there could be no change, no new species, no recreation and rebirth of biological life. Qoheleth’s subtle reminder in 5:15 that Death is always hovering in the background is also to be heeded by the contemporary reader: ‘As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands’. Qoheleth’s advice in view of the few days we have is pertinent: Do not brood over life’s uncertainty, sleep securely after toil, share whatever riches we might gain, vow to leave a fair share of Earth’s gifts to future generations, and fulfill that vow.

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Ecclesiastes 6:1–7:29

Contents Death is a constant reminder to Qoheleth, and therefore to his readers, that human existence is a fleeting moment in the passage of time. Indeed, this is the very reason for the narrator’s constant refrain of encouraging enjoyment. There is an integral connection between Qoheleth’s encouragement to enjoy the good things of life and the ever-present knowledge that Death can strike at any time. The certainty of death and the paradoxical uncertainty of the moment when it will come mean that enjoyment is both fragile and appropriate. Rindge observes, ‘The perception of goods as divine gifts underscores both the appropriateness of enjoying them and the fragility of such enjoyment’.1 By choosing to enjoy the good things of Earth, we can exercise a ‘modicum of control’ in an uncertain world.2

Structure of Ecclesiastes 6:1–7:29 6:1–12 Enjoy life, for death comes to all

7:1–29 Live wisely, and avoid the snares of women

1

2

Matthew S.  Rindge, ‘Mortality and Enjoyment:  The Interplay of Death and Possessions in Qoheleth’. CBQ 73 (2011), 267. Rindge, ‘Mortality and Enjoyment’, 272.

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Analysis of the Text: Ecclesiastes 6:1–7:29 Life Is Short; Goods May Pass to Strangers; Enjoy What We Have (6:1–12) Rindge’s claim that ‘asceticism is not a legitimate option for Qoheleth’ is more than a truism.3 He supports his claim by showing that there is an interplay between death and possessions in 2:1–26, 3:11–22, 5:10– 6:2, 8:8–15, 9:1–10 and 12:1–7. Juxtaposed with the uncertainties that death generates in the lives of humans is the certainty of Earth’s continuance. In Qoheleth’s vision, of all created matter only Earth shares with God the epithet olam, eternal. For all other existence, death is the ultimate reminder of the transient and fragile nature of life: ‘For who knows what is good for mortals while they live the few days of their vain life, which they pass like a shadow? For who can tell them what will be after them under the sun?’ (6:12). The phrase ‘pass like a shadow’ recalls the words of the ungodly in the Wisdom of Solomon 2:5: ‘For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because it is sealed up and no one turns back’. Qoheleth does not share the certainty of the ungodly that death is the final end. He does not know what – or indeed if anything – happens after death. Some see this as a lack of faith, but that observation is usually from a contemporary Christian perspective. That is not Qoheleth’s world. He is a child of his time and world view in that he does not affirm an afterlife. He ponders what happens, but does not assert. There is ambiguity in the recurrence of his stock phrase ‘under the sun’. It appears that Qoheleth is bypassing the need to align himself with a position of belief in an afterlife, for ‘under the sun’ situates us firmly on the stage on which human life is played out: Eternal Earth. There is one thing of which Qoheleth is sure: individuals will die, new generations will take their place, and Earth remains. It is a certainty that the contemporary reader might envy. Contemporary science and the environmentally careless greed of which we are guilty have notified us that there is no such certainty

3

Rindge, ‘Mortality and Enjoyment’, 273.

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of Earth’s endurance. Whether or not we believe in an afterlife, we have a responsibility to this life and this Earth. While I was researching this chapter, I was fortunate enough to make a trip to the Atacama Desert in the north of Chile. This is purported to be the oldest and driest desert in the world. I was quite overwhelmed by the natural treasures of that area. There are thermal springs, geysers, multicoloured rocks of greens and browns and reds, sand dunes, and salt pools that attract flamingoes to feast on the minute brine shrimp that inhabit the pools and can outwit the drought seasons by hibernating. A night-time visit to an astronomical site found me gazing at the wonders of the night sky, whose immensity equalled or perhaps even surpassed the magnificent skies of my own outback South Australia. Our guide was an astronomer–philosopher and I imagine, probably with good reason, that his reflections stemmed from his ancestral roots in the Atacamenos and the Incas of that area. One gem of his philosophizing found deep resonance with me, engrossed as I am in this present work. It was the simple and true observation that ‘the Earth will not last forever’. In that ethereal setting, the words carried the full import of what he was saying. And, while paradoxical, I find no authentic contradiction of the observation and the concept of Eternal Earth. Viewed within the bounds of astronomical science, where we talk of light years and infinite space, of the Big Bang and the expansion and implosion of the universe, Eternal Earth still holds meaning in the unknowns of time and space. Our own lifetimes will pass, but if we do our part, Earth will be here for boundless generations to come. Set against this hope for future generations, Death is the foil with which Qoheleth constantly confronts us, reminding us that we can hope for a future but can never be entitled to it. To understand more clearly the role Qoheleth assigns to Death, it is wise to look at the overall message of 6:1– 6: There is an evil that I  have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy upon humankind:  those to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that they lack nothing of all that they desire, yet God does not enable them to enjoy these things, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous ill. A man may beget a hundred children, and live many years; but however many are the days of his years, if he does not enjoy life’s good things, or has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes into vanity (hebel) and goes into darkness, and in darkness its

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name is covered; moreover it has not seen the sun or known anything; yet it finds rest rather than he. Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good – do not all go to one place?

Death is the great leveler, and the section 6:1–12 is full of death imagery. There is a hierarchical play between death and life, but in true Qoheleth style, the oppositions are subverted. The divide between death and life is not absolute, for some forms of death may be better than some forms of life. In Qoheleth’s view, no-life is to be preferred to a life of suffering. His premise that it is better never to have been born than to lack enjoyment raises the metaphorical eyebrows, and it is hard to disagree that here at least Qoheleth is the quintessential pessimist. Darkness is the overriding image in these lines: ‘For it (the stillborn child) comes into vanity and goes into darkness, and in darkness its name is covered; moreover it has not seen the sun or known anything’ (6:3–4). In the ancient world where a belief in an afterlife was not clearly held, two things in particular were valued: the begetting of descendants and the memory of the name; in these two existential events a person lived on. For the stillborn child, there was no possibility of descendants, and even the name passed into darkness. Today, society is aware of the grief suffered by the parents of the stillborn child, and one of the ways that grief might be softened is to name the child and acknowledge her or his existence, however brief. Customs may not have been so sensitive in the ancient world, but nevertheless the tragedy of the lost life was indirectly acknowledged in the understanding that even the memory died. Seen within this framework, Qoheleth’s example is stark: to be stillborn is better than to live a life that lacks pleasure, and death is better than to see the sun, if seeing the sun means experiencing suffering. The death/life imagery is laden, especially in view of the life expectancy of the ancient world. About half of the children born would not live to see the age of five. Begetting a hundred children and living many years, indeed, living a thousand years twice over, all speak of the fecundity of a life that would be almost outside the imagination of the majority of the population. Qoheleth argues, once again, for the inability of wealth to bring happiness. The only advantage, the only yitron, that wealth might offer is enjoyment. But he does not advocate a selfish enjoyment at the expense of others. He is consistent in his condemnation of those who would oppress the poor and

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the weak. There is a clear paradox in Qoheleth’s focus on the inevitability of death, and at the same time its uncertainty. It is the human condition to know that Death will come, but the when and the how of its visitation are hidden from us until it approaches, or even arrives instantaneously. Again during the course of this chapter I was struck by the wisdom of Qoheleth’s position. A very popular 25-year-old Australian cricketer, Philip Hughes, was sadly struck on the head by a cricket ball as he was playing a first-class cricket match. Virtually the whole country held its collective breath to see if he would survive, but two days later, in spite of the best of medical intervention, he died, and was deeply mourned. The nation pondered why we should feel such grief for someone we may not have known personally. One reason given was that we do form an attachment to our ‘heroes’ and we feel genuine grief when we lose them, especially when they are well liked by all, as this young man was. For my own part, undoubtedly influenced by my time spent with Qoheleth, I was most affected by the random suddenness of the event. He was playing well –’63 not out’ will be always associated with him – and his mother and sister were enjoying the match. His life was ahead of him, and in the brief moment it took for a ball to leave the bowler’s hand and reach his head, that life came to an end. Some queried if his fame and talent should make a difference. They asked whether any young life brought to an end so suddenly should be just as important. But it was the very fact that he was important in the lives of many strangers that reminds us that it does not matter who we are. Rich or poor, famous or obscure, sick or healthy, we all share that human condition. I think that is one reason for the shock. If it could happen to him, or a Princess Diana, not the least or the greatest of us has any claim on a presumed future. Death does not discriminate. To enjoy life does give us that ‘modicum of control’ in a random existence. Qoheleth is the finest exponent of this truth. He is acutely conscious that longevity is not guaranteed. For this reason it is wise to enjoy the good things of life while one is alive. While the ungodly of the Book of Wisdom advocate greed and oppression in what they see as the enjoyment of life, Qoheleth advocates a simple and ethical enjoyment:  All human toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not satisfied (6:7). This statement implicitly cautions against greed, and against eating more than is necessary for health; to do so does not bring satisfaction, but only a desire for more and more. A related thought exists in the ‘better

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than’ proverb of 6:9:  ‘Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire’. While the main emphasis of the passage is on wealth and possessions, the reference to food and sight suggest that Qoheleth also has in mind the more basic essentials of living. When the chapter is considered in the context of the movement from rich to poor, as in verses 2 and 8, the section becomes an expression of life’s vagaries as a leveler. While the rich are not guaranteed the enjoyment of their possessions, the poor have no advantage, for even if they attain wealth, they would be in the same situation, without guarantee of enjoyment. Qoheleth is not simply anti-wealth; he is against the sort of problems brought about by worrying about the loss of wealth and security. A person may have wealth, but may not be able to enjoy it, either by God’s design or otherwise, by the untimely approach of Death or by economic misfortune. Qoheleth does not explicitly say that it is God’s plan that the rich might not enjoy their wealth; but his reference to God in 6:2 reminds his readers that God gives wealth, and therefore God has power over the ability to enjoy it. It is not clear whether in this Qoheleth is referring to sickness and death or the reversal of economic fortune as the cause. Rindge would see an inference of death. Whatever the cause, the wealth passes to a stranger, and so it is not only the one who loses the riches who suffers, but also his or her descendants. In today’s Western societies, people are well taken care of, whether they receive an inheritance or not, but that was not the case in ancient societies. Qoheleth would have been familiar with poverty, at least vicariously. He would have seen that wealth comes and wealth goes, just as generations come and go, with or without their wealth. The person envisaged here by Qoheleth is not the man or woman who has only enough to live sustainably; the person envisaged here is one who lacks nothing, neither wealth nor status, but is not satisfied with good things. Toil, he says, is for the appetite, but it is an insatiable appetite. When Qoheleth refers here to the ‘insatiable appetite’, he is returning to a theme first mentioned in 1:8 and repeated in 4:8: ‘All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing’ (1:8) and to ‘the case of solitary individuals, without sons or brothers; yet there is no end to all their toil, and their eyes are never satisfied with riches’ (4:8). Qoheleth condemns such wasted effort: ‘ “For whom am I toiling,” they ask, “and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also

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is vanity and an unhappy business’ (4:8). For Qoheleth, toil should be for the food that satisfies. At the core of Qoheleth’s belief that all is ‘breath’ lies his keen awareness of the reality of death. Qoheleth is aware not only death’s inevitability, but also its uncertainty. It is inevitable for all creation, human and non-human; but its time, its eth cannot be predicted. Notwithstanding Qoheleth’s claim in his poem of chapter 3, that there a time to be born and a time to die, the specifics of the time are not at issue. Qoheleth is reminding his readers that for all, life will pass away. In 5:15 the emphasis is on the inability to take wealth into Death’s realm: ‘As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands’. It is for this reason that Qoheleth claims that even the produce of one’s toil is useless. In chapter 6 Qoheleth’s words becomes expressive of the darkness that the miser experiences, and it is a foretaste of the spectre of Death that he will describe later. This is a spectre that has been present in the book from chapter 1. When Qoheleth speaks of the generations that come and go, the presumption is that it is Death that takes them from Earth. Addison Wright observed a clear break between 6:7–9 and 6:10–12, suggesting that the book has two main parts, 1:12– 6:9 and 6:10–11:6. For Wright, the first part of Ecclesiastes concerned the vanity of the human pursuit of pleasure, and the second part concerned the inability of humanity to understand God’s works.4 Following Wright’s observation, then, the thought of 6:9, ‘Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire; this also is vanity and a chasing after wind’, is a summary statement of the first part of the book, and 6:10–12 alert us to the inscrutability of God’s ways: Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what human beings are, and that they are not able to dispute with those who are stronger. The more words, the more vanity, so how is one the better? For who knows what is good for mortals while they live the few days of their vain life, which they pass like a shadow? For who can tell them what will be after them under the sun?

4

Addison G Wright, ‘The Riddle of the Sphinx: The Structure of the Book of Qoheleth ’, CBQ 30:3 (1968), 313 –334.

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Again we are confronted with an implicit reference to death in Qoheleth’s reminder that our generation will pass. It seems that for the narrator, wisdom is denied to human beings simply by reason of the transient quality of life. Qoheleth leaves the question hanging as he moves on to one of his ‘better than’ proverbs in 7:1: ‘A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death, than the day of birth’.

A Series of ‘Better-than’ Sayings; Wisdom Is Deep; the Woman More Bitter than Death (7:1–29) Within the framework of 6:11–9:6 comes the section 7:1–29.5 The economic world view of Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes 7:1–4 must have been reassuring for those who could not have afforded the luxury of ‘precious ointment’: A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death, than the day of birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting; for this is the end of everyone, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Much perfumed ointment is freely given by Earth in the form of flowers and natural oils. Perfumes sold for economic profit were often very expensive, but Qoheleth reminds the poorer ones in his society that a good name is still available to all, regardless of wealth. In Hebrew this proverb more succinctly says that a good name is better than good oil. Apart from being an expensive product when commercially produced, perfumes and oils were used for a variety of purposes. Robert O’Connell, in his work on Proverbs, identifies the use of myrrh for incense, to scent clothing, in cosmetics, in oils for sacred anointing, in bedding connected with erotic love, and in burial spices.6 O’Connell also notes the connection of perfumes with sensuousness 5

6

Norbert Lohfi nk, Qoheleth:  A  Continental Commentary, trans. by Sean McEvenue, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 89, begins his new section at 6:11. Robert H. O’Connell, ‘Proverbs Vii 16–17:  A  Case of Fatal Deception in a “Woman and the Window” Type-Scene’, VT 41:2 (April 1991), 235 – 41, 237–238.

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and luxury.7 The connection is further emphasized by the similarity in Hebrew of the words for ointment and name, shem, name, and shemen, ointment, oil, but O’Connell adds the further insight of a similar concept in the Song of Songs: ‘your name spoken is a spreading perfume’.8 Qoheleth’s comparison between the good name and the perfume is thus an apt one. It is a comparison that has universal value for, as Qoheleth reminds the poorer ones of his society, a good name is available to all, regardless of wealth. It is not surprising that Qoheleth uses as his comparison the sensuously rich symbol of perfume. His prevailing advice to enjoy life is well attuned to the festivities that encourage the enjoyment of life, but for Qoheleth a deeper joy is to be desired, the principle of a good reputation. Thus far in the chapter the advice is conventional. Few among Qoheleth’s company would disagree, and it is advice which speaks to our own age also. True to Qoheleth’s unconventional mindset, he assails us with some of his atypical dichotomies. The advice to value one’s good name above wealth may explain Qoheleth’s apparent and startling preference for death over birth in 7:1-2: ‘It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting; for this is the end of everyone, and the living will lay it to heart.’ If the second line of the saying is understood in conjunction with the first line, Qohelet’s sense is that a good name can be valued at death because one has had the opportunity to build one’s reputation, but the good name cannot yet be present at the time of a person’s birth. In that respect, then, the day of death is to be valued above the day of birth. Lohfink’s insights are stark:  ‘Each generation must rebuild its store of knowledge, because each death wipes it out’.9 Thus, he says, ‘life must be understood from the perspective of death.’ Yet Lohfink does not leave this thought hanging without some sort of reprieve. In the face of death, he implies, the only wise course of action is to enjoy life!10 Rindge expresses a similar pessimism:  ‘The inability to guarantee the safety of possessions (and passing them on to progeny) underscores the inherent fragility of possessions. Any sense of control over them is illusory and

7 8

9 10

O’Connell, ‘Proverbs’, 237. Roland Murphy, Word Biblical Commentary vol. 23:  Ecclesiastes (Dallas, TX :  Word Books, 1992), 63. Lohfi nk, Qoheleth, 1. Lohfi nk, Qoheleth, 93.

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temporary at best’.11 Herein lies one of Qoheleth’s many ambiguities: while confronting our mortality, joy is the obvious solace. The ambiguity of ‘the day of death is better than the day of birth’ comes in a series of ‘better than’ sayings from section 7:2–7:10: It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting; for this is the end of everyone, and the living will lay it to heart. (7:2) Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad. (7:3) It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. (7:5) Better is the end of a thing than its beginning; the patient in spirit are better than the proud in spirit. (7:8) Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. (7:10)

Some of the sayings are clear-cut but others defy expectations. Few would disagree with 7:5 or 7:8b. But why is the day of death better than the day of birth, sorrow better than laughter and mourning better than feasting? The sayings can best be understood in light of the sage’s quest for wisdom, expressed in 7:23–27: All this I have tested by wisdom; I said, ‘I will be wise’, but it was far from me. That which is, is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out? I turned my mind to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the sum of things, and to know that wickedness is folly and that foolishness is madness . . . See, this is what I found, says the Teacher, adding one thing to another to find the sum.

The key to the interpretation lies in v. 27, ‘See, this is what I found, says the Teacher, adding one thing to another to find the sum . . . ’ The sage weighs up all of life’s experiences and holds them all in tension. By confronting the reality of good and evil, of sorrow and joy, of life and death, he reaches the ‘sum’, a word surprisingly taken from the world of the economy. The ‘sum’ is perhaps better expressed as ‘wisdom’. To acknowledge the world of reality with all its ambiguity is perhaps the closest any human will come to gaining wisdom. There is a surprising profusion of economic terms in this section: 11

Rindge, ‘Mortality and Enjoyment’, 272.

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Ecclesiastes 6:1–7:29

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Wisdom is as good as an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to the one who possesses it. Consider the work of God; who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other, so that mortals may not find out anything that will come after them. (7:11–14)

In Chapter  2 of the present book, I  drew upon several suggestions concerning ‘crooked’ and its meaning. It is pertinent that the word is here connected with the economy, with advantage (yitron), inheritance and money, with prosperity and adversity and possession. Is there some undertone here of crookedness in financial or business dealings? If that is the case, then it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Qoheleth is obliquely attributing to God the same potential for ‘crooked dealings’ with human beings in the existential state as the unscrupulous merchant in the commercial world! Side by side with this statement of God’s crookedness sit Qoheleth’s doubts about the possibility of ever working out the ways of God:  ‘All this I  have tested by wisdom; I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. That which is, is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?’ (7:23–24). There is an echo here of Deuteronomy 30:11–14, where wisdom is equated with the Law: Surely, this commandment that I  am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

For Qoheleth, life is not quite so simple. The Law as gift of God may be attainable, but wisdom is not so easily grasped. The thought of Job 28:12–20 is perhaps a closer parallel: But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?

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Mortals do not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living. The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’ and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ It cannot be gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; the price of wisdom is above pearls. The chrysolite of Ethiopia cannot compare with it, nor can it be valued in pure gold. Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding?

The Joban questioner ends with the unanticipated resolution that God is the one who finds wisdom: When [God] gave to the wind its weight, and apportioned out the waters by measure; when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt; then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out. (Job 28:25–27)

Careful attention to the Hebrew in this text shows that wisdom is poetically personified. Wisdom is not simply an attribute of God, drawn upon in the work of creation. Wisdom is revealed to God precisely as God is creating. As noted above, von Rad refers to wisdom as the revelation of creation, addressing humankind. Murphy refers to it as the revelation of God in creation.12 Since the poem has produced much scholarly debate, it will suffice here to focus on the connection of wisdom with creation, since this feature of wisdom is also hinted at in the Ecclesiastes text. Qoheleth speaks of wisdom as being far off and deep. The whole book attests to Qoheleth’s experience of a created world that constantly thwarts the seeker in his or her search for wisdom. For Qoheleth, as for Job, the world is not about to give up its mysteries. 12

Roland E. Murphy, ‘Wisdom and Creation’, JBL 104:1 (1985), 9.

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In spite of Qoheleth’s pessimism, especially his view that some people are better not to have lived, his clear choice is for life over death. In this he is at one with the Deuteronomy text. The important point for Qoheleth is to have a life where enjoyment is the foil to the fragility of the human condition. As he says in 7:15–18: In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing. Do not be too righteous, and do not act too wise; why should you destroy yourself? 17 Do not be too wicked, and do not be a fool; why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of the one, without letting go of the other; for the one who fears God shall succeed with both.

A prominent theme here is balance. There is no absolute control over the quality or the length of our existence, but the wise and cautious person will try to attain a balance between righteousness and care for life. Indeed, there is something almost discordant in 7:9, where Qoheleth’s audience is not immune to wickedness and folly. Qoheleth is a realist: he knows that those who read his words are not always the perfect human beings. The resolution lies with God. In regard to 7:12, ‘For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to the one who possesses it,’ Seow offers the following critique of the ancient world view that Qoheleth challenges: A similar sort of subversion is evident in 7:12, where the author equates the security afforded by money with the security of wisdom. Here, the term used for the protective power of money and wisdom is sel, a term that elsewhere connotes transience (6:12; 8:13). Qoheleth’s point is that money, like wisdom, affords not a permanent shelter but only temporary relief. He suffers no illusions about the reliability of money or wisdom, even though he acknowledges, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that ‘wisdom is as good as inheritance’ (7:11), pointing ironically to the fact that both are ephemeral.13

The romantic reader might recoil from the expression of wisdom in economic terms, but Qoheleth has never been accused of romantic sensibilities! He lives by his life’s experiences, and they are out of his control. 13

Choon-Leong Seow. ‘Theology When Everything Is out of Control ’, Interpretation 55: 237 (July 2001):, 241, 244.

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Verses 7:26, ‘I found more bitter than death the woman who is a trap, whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters; one who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her’, causes some embarrassment for contemporary interpreters, whose awareness of gender issues has been heightened by the advances on understandings of gender equality gained because of feminist movements. Murphy handles the embarrassment by referring to an a maledominated military culture, while Gordis subverts the comment to remark on the ‘attraction’ that women hold over Qoheleth.14 For my own part, I remember university sing songs, or songs around a campfire in the beautiful Flinders Ranges of the South Australian outback, where our extended family, men and women alike, sang heartily about ‘Old Smokey’ and ‘not one boy in a million a poor girl can trust’. Perhaps there had been one or two we couldn’t trust, but generally we did not transfer the message of the song into a bitter approach to our social lives! Perhaps there is a personal note here that Qoheleth is sharing. Indeed, the word translated by the NRSV as ‘mind’ in 7:25, is actually leb in Hebrew, generally translated as ‘heart’. As Fox points out, ani welibbi is an unusual construction.15 Fox sees in the comment that, ‘Qoheleth’s heart as an independent entity ready to meet – and be caught by – the woman’s heart.’16 Be that as it may, it seems perhaps he found lasting and stable love, because he is able to give a different kind of advice in 9:9: ‘Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun. . . .’ Still, the negative attitude towards women is prevalent in some of the wisdom texts (see for example Proverbs 7 and Sirach 42)  and. because we are dealing with Scripture here and its possible effect on many who would live by these words, we need to take the verses in all seriousness.

Hearing Qoheleth’s Earth Inherent in the view of Death as the great leveler is another facet that the narrator has suggested to the discerning reader: the distribution of wealth. 14

15

16

Murphy, Ecclesiastes, 77–78; Robert Gordis, Koheleth – the Man and His World (New York : Bloch, 1955), 272 . Fox, Qohelet and Contradictions, 240. See also Longman’s translation, ‘devote myself’, based upon the BHS textual apparatus, of ‘the awkward phrase’, Tremper Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998), 202 . Fox, Qohelet and Contradictions, 241.

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When one dies, wealth may pass perhaps to a stranger. Of course, Qoheleth may not have thought of it in such modern economic terms as the distribution of wealth. Legal processes today allow for rights of inheritance, but if we transfer the point to an ecological framework, we might think of death as the pathway by which custodianship of Earth’s goods pass into new hands. The inevitability of their passing increases the urgency of Qoheleth’s counsel to enjoy. There is indeed a message here for ecology. Environmental responsibility does not demand guilt and austerity. To go through life without appreciating Earth’s gifts would be, in Qoheleth’s view, tantamount to despising the gifts the Creator offers. Rather, keeping Economy’s voice under control, an appreciation of Earth’s good produce, and the desire to share that with future generations, all combine to ensure there will be an inheritance for our Earth’s future children. Earth’s natural bounties might inspire us to work more wisely and authentically to ensure that there will be an Eternal Earth for future generations to enjoy. No one may eventually remember our name, but we will at least ensure that we will not be cursed by future generations if we leave a dying Earth beyond salvaging, and an insoluble problem for our descendants. It would be an achievement worth striving for if future generations were to bless the name of the current generation as ‘a spreading perfume’, if we were to take seriously the need to avert the looming ecological crisis. Qoheleth lived in a world where conventions offered security, but Qoheleth’s vision was much more profound. He may not have used the term ‘chaos’, but his concept of hebel is very close to the mark. Seow indirectly compares hebel to chaos: ‘Like order in the cosmos, the semblance of structure in the poem [3:1–8] – intending, perhaps, to mirror the impression of cosmic orderliness – is as elusive as vapour’. Seow adds that enjoyment is therefore not hedonistic, but a matter of responsibility. In an uncertain world, to enjoy God’s gifts is the appropriate response to hebel.17 The things of Earth are for our good; they are not for exploitation. The ecological movement asks of the Western world that we limit the consumption of our resources. At the same time, however, it is quite unfair to ask of poorer nations that they reduce consumption and pollution when they are not on a level playing field. Here the voice of Earth has a message for the economy. 17

Seow, ‘Theology’, 244.

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Earth’s provisions are for the basics of life; the economy has a responsibility to ensure that these provisions, meant for rich and poor, are not exploited and squandered. The voice of Earth is plainly heard here. To enjoy the good things of Earth is preferable to a life lived under economic oppression. The gender dichotomy belongs in the same framework as the ‘reason/ nature’ dichotomy that has been so disastrous for our ecological health. Where women and men are separated in the categories of snare and victim, mutual respect is devalued. Similarly, where Earth is seen only as the nurturer in the vein of the women who set food on the table, human beings lose sight of Earth’s status as olam, the Eternal one, and the way is then open for exploitation of the provider. Earth is not only a provider, but the stage on which our lives are lived and the one who receives us when life is finished. Earth’s role in our lives is all encompassing.

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Ecclesiastes 8:1–9:18

Contents Chapters 8 and 9 of Ecclesiastes could be called a microcosm of Qoheleth’s major themes:  the oppression of the marginalized, the powerlessness even of wisdom itself in the face of life’s circumstances, the fragility and seeming injustices of human existence, and the inevitability of the day of death. From an ecological point of view, there emerges once again the exhortation to enjoy Earth’s gifts, even while engaged in the daily toil.

Structure of Ecclesiastes 8:1–9:18 8:1–17

Wisdom shines through; God is just

9:1–18 Wisdom is stronger than war

Analysis of the Text: Ecclesiastes 8:1–9:18 Wisdom Changes One for the Better; God Is Just, but Inscrutable (8:1–17) Chapter 8 begins with an exquisite reflection on wisdom: ‘Who is like the wise person? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? Wisdom makes one’s face shine, and the hardness of one’s countenance is changed’ (8:1). Despite all its powerlessness to control the things that will be, wisdom is worth seeking. It seems that wisdom and Earth are in harmony in the simple yet profound things that make a life gracious. If anyone is in doubt that Qoheleth values wisdom, then 8:1 should lay to rest those misgivings. What a simple yet powerful way

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to express his belief in the value of wisdom. Sometimes the deepest truths are conveyed in the most unpretentious ways, and this verse is an example. Life’s experiences tell us that no matter how learned we are, no matter how cautious we are in our decisions, no matter how sensitive we are, we often make the most far-reaching mistakes. In other words, wisdom is quite possibly the most elusive of human qualities. It is indeed a ‘breath’, a chasing of the wind. Yet when we gain wisdom, there is a change not only within but externally too. An intriguing feature of this section is Qoheleth’s relationship with the things of Earth. For Qoheleth, a discernible indication of wisdom is to be found in the face! Wisdom softens and brightens the face we present to the world. Thus for Qoheleth, there is no dichotomy between the body and spiritual qualities; they are intimately connected. For all his so-called nihilism, Qoheleth is able in one short verse to point the way to contentment. Then, in true Qoheleth style, the mood and content changes. ‘No one has power over the wind to restrain the wind, or power over the day of death; there is no discharge from the battle (milhamah), nor does wickedness deliver those who practise it’, says Qoheleth in 8:8. The reference to the wind, over which human beings have no control, is said in the context of the powerful ruler (8:2–5). The king does as he pleases. Qoheleth’s advice is to do whatever the king wishes, however difficult, for the king has power over his subjects to demand whatever he wishes. Here the persona of Solomon seems to be the voice that is speaking, for he reminds the subjects that they are bound by a sacred oath, and no harm will come to those who obey the king. There is an echo of Qoheleth’s ethos of ‘a time for everything’ in 8:5– 6. Twice he repeats the phrase ‘a time and way’ (Hebrew: time and judgment:  eth and mishpat) and claims that the wise mind will know the time that is appropriate to everything and the right judgment to act accordingly. Interwoven in the chapter is a belief in the justice of God: Though sinners do evil a hundred times and prolong their lives, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they stand in fear before him, but it will not be well with the wicked, neither will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God. (8:12–13)

It may well be the persona of Solomon who is again speaking here, because he presents the justice of God in terms similar to the expectations of the king: do what the one in power wishes, and all will be well.

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Yet Qoheleth does not unequivocally express a belief in a trustworthy world order: There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun. (8:14–15).

There is a dichotomy between justice on Earth, which is skewed in favour of the wicked, according to Qoheleth’s observations, and justice in God’s domain. This is not a dualistic stance between Earth and Heaven, however, where Heaven will rectify the wrongs that people have suffered on Earth. Once again, it is a case of Earth as the stage on which we live our lives. This is where our lives are played out and our search for wisdom eventuates. In true wisdom style, the focus is on the universal human being, the adam, and again in true wisdom style, the work, the amal (8: 17) is an existential occupation, for the search is to seek God’s ways on Earth. The words used for the adam’s work and God’s work are different: ‘Then I saw all the work (aseh) of God, that no one can find out what is happening under the sun. However much they may toil (amal) in seeking, they will not find it out; even though those who are wise claim to know, they cannot find it out’. The difference in words used evokes a radical difference in the reader’s understanding. God works within a framework of deliberation appropriate to the divine, while the human being struggles to understand the world created by God.

Disaster Strikes at Any Time; the Beloved Wife; Wisdom Is Better than Might (9:1–18) The lack of injustice on Earth Qoheleth explicitly calls an evil: This is an evil in all that happens under the sun, that the same fate comes to everyone. Moreover, the hearts of all are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. (9:3–4)

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One of Qoheleth’s contradictory statements occurs here:  a living dog is better than a dead lion, contradicting his statement in 6:3 that it is better to be stillborn than to suffer. Here the gift of life, however it is experienced, is appreciated: the living have knowledge and hope, but the dead have neither (9:4). Qoheleth is aware also of the suffering to be found in all creation. In a comparison with suffering humanity, he refers to the fish caught in the net and the bird caught in the snare (9:12). The chapter is in fact rich in nature references. Clean clothing and oil, bread and wine, the love of a spouse are all human goods to be enjoyed by all. But the ominous note in reference to the fish caught in the net for food and the bird caught in a snare is unmistakeable. The ecologically purist reader might wonder if Qoheleth would be a vegetarian in contemporary terms. There is legitimate enjoyment in eating and drinking: eat with enjoyment and drink with a merry heart, for health and comfort are human goods. There is an exhortation to do well whatever task one undertakes. The sense here is of a balanced life, appreciating the good things of Earth, but not overindulging so that others go without. And if eating and drinking are to be enjoyed by all, then it is incumbent upon those who have much to see that justice exists for others, including the bird and the fish, members of the Earth community. There is a strong sense in chapter 9 of balance. Whatever vagaries life throws in humankind’s way, and indeed of non-human creation, the ideal in Qoheleth’s vision is of justice and good for all. Surprisingly, Tremper Longman summarizes the chapter as ‘the most depressing of the entire book’.1 This is especially surprising, given the tribute to wisdom in the final verses of the chapter: Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. So I said, ‘Wisdom is better than might; yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.’ The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one bungler destroys much good. (9:15–18)

In spite of the fact that the poor man and the city that he saved remain unnamed, nevertheless the memory of the event gives Qoheleth the chance to

1

Tremper Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B.  Eerdmans, 1998), 237.

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eulogize wisdom as more powerful than the sword. The reader suspects that here most certainly Qoheleth’s true persona of the sage is speaking authentically. Death (mot) in battle (milhamah) is a reality in Qoheleth’s world (8:8), whether king or the lowliest subject. Now in 9:18 he returns to the theme of war (qerav), but this time it is to assert that wisdom is better than the might of weapons.

Hearing Qoheleth’s Earth While teaching a university topic on the biblical wisdom literature, I  have been challenged constantly, for the better, by the lifestyle of a particular student who lives the vegan lifestyle and leaves a very light footprint on Earth in very many ways. Granted, we both live in an environment where we have a choice of food, but no fish or bird would ever suffer at her hand, and I have learnt much from her. Chapters 8 and 9 of Ecclesiastes evoke a like encouragement to view the whole of Earth community as worthy of compassion. In pondering the fate of Solomon’s subjects, called upon to carry out the king’s commands to the point of dying in battle, or the fate of the animal victims of the hunt, we might be attuned to the voice of Earth calling for justice for all recipients of violence. As we recoil when we see on our television screens and our internet news services the horrors of war and the plight of refugees seeking a safe haven for their families, we might also spare a thought for the animals we slaughter for food. In Qoheleth’s mindset, it is not to God that we look for justice, for no human can presume to know the ways of God. That does not release the human community from working for justice on Earth. Every animal who suffers for human consumption, every victim of war, every wife or partner who experiences domestic violence, is the responsibility not of God, but of each one who has power to alleviate that suffering. There are many occasions when we can anticipate the ‘time of disaster’ (9:12) and work for betterment, as does the ‘poor, unremembered wise man’ of 9:15. Earth may be speaking with the ‘quiet wise words’ of 9:17, but these words are better than the ‘shouting of fools’ (9:18).

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8

Ecclesiastes 10:1–12:8

Contents How full of Earth references are these verses! Perfume wafts through the air in the presence of dead flies (10:1), a rider travels with ease alongside the footweary (10:7), snakes and stones and wood pose danger for the unwary (10:8– 11), while feasting and wine bring laughter and gladness (10:19). Qoheleth the economic realist does not disappear from the text, since he is aware of the virtues of money (10:19). Again, however, Qoheleth does not encourage wealth for its own sake or for hoarding, but for human need.

Structure of Ecclesiastes 10:1–12:14 10:1–20 At the whim of nature and economy; Earth needs good leadership 11:1–10 Take risks, enjoy life, and be at peace 12:1–14 Poem for the return to Earth; Epilogue

Analysis of the Text: Ecclesiastes 10:1–12:14 Keep Calm, Be Cautious; Earth Needs Good Leadership (10:1–20) Earth, eretz, translated as ‘land’ in the NRSV, has a voice in chapter  10, through the winged bird of 10:20, which carries the whispered complaints of the human being to the hoarders of wealth. It is an ominous voice, though, spying as it were on even the deepest human thoughts. Quite striking is the personification of Earth: ‘Alas for you, O land, when your king is a servant, and your princes feast in the morning! Happy are you, O Earth, when your

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king is a nobleman, and your princes feast at the proper time – for strength, and not for drunkenness!’ (10:16–17). The verse speaks of right order in the enjoyment of Earth’s produce. To the ancient Hebrew mind, when a righteous king was on the throne, God’s shalom was the order of the day, and harmony reigned. Our contemporary mind tends to think of the peace and harmony implied by the concept shalom as enjoyed primarily by humankind, with a sideways glance at the natural world as a peripheral beneficiary of the harmony. Qoheleth’s text clearly has Earth itself in mind as a primary beneficiary. When the reader of Ecclesiastes keeps in mind that Earth is comprehensive of the whole ecosystem, then 10:17 presents to us a picture of a world of concord where Earth’s produce is to be enjoyed in right measure and for good purpose. Food and wine are nourishment to allow those in power to rule for the benefit of Earth’s community. The verse might be described as a hinge text summing up the whole sense of the chapter where Qoheleth’s typical cautionary note pervades. There is danger in all of humankind’s activity, whether building or tearing down. Those who dig a pit, for whatever reason, may end up falling in to it. Pits were dug in the ancient world for any number of reasons. In the Psalms and Proverbs, the figure was used to show the irony of one who set out to trap another: a pit dug for an enemy could rebound on the one who digs. Psalm 7:14–16 warns: ‘See how they conceive evil, and are pregnant with mischief, and bring forth lies. They make a pit, digging it out, and fall into the hole that they have made. Their mischief returns upon their own heads, and on their own heads their violence descends.’ The warning occurs again in Proverbs 26:27: ‘Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on the one who starts it rolling’. Building and digging are part of everyday life in all cultures. During my writing I  was helping (more often watching!) my husband restore an old Australian ruined homestead in the hills just outside Adelaide. When it was inhabited, access to it would have been across a ford in the river, and a bullocky dray would have been the means of transport. Now there is a cement bridge across the river. This part of South Australia is home to at least two highly dangerous species of snake, the common brown and the red-bellied black. I know there are plenty of them near the homestead, but they rarely appear. On one occasion, however, I came closer to this most enigmatic of

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creatures more precariously than I  would have liked! I  was walking along a gravel path on my way to my car when out of the corner of my right eye I experienced the whiplash-like recoil of a very large brown snake. My husband, walking on the path behind me, yelled out, ‘Don’t move!’ Too late! I had already recoiled in the other direction and landed in a rather prickly bush on the other side of the path. I am sure the snake and I both shared an affinity in that moment – both terrified of the other. Snakes fear humans, with good cause. But a careless step, and one of them could strike. My good fortune was that it decided against striking and chose instead to flee. Perhaps ‘decision’ is the wrong concept, for I am sure both of us acted by instinct. Today, a hospital with antivenene is within reach, but a hundred years ago on my particular little patch of land, that would not have been the case. Who knows whether the original builder of my cottage had indeed been bitten, as 10:8 cautions: ‘Whoever breaks through a wall will be bitten by a snake’. The ecologically aware reader treats the natural world with respect and attempts to maintain the balance. The context of the verse suggests that Qoheleth is not making a claim that absolutely a snake will bite whenever someone builds a wall; he is describing events and circumstances he has observed. Often the anticipation of possible disaster is worse than the event. Verse 10:14 confi rms this understanding: ‘No one knows what is to happen, and who can tell anyone what the future holds?’ Qoheleth is at least consistent in his mistrust of a dependable order in creation, for indeed the wind chases wherever and whomever it wills: Whoever digs a pit will fall into it; and whoever breaks through a wall will be bitten by a snake. Whoever quarries stones will be hurt by them; and whoever splits logs will be endangered by them. If the iron is blunt, and one does not whet the edge, then more strength must be exerted; but wisdom helps one to succeed. If the snake bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage in a charmer. (10:8–11)

In Australia, snakes native to the country are protected by law. This attitude of respect towards other creatures of Earth community comes from the best of ecological understanding. To disturb the balance of the natural world

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is to put all species at risk. This was not the world view of Qoheleth’s time, however. The very existence of the ‘snake charmer’ tells its own story. In an age when antivenene was not so readily available as today, when human life was in danger, it was best to placate the snake before it bit. The actual term for what we refer to as a ‘snake charmer’ in the Hebrew of Qoheleth is literally the ‘owner of a tongue’. Jean-Jacques Lavoie suggests that it is impossible to interpret the text in a single fashion, and that therefore the ambiguity of the verses 10:8, 10:10 and 10:11 needs to be respected.1 He points out the unusual language of 10:8, with a virtual hapax legomenon in the word ‘pit’ ( gummats), unusual forms and Aramaisims.2 The text cannot be translated with any certainty, but what is clear is that humans have no advantage over the natural world and hazards are triumphant. Wisdom cannot protect against the unexpected.3 To exist is to be at the mercy of parody. From a contemporary perspective, we may console ourselves that medical advances have given us the advantage over the natural world, but the irony may well be that mutual fear is our best protection against the unexpected. There is a more esoteric message, however, in Qoheleth’s text. The serpent is not only a symbol for the more general hazards of the natural world. To the ancient mind, it also symbolized the magical world.

Do Not Be Too Cautious if You Want to Have Economic Benefits; Enjoy Youth While You Can (11:1–10) Chapter 11 contains more of Qoheleth’s enigmatic exhortations. For our purposes, it is rich in nature’s wisdom. The ‘bread cast upon waters’ of 11:1 evokes many variant interpretations among interpreters. Lavoie usefully sums them up in the following manner: a) Sexual4 b) An invitation to alms-giving c) An invitation to sow 1

2 3 4

Jean-Jacques Lavoie, ‘Ironie et ambiguïtés en Qohélet 10,8-11’, Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 41 (2012), 455 – 472 . Lavoie, ‘Ironie’, 456. Lavoie, ‘Ironie’, 472. So T. A. Perry, Dialogues with Kohelet: The Book of Ecclesiastes (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), an interpretation that Lavoie rejects outright, in Schoors, 75–76.

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d) An invitation to fish e) An allusion to the cult of Adonis f) An allusion to divining practices, where natural or artificial signs are observed g) An allusion to maritime commerce h) An invitation to carpe diem i) An invitation to offer a useless and unreasonable gesture. This action is not incompatible with a certain prudence, because the gesture is a reminder that human endeavor does not protect against human failure.5 Lavoie rejects the first outright, and ends his chapter with a touch of wise irony, gleaned from the final interpretation. To be human is to be ignorant, but at the same time ignorant with a fertile imagination, as evidenced by the number of different interpretations offered by the commentators.6 C. L. Seow for his part divides the chapters 10:16 to 11:6 into the following: a) 10:16–20 Risks in the political realm b) 11:1– 6 Risks in the economic realm Seow bases his division on the presence of the inclusion of 10:16–17 and 10:20, with the derogatory references to the political elite,7 and the exhortation of 11:1, ‘Cast your bread upon the waters’. Verse 10:16 refers to the problems if the king is a na’ar, a youth or a servant. It is not clear if Qoheleth’s reference is to the historical king; if so, he takes a risk, because this was a common insult in ancient realms, implying that the king could not defend his land. Hence the cautionary note of 10:20: ‘Do not curse the king, even in your thoughts, or curse the rich, even in your bedroom; for a bird of the air may carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter’. Having weighed up the various meanings of the exhortation, ‘Cast your bread upon the waters’, Seow comes to the conclusion that the text does not encourage sound and cautious economic planning, but rather exhorts the listener to take risks. Seow quotes a saying from the Egyptian Instruction of Anksheshonq: ‘Do a good deed and throw it in the water; when it dries you

5

6 7

Lavoie, Jean-Jacques, ‘Laisse aller ton pain sur la surface des eaux. Étude de Qohélet 11,1–2’, in The Language of Qohelet in Its Context. Essays in Honour of Prof. A. Schoors on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. A. Berlejung and P. Van Hecke (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 75-89. Lavoie, ‘Laisse aller ton pain, 88–89. Seow, Ecclesiastes, 338.

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will find it.’ Although the only extant manuscript witness dates from the Ptolemaic period, it comes from an earlier tradition.8 Whether the lehem, the bread, refers metaphorically to good deeds, or whether its meaning is tied more closely to material goods and thus merchandise, it is impossible to say. Seow’s reference to risk is on firm ground, whatever the meaning of bread. However, we need to nuance the idea of risk. The theme of 11:1– 6 is not so much about risk-taking as about the risks inherent in nature: Send out your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will get it back. Divide your means seven ways, or even eight, for you do not know what disaster may happen on earth. When clouds are full, they empty rain on the earth; whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. Whoever observes the wind will not sow; and whoever regards the clouds will not reap. Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hands be idle; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. (11:1– 6)

Verse 11:2 encourages caution in the face of uncertainty. The rest of the passage, however, makes it clear that no matter how much one plans, one is still at the mercy of Eternal Earth. Qoheleth need not remind the modern reader that disaster may strike at any time. In my own land, bush fires are seared into the consciousness of every Australian. There have been summers when I have packed up my document case and my computer, and placed my dog and my cat securely in the lounge in readiness to leave at a moment’s notice, when a bush fire has threatened. I have been luckier than many. In the ‘Ash Wednesday’ bush fires of February, 1984, 180 fires occurred in my own State of South Australia, and in the neighbouring State of Victoria, resulting in the deaths of over seventy people. While arson is often a factor in these cases, the situation was not helped by the fact that the states were tinder dry, 8

Seow, Ecclesiastes, 342.

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following upon several seasons of drought. Worse was to come on Black Saturday in February 2009, when over 170 people died from bush fires in the State of Victoria. Then in January 2015 the Sampson Flat fire came right up to my back fence. Strangely, my thoughts went to the snake I had encountered some months before and I  wondered if it had survived. For the farmers of my State, the driest in Australia, as they gaze in hope for at the clouds that will bring the rain, Qoheleth’s words ring profoundly true. We are surely at ‘nature’s whim’. Yet, this ‘whim’ is not the inconsequential meanderings of a lightweight power. Eternal Earth has the power of life and death in the forces of nature. To try to control Earth is as useless as trying to control God. In the face of rain and drought, the worker can only sow and hope to reap. To do anything else is a chasing of the wind. Yet Earth’s sombre voice does not have the final word. ‘Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun’ (11:7). Qoheleth, in one of his apparently contradictory passages, warns that youth passes away, but at the same time reminds the reader that there is much on Earth for rejoicing.

The Eternal Home: Return to the Dust of Earth (12:1–8) In these verses we come to one of the most sonorous poems of the book. With an initial call to the young to remember the Creator, Qoheleth sets the scene for the Genesis echoes that occur in this chapter. The death process is described in Ecclesiastes 12:5–7 thus: All must go to their eternal home (beth olam), and the mourners will go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.

It is clear that when Qoheleth speaks of our beth olam he is referring to Earth, for in 12:7 he explicitly speaks of the dust of Earth:  ‘And the dust (aphar) returns to the earth (ha’aretz) as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.’ In Ecclesiastes 12:7, the bestowal of life as described in Genesis is reversed in the death process. There is a nuanced difference in vocabulary in the two biblical accounts. Where in Genesis the creature is made from the aphar of the adamah, in Ecclesiastes at death the aphar returns to ha’aretz,

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rather than adamah. The parallelism in the line from Ecclesiastes is synthetic, that is, the second part of the line extends and develops the meaning of the first line. So, rather than being dualistic, with the body returning to Earth and the soul going to God, the line should be taken as an entity. The parallelism associates God and Earth. Here in the moment of death, Earth and God are as one. All things return to Earth and to God. As the Earth Bible principles remind us, we are born of Earth, and to Earth we return. In Genesis life does not occur until God breathes the life-spirit into the human being. In Ecclesiastes at the moment of death the dust returns to the Earth and the breath returns to God. Dust and breath, the stuff of life, return to the God and the Earth from which they have come. In Qoheleth’s thought, Earth eternal, or ha’aretz olam, is singled out with God as being the possibility of all the cycles of life and death, both human and non-human. In this dark yet majestic depiction of death, Qoheleth’s theme of hebel comes full circle: ‘and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity’ (12:7–8). Although God appears comparatively infrequently in Ecclesiastes, it is worthy of note that in his final verses he refers to God simply as the creator. In fact, as Fox remarks (and rejects), some commentators try to explain the unusual reference as a textual gloss.9 Verse 12:1 forms a parallel concept with 11:8, which reminds the reader that in death ‘the days of darkness will be many.’10 Now in 12:1 he urges the youth to remember the creator while life is young and still full of hope. In a scene akin to apocalyptic desolation, the next verses focus on the darkness which will come with the clouds and rain, and the fading of the light of the sun and moon. As Seow observes, the sun is associated with life throughout the book, but in its final appearance it is darkened.11 Hebel as ‘breath’ is poignantly appropriate here, for in the scheme of things, life is not only dependent upon the God who breathes life, but in Qoheleth’s world it is as fleeting and elusive as a breath. Indeed, we might translate the final verses in this way: ‘and the dust (aphar) returns to the earth (aretz) as it was, and the breath (ruach) returns to God who gave it. Breath of breaths (habel habalim), says the Teacher; all is breath’ (12:7–8). 9 10

11

Michael V. Fox, ‘Aging and Death in Qohelet 12’, JSOT 42 (1988), 72. As noted by Timothy Matthew Slemmons, ‘Ecclesiastes 12:1–13’, Interpretation 55:3 (July 2001), 302 . C. L. Seow, ‘Qohelet’s Eschatological Poem’, JBL 118:2 (June 1999), 213.

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Epilogue: The Wisdom of Qoheleth (12:9–14) In these concluding verses we encounter again the ‘frame narrator’12 who has the last word on Qoheleth. Qoheleth is the wise one who ‘goads’ the listeners with his collection of proverbs: ‘The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fi xed are the collected sayings that are given by one shepherd (12:11). In our journey through Ecclesiastes we have found the voice of Qoheleth at times vexatious and at times encouraging, at times pessimistic and at times optimistic, at times confused in his search for wisdom, and at times crystal clear about its worth. As the final verdict given by the epilogist declares, Qoheleth ‘wrote words of truth plainly’ (12:10). His plain words might all be summed up as Qoheleth’s sense of the absurd, the ‘ habel habalim,’ a sense he might have shared with Camus, had the two ever met.

Hearing Qoheleth’s Earth Uncreation in Ecclesiastes 12 Mot, the Hebrew word for ‘death’ and the name of the Egyptian god, takes on mythical qualities in the ancient Semitic world, as does the beautiful Thanatos/Death in the Greek world.13 In Qoheleth’s poem on death, Mot seems to have the last word over the creator. Qoheleth’s final word, however, is not only about death, but about uncreation or the ‘undoing of creation’, as Seow calls it.14 There is an ironic twist in Qoheleth’s use of the exhortation that might be spoken by Earth in 12:1: ‘Remember your creator in the days of your youth’, for the next lines are all about creation grinding to a halt. Everything collapses into the dust of the Earth, and then all is consumed in the God who created it. It is here that Eternal Earth and Eternal God merge. It is in creation that humans have experience of God. As long as Eternal Earth exists, then God the Creator, however inscrutable, exists. Thus, it is not Death/Mot who has the last word, but the creator God of Earth who draws all into Eternal 12

13

14

As identified by Kyle R.  Greenwood as the QFN (the Qohelet Frame Narrator), in ‘Debating Wisdom: The Role of Voice in Ecclesiastes’, CBQ 74 (2012), 489. Brandon refers to death in the Genesis creation narrative as the ‘Myth of the overcrowded earth’. In S. G. F. Brandon, ‘The Origin of Death in Some Ancient Near Eastern Religions’. Religious Studies, 1:2 (Apr. 1966), 227. Seow, ‘Qohelet’s Eschatological Poem’, 230.

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Earth and reclaims the breath of life. Carey Walsh sees in this vision of the apophatic God something very sacred. Referring to the absolute form of habel habalim, he reminds us that the Holy of Holies was also empty: ‘ “Vapor of vapors” could signify a vacated God, that faith too is futile. But the holy of holies, we should recall, was also empty, and that was the central site for the divine presence.’15 Death may have been a constant spectre in the book, but in the return of all to Earth and God, the fear is subverted.

15

Carey Walsh, ‘Theological Trace in Qoheleth ’, BTB 42:1 (2012), 15.

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It is unlikely that Qoheleth would have described himself as an ecologist, since that is a modern term. It would not be anachronistic, however, for the modern reader to think of him as a scientist; that term quite rightly can be used to speak of the sages of old. These scholars investigated the natural world in an effort to understand its workings and, in so doing, to gain the wisdom to live well in that world. Viewed from a contemporary perspective, the wisdom writers are surely entitled, out of all the biblical writers, to lay claim to the dual epithet of scientist–philosopher. As investigators of the natural world, they were scientists; and as reflective thinkers on their discoveries, they were truly philosophers. In today’s terms, perhaps they had more in common with ecologists than may be immediately obvious. Ecologists look to the natural world, listen to the voice of the scientists, and ponder the findings of science with a view to living responsibly. The wisdom writings, therefore, provide fertile ground for listening to the voice of Earth, with its ecological message for today’s reader. As we listened to the various voices of Qoheleth in the book of Ecclesiastes, we focused in particular on the voice of Earth, with its member voices such as the wind or ruach, hebel or breath, and the sun, which has seen evil in the place of wickedness, but has also seen the wisdom that is better than weapons of war (9:18). Katharine Dell, in her reading of Ecclesiastes from an ecological perspective, declares rightly that it is ‘not a path that many commentators have taken’.1 Th is present reading, while striving to hear the voice of Earth, has focused on Eternal Earth itself as the very stage on which the whole 1

Katharine J. Dell, ‘The Cycle of Life in Ecclesiastes’, VT 59 (2009), 182 .

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web of life plays out its existence. To hear the voice of Earth is to listen to the very means of existence of all Earth’s members. An ecological reading does not claim that listening to the voices of Earth and economy ascertains the text as written by Qoheleth, but it does claim that it is a valid approach to interpretation. Norman Habel puts it this way in relation to the voice of Earth: Discerning this voice may even take the form of reconstructing the narrative – as a dimension of the interpretation process – in such a way as to hear Earth as the narrator of the story. In the process, Earth becomes an interpreter. Such a reconstruction is, of course, not the original text, but a reading as valid, I would argue, as the numerous efforts of biblical scholars over the centuries to reconstruct the history, literary sources, social world or theology behind a text.2

In the introduction to this book, I  referred to the idea of ‘green’ or ‘grey’ texts. In the journey through the book of Ecclesiastes, it has become clear that Earth is a very special presence in the book; in fact, Qoheleth has spoken of Earth in similar terminology to that used for God. Both are olam, eternal. The overwhelming sense of Earth is of an ancient, even eternal, entity that has seen everything under the sun, both evil and the wisdom that so apparently eludes Qoheleth. It is productive of gifts as the reward of toil. It is the means by which God as gift-giver is known to humans. It is the sacred ground upon which worshippers approach the house of El. At the final curtain of existence, humanity, animals, plants and all living entities come together with Earth and God as the dust of the body returns to the dust of Earth, and the breath of life returns to the Creator. Koosed calls it the disintegration of God’s creatures into their constituent elements. ‘All is hebel, God’s creation is undone.’3 This presupposes an understanding of hebel in its sense of insubstantial, vanity, nothingness. But in its ecological sense of ‘breath’ that I have favoured, Qoheleth’s final images of death indicate the permanence of existence of all Earth’s creatures in their return to Earth itself, and in their continued living as ‘breath’ of the Creator. Taken into the embrace of Earth, they indeed share

2

3

Norman C. Habel, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening of Earth:  An Ecological Reading of Genesis 1–11, Earth Bible Commentary Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011), 12 . Jennifer L. Koosed, (Per)Mutations of Qohelet: Reading the Body in the Book (New York :  T&T Clark), 2006, 99.

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in the olam of Earth and God. Seen in this light, the texts of Ecclesiastes can be seen as ‘green’ texts, celebrating Eternal Earth. The voice of Earth has to compete with the persistent voice of economy, and it has to overcome the ‘pessimism’ inherent in the habel habalim refrain if it is to encourage the ecological reader to act in the face of the current crisis. There is an expansive meaning for economy as the whole ‘household of God’, as identified by Ernst Conradie: Indeed, one may speak with Douglas Meeks of ‘God the Economist’. This would employ the ecumenical root metaphor of the ‘whole household of God’ to reflect on the ecological, economic and social dimensions of this household and also on the specific place of the church in this household.4

The voice of economy I have been attuned to in Ecclesiastes has been the narrower socio-historical one of human fortune. This voice calls to the human community to seek success in such undertakings as building projects, planting of vineyards and the watering of plants (Eccl. 2:4– 6). But it is also a voice that reminds us that life is full of caprices and vagaries, which cause distress when people are left without economic benefits. Whether Seow is right in his situating of Ecclesiastes in the Persian period, or others who place it in the Hellenistic period are correct, there is a sense of powerlessness in Ecclesiastes, 5 which points to the randomness of economic situation for the various personae in the book. At times economy can be heard as the mocking voice of 5:13–15: ‘I have given you riches, but you have lost them all in a bad venture, and you have nothing to pass on to your children; you will go naked as you came, back to Earth’. The voice of Earth and the voice of economy have been subtly in conflict throughout the book of Ecclesiastes; indeed, it could be argued that this confl ict has been the source of Qoheleth’s perplexities. On the one hand Qoheleth believes he has been given the legitimation by God to enjoy the fruits of Earth, and on the other hand the unpredictability of the economy has thwarted the fulfi lment of the mandate.

4

5

Ernst M. Conradie, ‘What Is the Place of the Earth in God’s Economy? Doing Justice to Creation, Salvation and Consummation’, in Christian Faith and the Earth:  Current Paths and Emerging Horizons in Ecotheology, ed. Ernst M. Conradie, et al. (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 43. Mark R. Sneed, The Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes. A  Social-Science Perspective (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2012), 57.

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Qoheleth has suffered somewhat at the hand of those biblical commentators who prefer their biblical writers to place God firmly at the forefront of biblical theology. Qoheleth does not explicitly do this, yet undoubtedly God is a constant presence in the book. Jill Middlemas claims unequivocally that ‘Ecclesiastes insists that recognition of the Divine is necessary to the fulfilment of life.’6 Nevertheless, God is an ambivalent character in Ecclesiastes. The very first time we meet God in the book is under negative circumstances: ‘It is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with’ (1:13). Qoheleth’s God-given world is one of toil, yet toil that can produce wealth, success and the good things of Earth. His God is distant and unfathomable, yet one who wishes enjoyment for human beings. Chapter 1 of Ecclesiastes, from the very beginning has dissolved the barrier between Earth-olam and God-olam in such a way that to attend to the voice of Earth is to attend to the voice of the Creator. As long as Earth exists, God precisely as Creator exists. This Creator intends that all creation should enjoy the harvest that Earth yields. This harvest comes, not from the labour of the Genesis curse, but from the toil and reaping that culminate in the sweet sleep of labourers at the end of the day. There is to be no greed, however, for a surfeit of riches, be they money or food, does not bring peace (5:12). The whole tenor of the book is coloured by hebel – by habel habalim – the way of the wind, which blows where it will. The wind is a real and a metaphorical presence in Qoheleth’s world view. Very often Qoheleth has been accused of being nihilistic and negative, but the major theme that comes through in his writing is frustration in the search for wisdom. And in spite of his apparent pessimism, Qoheleth has some surprising wisdom to offer the contemporary ecological reader. The search for wisdom is always difficult and often elusive but, as Qoheleth also asserts, ‘wisdom makes one’s face shine’ (8:1). Death and the economy may curtail life and enjoyment, but wisdom, like Earth, is eternal. Human beings cannot live without a stable economy; indeed the very word ‘economy’ suggests the common household. Proponents of coal-mining and timber-cutting speak from the need to support their families. They speak of jobs for the unemployed, and of competing in a global economy. As full members of the Earth community, they have a right to be heard. But the current 6

Jill Middlemas, ‘Ecclesiastes Gone “Sideways”’, Expository Times 118: 5 (2007), 221.

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ecological crisis means that these voices of the economy and Earth are in conflict, and we cannot allow the voice of economy to subdue Earth’s voice. Death in chapter 12 of Ecclesiastes is not the absolute end of everything, for there is a continuity of existence in Earth. But if Eternal Earth succumbs to the present environmental crisis, then death will indeed mean the undoing of creation. If Earth’s human community keeps going down a path of ecological irresponsibility, there will be no ‘forever’ for Earth. We have a duty to the ‘the generation which comes’ (1:4) to do all in our power to ensure that Eternal Earth continues into the future. This vision may already be moving beyond the realm of possibility because of human myopia or greed. But Qoheleth does not give up in his search for wisdom, and neither should the contemporary ecologically aware reader. The final narrator says in 12:10, ‘The Teacher sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly.’ Earth is also speaking plainly, and its words are not always pleasing. With the ambiguity typical of Ecclesiastes, it might very well be Eternal Earth’s voice in 1:14, ‘I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.’ If we do not give Earth’s voice priority above the voice of economy, all attempts to heal an Earth in crisis may indeed be in vain, and the tragedy is that ‘vanity’ may very well be the best translation of hebel after all.

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Norman C. Habel and Shirley Wurst, 155– 67. Sheffield and Cleveland: Sheffield Academic Press/The Pilgrim Press, 2001. Ingram, Doug. Ambiguity in Ecclesiastes. London: T & T Clark, 2006. Kelly, Michael A., CSsR, and Mark O’ Brien, OP (eds.). Wisdom for Life. Adelaide: ATF Press, 2005. Kidner, Derek. The Message of Ecclesiastes (Bible Speaks Today). London: InterVarsity Press, 1976. Koosed, Jennifer L. (Per)Mutations of Qohelet: Reading the Body in the Book. New York: T&T Clark, 2006. Kratz, Reinhard G. The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament. Translated by John Bowden. London and New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2005. Landy, Francis. Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs. Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983. Lavoie, Jean-Jacques. ‘Ironie et ambiguïtés en Qohélet 10,8-11’. Studies in Religion/ Sciences Religieuses, 41 (2012), 455– 472. Lavoie, Jean-Jacques. ‘“Laisse aller ton pain sur la surface des eaux”: Étude De Qohélet 11:1–2’. In The Language of Qohelet in Its Context. Essays in Honour of Prof. A. Schoors on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Edited by A. Berlejung and P. Van Hecke. Leuven: Peeters, 2007, 75–89. Lee, Bernon. ‘A Specific Application of the Proverb in Ecclesiastes 1:15’. www. jhsonline.org/cocoon/JHS/a006.html, accessed Google 3/10/2016. Levine, Etan. ‘Qohelet’s Fool: A Composite Portrait’. In On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner. Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990, 278–294. Loader, J. A. Ecclesiastes: A Practical Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1986. Lohfink, Norbert. Qoheleth: A Continental Commentary. Translated by Sean McEvenue, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. Longman, Tremper, III. The Book of Ecclesiastes. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998. Middlemas, Jill. ‘Ecclesiastes Gone “Sideways”’. Expository Times 118: 5 (2007), 216 –221. Murphy, Roland E. ‘Wisdom and Creation’. JBL 104:1 (1985), 3–11. Murphy, Roland E. Word Biblical Commentary vol. 23: Ecclesiastes. Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1992. O’Connell, Robert H. ‘Proverbs Vii 16–17: A Case of Fatal Deception in a “Woman and the Window” Type-Scene’. Vetus Testamentum 41:2 (April 1991): 235–241.

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Ogden, Graham S. ‘The Interpretation of dwr in Ecclesiastes 1.4’. JSOT 34 (1986): 91–92. Ogden, Graham S. Qoheleth. Second edition. Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2007. Ogden, Graham S. ‘Qoheleth’s Use of the “Nothing is Better”-Form’. JBL 98:3 (Sept. 1979), 339–350. Perry, T. A. Dialogues with Kohelet. The Book of Ecclesiastes. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. Pinker, Aron. ‘The Principle of Irreversibility in Kohelet 1,15 and 7,13’. ZAW (2008): 387– 403. Radday, Yehuda T., and Athalya Brenner (eds.) On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990. Rindge, Matthew S. ‘Mortality and Enjoyment: The Interplay of Death and Possessions in Qoheleth ’. CBQ 73 (2011): 265–280. Rudman, Dominic. ‘A Note on the Dating of Ecclesiastes’. CBQ 61 (Jan. 1999): 47–52. Ryken, Philip Graham. Ecclesiastes. Why Everything Matters. Wheaton, IL: Crossways, 2010. Schoors, Anton. Ecclesiastes. Historical Commentary on the Old Testament. Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 2013. Scott, R. B. Y. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. Anchor Bible Series vol. 18. New York: Doubleday, 1965. Selden, Raman, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 4th edn. London: Prentice Hall, 1997. Seow, C. L. Ecclesiastes. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. The Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997. Seow, C. L. Ecclesiastes. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 18c. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Seow, C. L. ‘Qohelet’s Eschatological Poem’. JBL 118: 2 (June 1999): 209–234. Seow, Choon-Leong. ‘Theology When Everything Is out of Control ’. Interpretation 55:237 (July 2001), 237–249. Shapiro, Rami (translator). Ecclesiastes Annotated and Explained. Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths, 2010. Sherwood , Yvonne (ed.). Derrida’s Bible. Reading a Page of Scripture with a Little Help from Derrida. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Slemmons, Timothy Matthew. ‘Ecclesiastes 12:1–13’. Interpretation 55:3 (July 2001), 302–304. Sneed, Mark R. The Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes. A Social-Science Perspective. Atlanta: SBL , 2012.

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Spangenberg, Izak J.J. ‘Irony in the Book of Qohelet’. JSOT 21:72 (December 1996): 57– 69. Towner, W. Sibley. ‘The Book of Ecclesiastes. Introduction, Commentary and Reflections’. In The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 5. Edited by Leander Keck et al. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997, 265–360. Turner, Marie. God’s Wisdom or the Devil’s Envy. Death and Creation Deconstructing in the Wisdom of Solomon. Adelaide: ATF Press, 2009. von Rad, Gerhard. Wisdom in Israel. Translated by James D. Martin. London: SCM Press, 1993. Walsh, Carey. ‘Theological Trace in Qoheleth ’. BTB 42:1 (2012), 12–17. Wazana, Nili. ‘A Case of the Evil Eye: Qohelet 4:4–8’. JBL 126:4 (2007), 685–702. Whitley, Charles Francis. Koheleth. His Language and Thought. Berlin and New York: Waler de Gruyter, 1979. Whybray, R. N. Ecclesiastes. Old Testament Guides. London: T&T Clark, 1989. Wright, Addison G. ‘The Riddle of the Sphinx: The Structure of the Book of Qoheleth ’. CBQ 30:3 (1968): 313–334. Zimmerli, Walther. ‘The Place and Limit of the Wisdom in the Framework of Old Testament Theology’. SJT 17:2 (June 1964): 146 –158.

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Index absolute absurdity 25 absurdity 7, 21, 22–5, 30, 42, 61 adamah 8, 41, 81–2, 113–14 advantage, yitron 12–14, 54 – 64, 58, 73, 88 afterlife 55, 62, 86 –7 amal 58–9 ambiguity 6 –7, 8, 11, 19, 25, 94 ambivalence 8 Amir, Yehoshua 74 anthropocentrism 27–9 astronomy 87 Bailey, Lloyd 74 balance between righteousness and care for life 97 balance of life 104, 109 Bartholomew, Craig G. 78 ‘better than’ saying 71, 88, 89–90, 91, 92–8, 104 Big Bang theory 49–50 birth 52, 57–8, 74 Blair, Merryl 51 breath 7–8, 21, 25–7, 42, 91, 114, 118 bribes 18 Camus, Albert 7, 22–3, 24, 25, 42, 115 Carasik, Michael 32 carpe diem 58, 65 chasing of the wind 26, 27, 30 – 4, 39, 72 Christian 5, 13 Christie, Agatha 80, 81 comparison, see ‘better than’ saying Conradie, Ernst 119 cosmology 11, 12, 27–8, 29–30 creation, Creator 10, 19, 25, 35, 49–50, 61– 2, 109, 113, 114, 118, 120 crooked 31–2, 33, 35, 95 curse 56 –8, 82 cycles of life 24, 36, 48, 52, 61, 114 cycles of nature 29, 48, 51

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darkness 87–8, 114 death 12, 14, 24, 40, 42–3, 52, 57, 65– 6, 73– 4, 83, 85, 86 –92, 98–9, 113–16, 121 deconstruction 6, 9 Dell, Katharine 117 Derrida, Jacques 6, 7, 9, 10, 61 disasters 57, 60, 105, 109, 112–13 dreams 77–8, 79 dust of Earth 113–14, 118 Earth 10, 19, 53, 75 cosmic elements 27–8 and humanity, dissociation between 56 –7 innate logic 24 things of 19, 39, 51, 99–100, 102, 104, 120 Earth Bible 1–2, 114 Earth community 10, 19, 45– 6, 72, 105 Earth’s eternity, see Eternal Earth ecojustice 1, 2, 10, 17, 19, 38, 54, 67 ecological reading 1–2, 11 ecology 11, 24, 99 economic risks 74 –82 economy 4, 5, 13, 18, 59– 60, 64, 92, 99–100, 120 –1, see also voice of economy elusiveness 7, 25, 27, 42, 102, 114 Empson, William 6 enjoyment of Earth’s produce 41–3, 45, 58, 65, 66, 82, 89, 93, 97, 99, 104, 108 environment 9 Epicureanism 17, 38 eternal, see olam Eternal Earth 2, 5, 9–12, 19, 25, 55, 87, 99, 115, 117–18 see also olam and its cycles 27–30 eth 48, 50, 51, 60, 91, 102 evil 75, 80, 81, 103 executive force 6 –7

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130 forced labour 58, 70, see also toil/work/ labour Fox, Michael 7, 22, 28, 32, 33, 58, 60, 66, 73, 98, 114 Fredericks, Daniel 33 frustration 10, 18, 22, 24, 31, 33, 34, 40 –1 gender 98, 100 Genesis 4, 8, 28, 41, 49, 56 –8, 61, 66, 76, 81–2, 113 gifts 18, 55 – 6, 60, 61, 65, 82, 99 God 8, 11, 17, 19, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 49–50, 90 favouritism 44 –5 as gift-giver 60, 65, 118 as hard ruler 60 inscrutability of 54 – 64, 91, 101–3 justice 63 otherness 55 God’s actions/work 59, 61, 63, 64, 91, 103 God’s will 56, 60, 63 Gordis, Robert 5, 13, 14, 54, 79, 80, 98 greed 45, 72, 81, 86 green texts 3, 10, 119 Greenwood, Kyle R. 2 Greidanus, Sidney 13 grey texts 3– 4, 10, 82 Gribbin, John 50 grief 88–9 ha-aretz 28, 29, 113 habel habalim 5–8, 21, 115, 116, 120 gains from 22–7 Habel, Norman 4, 9, 41, 56, 118 Heaven 74 –5, 76 hebel 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 21, 25– 6, 29–30, 42, 61, 99, 114, 118, 120, 121 Hellenistic period 16, 17, 119 hierarchical oppositions 9, 43, 51, 52, 67, 75 hokmah 24, 30 house of God 74 –82 humanity 27–8 immortality 42, 43, 81 indigenous communities 45– 6 Ingram, Doug 6, 8, 25 injustice 63, 66, 74

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Index justice 63, 102–3, 105 Kidner, Derek 80 Koosed, Jennifer L. 118 Kratz, Reinhard G. 57–8 labour, see toil/work/labour Landy, Francis 4, 56 –7 language 6 –7 Lavoie, Jean-Jacques 110 –11 law, and wisdom 95– 6 Lee, Bernon 31–2 le’olam 59 Levine, Etan 24, 35 Loader, J. A. 65, 66 Lohfink, Norbert 31, 33, 35, 93 Longman, Tremper 104 ma’aseh 59 meaning in life 22–3 meaning-making 7, 8 Middlemas, Jill 120 money economy 18, 19 moral choice 53– 4 mortality 52, 65– 6 Moses 75 motar 12 Murphy, Ronald E. 52, 73, 96, 98 narrator, see Qoheleth nihilism 61, 102 obedience, religious 78–9 O’Connell, Robert 92–3 Ogden, Graham 53, 54, 64 olam 9–12, 19, 21, 30, 35, 36, 48–54, 75, 100, 119, see also Eternal Earth oppression 53, 69, 70 –1, 74, 81, 82, 89, 101 organic produce 39– 40 passing generations 28, 29, 92 Persian period 16, 119 Pinker, Aaron 32 pleasure 17, 37–9, 58–9, 60, 61, 74 in toil 41–3 possessions 39, 40, 72, 86, 90, 93– 4 powerlessness of human beings 34, 72, 119

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Index of idols 26 property rights 18 Qoheleth 5 – 6, 14 –15, 24, 28, 30, 42, 44, 50 –1, 59, 62, 71, 77, 86, 96, 99, 102–3, 112, 113, 115, 119–20 and ambiguity 6 –7, 25 as deconstructionist 9 as ecologist 9 frustration 10, 18, 31, 33, 34, 41 postive view on Earth 4, 10 Rehoboam 15, 44, 70 rest 71–2 right behaviour 74 –82 Rindge, Matthew S. 60, 64, 90, 93 risks 112 romanticism 97 ruach 8, 25, see also spirit; wind sacrifice of the fools 78, 79 Schoors, Anton 24 scientism 11, 50 Scott, R. B. Y. 29, 73 Seasons Poem 47–54 Seeger, Pete 47 self-destruction 73 Seow, C. L. 16, 18, 26, 29–30, 54, 59, 63, 71, 81, 97, 99, 111–12, 114, 119 shalom 108 shema 78, 79 Sira, Ben 17, 25 socio-economic environment 9 Solomon 15–16, 70 search for pleasure 37–9 search for wisdom 30 –5 Sophia/wisdom 48–9, 52, 61–2 spirit 8, 57, 62, 63, 114 stillborn 88 Stoicism 17, 29 sufferings 70, 105 suicide and meaning in life 22–3 temple worship 77, 78, 79, 82 time 51–3, 87 see also eth; zeman

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tob-saying, see ‘better than’ saying toil/work/labour 4, 13, 24, 33, 37–8, 40 –1, 43– 4, 56, 58–9, 71–2, 82, 90 –1, 120 pleasure in 41–3 tov 60, 61 uncreation 115–16 ‘under the sun’ 80 –1, 82, 86 vanity 4, 8, 18, 21, 72, 91, 114, 121 vanity of vanities 1, 4, 5, 21, 22, 24, 114 voice of Earth 2, 3, 6, 9–11, 19, 24, 34, 35, 36, 44, 99–100, 105, 107, 113, 117–18, 119, 120, 121 voice of economy 2, 3, 4, 10, 24, 45, 81, 99, 119, 121 voice of Heaven 81 von Rad, Gerhard 96 vow 77 Walsh, Carey 116 way of the world 15, 17, 38, 63– 4 Wazana, Nili 73 wealth 88–9, 90 whim of the wind 33– 4 Whitley, Charles Francis 54 Whybray, R. N. 29, 76, 78 wind 8, 25, 26 –7, 40, 120, see also chasing of the wind wisdom 8, 13, 24, 30 – 4, 40, 42–3, 101–3, 117, 120 and law 95– 6 wisdom/Sophia 48–9, 52, 61–2 wisdom theology/literature 3 women 98, 100 work, see toil/work/labour world order 17, 64, 103 Wright, Addison 24, 91 yitron, see advantage, yitron yoter 12 zeman 51 Zimmerli, Walther 3, 17, 64

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