Tag Archives: Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 3- Approaching Time Wisely

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Ecclesiastes 3

¹ For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
² a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
⁵ a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
⁷ a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

⁹ What gain have the workers from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. ¹¹ He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he 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. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; ¹³ moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. ¹⁴ 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. ¹⁵ That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.

¹⁶ Moreover I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well. ¹⁷ 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. ¹⁸ I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. ¹⁹ 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 vanity. ²⁰ All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. ²¹ Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth? ²² 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?

The Byrd’s version of Turn! Turn! Turn!, Pete Seeger’s adaptation of the first half of Ecclesiastes 3, was one of the records I remember my mother and father playing when I was growing up. This is probably the best know piece of Ecclesiastes and its poetic parallelism makes it easier to grasp some sense of rhythm in the contrasts and the seemingly opposing ebb and flow of life and death, happiness and sadness, that which seems good and that which seems evil. This beautiful little poem grasps something of the essence of time which is far different from the way our digital world often thinks about time.

Like many people, I have a schedule that I work out of that maps out my day by hours and minutes, and if I needed to I could measure the precision down to seconds. Chronological time which is mechanically measured by clocks with incredible accuracy is a fixation of the Western world, but it is not that way everywhere. Many cultures the understanding of time is more fluid, transportation is less reliable, schedules are less packed, food takes longer to prepare and many other factors figure into a very different conception of time in many places. Yet, even in these places where the correlation between a watch and time is looser there is still a desire to control time. Yet, the wisdom of Ecclesiastes sees time differently, not measured primarily by what we are able to do but by what is happening to us. We don’t get to choose when we are born or die, when planting and harvest time are. We don’t choose when we fall in love or when we begin to hate someone and most of us don’t occupy an office where we can determine the times of war or peace. Part of wisdom is knowing in which time you are in, embracing the joy of the good times and learning from the difficult times. There is no way to guarantee how the cycle of time will play out in one’s lifetime as it continues to turn, turn, turn, but one can find pleasure in one’s toil.

We are a people of infinite appetites limited by finite time and abilities and placed within a world where our actions frequently are insignificant in the broader movement of seasons. Yet, there is a place for our work under heaven and wisdom can perhaps find joy in the ephemeral. Beginning in verse nine Qohelet (a commonly used way of referring to the author of Ecclesiastes) takes the wisdom and works of mortals and places it within the far wider wisdom and work of God. The wisdom of any person is limited, there is a sense of their current time and some time before and perhaps an intuition of the future, but within the universal scope of time it is infinitesimally small. God is the one who is behind the cycles of time and even though portions of the cycle are painful they can ultimately be beautiful. Yet, between the finite time of humanity and the vast unseen and unending time of the creator, the gift of God is to find joy in the present. God’s work, God’s creation may endure forever but our portion of that is small. Our contributions may be ‘vanity’ and meaninglessness in the larger realm of time but they can still be joyful. Perhaps it is the limits that make the joy more profound, just as happiness without sadness loses its reference and contrast. Perhaps the wisdom of the poem in 3: 2-8 is in placing the opposites in parallel and allowing speech and silence, love and hate, war and peace to dwell together giving meaning to the other and still allowing the wise to know the time they inhabit and the gift of that time.

The flow of time may be beautiful but it is not always just or fair. Too often the places where justice should be are devoid of that justice and the places of righteousness and holiness are often infected by the greed and brokenness of the surrounding world. Ultimately Ecclesiastes leaves the final judgment of these things to God, yet it also is honest that evil things happen to good people and that wicked people often flourish in many ways.

Ecclesiastes, like most of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament does not have a conception of the afterlife that would be familiar to many Christians or groups like the Pharisees at the time of Jesus. Ecclesiastes and most of the Hebrew Scriptures are concerned with the way in which God’s promises occur within the earthly experience of the writer. Ultimately, within this frame, Ecclesiastes is willing to point out the perceived unfairness of the world-that the righteous may not be blessed while the wicked prosper, that wise and foolish the humans will share the mortality of the rest of the animal world, and that our ambitions and achievements are ultimately vanity. Yet, contrary to my initial expectations when looking at the book, Ecclesiastes far from being dismissive of the joy and pleasure of the earthly things embraces them. They may be ephemeral and transitory but so is joy and that doesn’t make it any less precious. Martin Luther almost 500 years ago could grasp the ways in which we need the lesson of Ecclesiastes:

What is being condemned in this book, therefore, is not the creatures but the depraved affection and desire of us men, who are not content with the creatures of God that we have and with their use but are always anxious and concerned to accumulate riches, honors, glory and fame, as though we were going to live here forever; and meanwhile we become bored with the things that are present and continually yearn for other things, and then still others. For this is the height of vanity and misery, to cheat oneself of the use of present goods and vainly to be troubled about future ones. (LW 15:8)

In a much different time Brené Brown can write about the culture of scarcity which can transform joy into foreboding joy where there is an inability to embrace the present moment because we are vainly rehearsing tragedies that could happen[1]. Ecclesiastes understands the wisdom of knowing what time one is in and knowing that ultimately one is not in control of the movement of the seasons and times within one’s life. Eating, drinking, enjoying one’s labors in the present time are all gifts of God and are to be enjoyed in their time. Our mortality may indeed serve as a gift to limit our ambitions and to allow us to embrace the present that is placed before us. Qohelet, for all the wisdom he or she possesses, doesn’t know how to describe or quantify what happens after death any more than any of us does. In the midst of the unfairness and unpredictability of life the wisdom they find is in the gratitude for the gifts and challenges, the joy and the tears, the eating and drinking and working in the present. Beyond this is vanity and to be unaware of time in which one lives.

[1] She talks about this in Daring Greatly at the beginning of chapter 4 discussing the Vulnerability Armor we use to attempt to protect ourselves.

Ecclesiastes 2- The Quest for Meaning

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Edward Poynter, The Visit of the Queen of Shebe to King Solomon (1890)

Ecclesiastes 2: 1-11 The Quest for Meaning Begins

¹ I said to myself, “Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But again, this also was vanity. ² I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” ³ I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine– my mind still guiding me with wisdom– and how to lay hold on folly, until I might see what was good for mortals to do under heaven during the few days of their life. ⁴ I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; ⁵ I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶ I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. ⁷ 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. ⁸ 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.

⁹ So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ 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 after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Qohelet, a common way of referring to the author of Ecclesiastes, begins his quest for meaning in the meaninglessness and begins to apply his wisdom to the things that might bring pleasure and joy. While the author of Genesis 1 can from God’s perspective call everything ‘indeed, very good’ for the teacher in Ecclesiastes everything is vanity and empty. For other wisdom writers, wisdom itself is something that comes from a parent, a scribe or teacher, and ultimately can be personified (as in Proverbs 8) as a woman who is to be sought. Wisdom for many seekers in the Hebrew Scriptures was something that was primarily revealed but in Ecclesiastes, like many post-moderns, the only foundation for wisdom is their own experience. The teacher is in the privileged space to be able to experience and examine the fullness of their life and experience and draw conclusions based upon that experience. Although Qohelet continues to expand those conclusions to a universal perspective, in many respects not unlike Sigmund Freud developing many of his psychoanalytical theories based on his limited clinical experience at the time, his insights continue to provide a fertile ground for reflection.

Ecclesiastes grand experiment in experiential wisdom attempts to enter the pleasure of life fully: laughter, wine, great works, places for enjoyment, people to serve him, power, wealth and sex. All of these individual things, although the eyes and the appetite desired all these things, they ultimately don’t satisfy the author for long. When wisdom gets turned to the goal of acquisition it quickly meets with the reality of insatiability. Although Qohelet can accumulate more property, wealth, power, stature, as well as physical objects of desire than anyone before him (and here he seems to be modeling his story on Solomon who would turn his wisdom towards accumulation to his eventual peril) he doesn’t find more pleasure, joy or contentment than others. In some respects, many celebrities and rock-stars have taken on Ecclesiastes quest for meaning to the point of even putting their lives in jeopardy in their pleasure seeking. For example, Nicki Sixx from the bands Motley Crue and Sixx A.M. can relate in an interview, “What are you going to write songs about now? You’ve won everything that you can win. You’ve proven everybody wrong. You guys have money beyond any money you could ever spend in your life. You’re all driving Ferraris and seeing girls in bikinis and living in mansions” at a time where Sixx was dealing with a heroin (and alcohol and multiple other drug) addiction that nearly cost him his life. The quest for meaning in pleasure has been tried many times over and many have found that it is indeed meaningless at some point, or that it fails at some point to quench the insatiability of the seeker’s appetite. There are never enough accolades, never enough wealth, never enough cars or relationships or a big enough house or thrill.

Yet, in the midst of all of the things that ultimately fail to satisfy, Qohelet ultimately finds something. In the toil, which the seeker normally refers to as a negative thing, he finds pleasure. In the moments, in the present time the seeker finds the thing that they are seeking. It is transient and evanescent moments and as Ecclesiastes states they may indeed be ‘hebel’ or ‘vanity.’ It is in the quest or the work itself that the joy was found, in the moments and not in the acquisition and end.

Ecclesiastes 2: 12-26 The Unfairness of Death

¹² 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. ¹³ Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.

¹⁴ The wise have eyes in their head, but fools walk in darkness.

Yet I perceived that the same fate befalls all of them.¹⁵ 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 vanity. ¹⁶ 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? ¹⁷ So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

¹⁸ 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 ¹⁹ — 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. ²⁰ So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, ²¹ 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. ²² What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? ²³ 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 vanity.

²⁴ 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; ²⁵ for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? ²⁶ 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.

The teacher found pleasure, even if only in transitory moments, in the present, in the toil. Yet, as the Teacher reaches into the future his joy dissipates and he continues to dwell on the meaningless of life in its transitory nature. Mortality comes as the great aggravator of the insatiability of the seeker. He seeks the end of his wisdom and toil, end in the sense of the goal or meaning. The more he projects his quest into an unknown future the more he moves from the pleasure of the moment to the hatred of a transitory life with an uncertain future and legacy. Mortality is the great equalizer in all its unfairness. Both the wise and the foolish, even though wisdom excels folly, all die and are forgotten. In the world of Qohelet’s desire there would be some reward for the wise in their life and legacy and yet all of these may be handed over to those who may not appreciate their labor.

For me one of the gifts of Ecclesiastes is its challenge to the ways I, and I am sure many others, have lived my life for the future. I have projected my happiness into some future time as I toiled towards that next degree, next promotion, a time when I am debt free, or have earned a certain amount of wealth, comfort, security or rewards. Yet, the reality of these are that the completion of these goals never satisfies the insatiable nature within me. I frequently have missed moments of joy in the present by being focused on the future. In a work oriented culture, where we pride ourselves on how busy we are and how hard we work Ecclesiastes encourages us to slow down, to notice the moments of pleasure. To find enjoyment in the work itself, not merely in the end. The toil, or work itself may be the end. The quest may be the apex of enjoyment. And ultimately for Qohelet it is God who enables a person to enjoy and perceive the gifts of the day. As Psalm 118 can state, “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118: 24)

Perhaps in the quest of Ecclesiastes we can learn the peril of a life that is completely oriented on the future. Ultimately death places its verdict on all of us and if we are living our lives in search of some immortal legacy then we are likely to be disappointed. Lives can be too hard or too short, they can be a burden and a toil. Perhaps one of the greatest gifts the Teacher can give us is to learn to pay attention to the joys of bodily life: a good meal with friends, a vacation, the process of learning and growing, the development of a relationship and countless other moments with the potential for joy and happiness. By orienting his life to the future, Qohelet finds only that life is vanity and great evil. Nicki Sixx, mentioned above in his own quest for pleasure which almost cost him his life, could write later in a song that would come out of his Heroin Diaries at the end of his quest for pleasure that ‘Life is Beautiful’ but it took being at the point of death for Sixx, as well as the death of several of his friends, for him to realize the beauty in it.

Ecclesiastes 1- Chasing After the Wind

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Image from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140130190453.htm

Ecclesiastes 1: 1-11: All the Vanity and Toil of Life

¹ The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
² Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
³ What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?
⁴ A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
⁵ The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises.
⁶ 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.
⁷ All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full;
   to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow.
⁸ All things are wearisome; more than one can express;
   the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing.
⁹ What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done;
   there is nothing new under the sun.
¹⁰ Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”?
    It has already been, in the ages before us.
¹¹ 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.

Ecclesiastes is probably one of the latest books written in the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament as many Christians known the first portion of their scriptures, and was also one of the books that many ancient and modern people have wondered how it fits in the Bible. Ecclesiastes wanders boldly into the absurdity and senselessness of the world of the Teacher, Qohelet (the word that is translated the Teacher or in other translations the preacher and how I will refer to the author throughout these reflections). It is not only in our time where disillusionment can creep in and mocks any sentimental religiosity or easy answers. Perhaps the entirety of this short work is vanity, perhaps it is wisdom or foolishness, for many it will be unsatisfying and for others it will be a voice singing in the choir of those willing to peer honestly into the unresolved questions of a world that often seems devoid of any cosmic wisdom or justice.

Here in this initial section we encounter three of Qohelet’s favorite words: “All,” “Vanity,” and “Toil.” Since these words are so important to the Teacher it is probably worth spending a moment with them at the beginning. As a philosopher looking at the universal perspective of the human experience “All” (Hebrew kōl) becomes one of the tools to reflect on the universality of the experience of toil, death, disappointment and meaninglessness. Qohelet’s perspective in this universal search is not primarily religious but experiential and by taking his or her reflection on a variety of topics and universalizing them to the shared human experience. Perhaps in a postmodern age we may be skeptical of a universalizing perspective even if it is grounded in the universality of “vanity.” “Vanity” (Hebrew hebel) initially appears in the Bible in Genesis as the name of Cain’s younger brother ‘Abel.’ Just as Abel’s life is short and appears to be meaningless so the word hebel can mean ‘vapor, mist, or emptiness.’ It is an evanescent word that refuses to be grasped hold of and the traditional translation of ‘vanity’ reflects the grasping not only at the meaning of the word but also grasping at meaning in the meaninglessness. ‘Toil’ (Hebrew āmāl) has nothing to do with goal oriented work and more to do with pain and struggle. As W. Sibley Towner, who I am indebted to for the above discussion of the meaning of words, can connect:

Like the writer of the story of Genesis 3, he places human beings in a world from which both the presence and the friendship of God are withdrawn and people are left to fend for themselves on an accursed ground in lives of toil that only end in death. (NIB V: 280)

As we enter into the vanity of vanities, the senselessness in the unending rhythms of the world that surrounds the mortal who will inevitably cease to be, we enter into the insatiability of not only the cosmos but apparently the human appetite as well. The repeating patterns of streams that flow to the sea, winds that blow from the south, sunrise and sunset, and the passing of the generations bring on the steady reinvention of that which has come before. Perhaps in the midst of the mundane the eye and ear search for something new and novel, but all that fills them is the things that have come before. Perhaps there is some irony in reflecting upon a person of long ago whose personage is not remembered and yet their words endure and come to us calling us into their questions. Willing to enter into the search for answers in the toil and in the recurring patterns of life, the Teacher invites us to search with him or her for what may satisfy our insatiability.

Miroslav Volf can identify from Ecclesiastes the central themes of insatiability and mortality. In Ecclesiastes there is no transcendent goal, no heaven to escape to and so Qohelt enters into a very earthly discussion of what life is about. As Volf can say, “We are finite, but our desires are infinite. Our insatiability gives the ever-flowing river of our work and play not just an insuppressible dynamism but also an aura of futility.” (Volf, 2015, p. 51) Just as literature can reflect the way repetition, boredom and meaninglessness can squeeze the joy out of modern life, Ecclesiastes can point back to the same experience among those of our ancestors who were willing to engage their experience without resorting to pious sentimentality. As Herman Melville can state in Moby Dick:

That mortal man who hath more joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true—not true or underdeveloped. With books, the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. “ALL is vanity.” ALL. This willful world has not got hold of un-christian Solomon’s wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing grave-yards, and would rather talk of operas then hell…not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon. (NIB V: 291)

If one is willing to enter into the insatiability and mortality and wonder what the toil means, to be at the place where one can honestly engage the brokenness and pain of the human experience then perhaps one can find joy. In foolishness or wisdom the joy may come anyways, but the mind of Qohelet the philosopher and seeker refuses to pull away from his difficult quest for which there are no easy answers. Perhaps in a world where many in the United States have access to more options and luxuries than at any previous point in history and we still are not satisfied we can learn from Ellen Davis’ insight into the one of the issues Ecclesiastes highlights: “the perpetual desire for more does not derive from the enjoyment of what we already have….the fact of the matter is that we are often bored by the good things of this world.” (Davis, 2000, p. 172)

Ecclesiastes 1: 12-18: The Vexation of Wisdom

¹² I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem,¹³ applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with.¹⁴ I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.¹⁵ What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.¹⁶ 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.”¹⁷ 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.
¹⁸ For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.

The books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs present two very different approaches to wisdom. The practical wisdom of Proverbs is to be a guide for one’s thoughts and actions and protects one from being entangled in the ways of evil. For Proverbs, “for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.” (Proverbs 2: 10) Yet, for Qohelet, the wisdom becomes a vexation and the increase of knowledge has brought the seeker sorrow and not happiness. Qohelet seeks to take the universal perspective and to know all of the human experience in its toil and trouble, its wisdom and its folly, its crookedness and brokenness. The Teacher takes on the mantle of Solomon (most scholars would say Ecclesiastes due to its language is written many hundreds of years after the time of Solomon) and applies this wisdom and knowledge that they have acquired to know everything. Their thirst for knowledge was insatiable and the more they grasped the more it escaped like the wind they felt they were chasing. Yet, Qohelet for all his universal perspective cannot claim to know the mind of God. The questions that are raised about God are unanswered and probably unanswerable. Perhaps the folly of this quest for wisdom and knowledge rests in the reality that one never masters “all” for the streams of knowledge flow into larger and larger bodies and perhaps at last to the unreachable and uncontainable sea. Yet, it would be too easy to perhaps makes this about harnessing the uncatchable winds in a sail to blow us down to the sea without being honest about the vexation, struggle and toil that often comes in the journey. Perhaps Qohelet is able to see well before the disillusionment of humanity with modernity’s quest for absolute answers that often the increase of knowledge may indeed bring about sorrow and how, for example, sciences that can be used to save lives often become utilized to wage war. Qohelet’s painful wisdom may not be something that is comfortable to most people, but for those who feel intensely in their lives a sense of brokenness or alienation they may find comfort in hearing within their scripture their own toil and questions and doubts. The vexation of wisdom and the sorrow of knowledge may not be alleviated by hearing Qohelet’s impious words but perhaps in there is empathy found in the presence of a fellow questioner whose questions go unanswered.

Vanity and Identity-A Sermon at Rejoice Lutheran Church, Frisco Texas, August 4, 2013

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular