Ecclesiates: How It Works, What It Says

It's been a long while since I've written anything about Ecclesiastes. In previous posts, I discussed the book's setting in the leadership structure of ancient Israel, and also the title of the book. But now I want to get around to talking about how Ecclesiastes works, what it's actually saying and how. What follows is a short overview of my take. See what you think:

1. Unlike the practical wisdom book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes is an example of reflective, speculative wisdom. Instead of asking about how to live one’s life, this book asks about the meaning of life. The one other Old Testament book in the speculative-wisdom category is Job.

2. Ecclesiastes explores a specific question: What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? (1:3 NIV). I take this to mean something like: What is the point of a life well lived, a life characterized by productive work? Is there a lasting benefit? What aspect of ourselves will survive death and the ravages of time? As one would expect, since this question serves as the program for Ecclesiastes, the author repeats it several times. (See, for example, 2:22, 3:9, 5:16, and 6:8).

3. In response to his own question, the author of Ecclesiastes offers an initial, standard answer, which sounds hopeless and bleak: "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." (1:2). For the time being, I'll stay away from the question of what is the best English word for the Hebrew hebel, translated "Meaningless" here. Whatever the right word is, it's important to note that Ecclesiastes often repeats this first, most-basic conclusion announcing the enigma or futility of the search for significance in life. (See, for example, 1:14; 2:1 and 11, etc.). The book ends in 12:8 in much the same way as it began in 1:2. Connected to his general conclusion is the author’s frequent observation that the pursuits of human life amount to a chasing after the wind (1:14, 17, 2:11, 17, 26; 4:4, 6, 16 ).

4. The author’s experiences and observations have led him to his pessimistic conclusion. A few examples:

• Famously (or infamously) the author appears to be agnostic about life beyond the grave: Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth? (3:21).
• He denies that anyone can predict the future with any kind of accuracy: a man cannot discover anything about his future (7:14).
• He insists that the search for ironclad, surefire wisdom is also futile: Whatever wisdom may be, it is far away and most profound – who can discover it? (7:24).
• Sorting out what seems to be clear and well-known is apparently an impossible task. "Who knows the explanation of things? asks the wise man" (8:1). No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it (8:17).

5. So at one level, the human quest for meaning and significance meets with failure and frustration. However, Ecclesiastes is not entirely pessimistic about the possibility of joy and contentment. The author includes a series of passages that use phrases like find satisfaction and be happy and enjoy in a positive way. Ecclesiastes introduces this series with the words "nothing better" (2:24-25, 3:12-13, 3:22, 5:18-20, 8:15, and 9:7-10). When reading these passages, one notices that the sequence moves from (a) observation to (b) commendation to (c) the final imperative of 9:7-10, which strikes me as a high point of the book.

Here, the legitimate enjoyment of good things is brought within the circle of God's will for humanity. This is the single most important contribution that Ecclesiastes makes to the biblical witness: that taking pleasure, today, in your work, in good food and drink, and in your family, is not only approved by the Almighty. In fact, happiness and joy are an important aspect of the revealed will of God for human life.

Does this look convincing? What are some of your own thoughts and reactions to Ecclesiastes?

Note about Study and Sources:

At different times over the last 20 years, I've taken a series of runs at Ecclesiastes. One time I read it almost every night for about a month. When it comes to really getting a handle on a particular book of the Bible, or any text for that matter, there's just no substitute for careful, repeated, sometimes-slow reading. Anyone who's tried this knows exactly what I mean. There are some books that probably should be read in a hurry. But a book like Ecclesiastes is deserving of meditation. In addition to reading Ecclesiastes, I've spent some time with a few of its better interpreters. Two authors in particular have helped me to get a handle on this book: the late, great Robert Gordis, and an Old Testament specialist from the current generation, Graham S. Ogden.

Lots of Class

This semester, I have to be loaded for bear every Wednesday. It's the one day of week when I teach all day long. I start at 9:00 a.m. and stop at 8:00 p.m., with lunch and supper in there somewhere. It's a long day, but I'm not complaining. When it goes well, it's actually a lot of fun. Here's the schedule of classes:

New Testament

Today we're looking at 2nd Peter and Jude. Many of my students are involved in some sort of church work. Some of them plan to be pastors and teachers. So when we take up these two letters, I like for my classes to notice what the New Testament does and does not mean by the term false teacher. That's important to know.

Life of Paul

We've made it to the Sixties. Having appealed to Caesar, Paul is under house arrest in Rome where (I think) he'll write the so-called Prison Epistles. I prefer to call them the Captivity Letters. We'll start by reviewing the history from Acts and by noticing markers in these four letters (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) that make them appear to come from the same period in Paul's life.

General Epistles

Today the class will start walking through 2nd Peter. I never get tired of the add to your faith section of the first chapter. Seems like that passage was standard sermon material in the church of my youth. Just a thought: Is there anyone in the Christian world you'd talk about as Peter talks about his opponents in this letter? Who? Why?

Introduction to World Religions

A whirlwind tour of (some) Islamic history. During the Dark Ages of the Christian world, Islam was leading the way in virtually every area of human learning. This is where we got Arabic numerals, for example. I like them better than Roman numerals, don't you?

Ecclesiastes

Tonight's class will be the third in a series of four lessons I'm teaching at the Colonies Church of Christ here in Amarillo. In the providence of God, there were people who decided to just get over the unconventional character of Ecclesiastes and welcome it into the Jewish Scriptures. We cannot be sufficiently thankful for that.

So, I 'm curious. If you were in my shoes today, how would you approach any or all of these classes? What are some of the best resources (books, articles, websites, videos, etc.) for these subjects? I like to hear what other people have noticed and learned.

Ecclesiastes: The Setting

Among the ancient Israelites, there were three kinds of spiritual leaders:

1. There were the priests, the kohanim.
The priest was a descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses. He stood between God and the Israelites, offering the sacrifices that were prescribed by the Torah of Moses. Above all, it was the job of the priest to teach the Torah and to make sure that the Israelite nation observed it. A few passages that illustrate this:

In Leviticus 10:11, the Lord said to the priests, you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the Lord has given them through Moses.

When Moses blessed the tribe of Levi--the tribe the priests came from--he said to the Lord: He teaches your precepts to Jacob, and your law to Israel (Deuteronomy 33:10).

In Ezekiel 44:23-24, the Lord issues a job description for priests: They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean. In any dispute, the priests are to serve as judges and decide it according to my ordinances. They are to keep my laws and my decrees for all my appointed feasts, and they are to keep my Sabbaths holy.

The priest was expected to know the Law, to teach it, and to ensure that the Israelites lived by it. If there was any question about what the Torah said on some disputed matter, the priest was like an umpire. He knew the Scroll and could make the call.

2. A second group of leaders were the prophets. The Israelites called them the nevi'im.
Unlike a priest, a prophet was not born into that position. No one was a prophet because he was part of a certain family. Instead, people became prophets because they were specially chosen by God to fill that role.

Another difference was that, unlike the priest, the prophet did not look to the Torah for his message. Of course, if he was a true prophet, then his message was consistent with the will of God. But the prophet did not offer sacrifices at the altar, and he didn't teach the Torah.

Instead, the prophet spoke a message from God as the Lord himself provided the words. Again, the contrast: The priest relied on a book for his words; the prophet received from God an immediate word, a message that came directly from the Lord. Hundreds of times in the Old Testament, the prophets begin their sermons by saying,

Thus says the Lord, or

Hear the word of the Lord.

When prophets speak of where they got their messages, they say, The word of the Lord came to me.

A prophet did not speak on his own. Rather, it was God who was speaking through the prophet. The Lord simply used a human being as his mouthpiece. Most often, the message was an accusation or a warning. The message of the prophet was, Turn away from idols and immorality, and turn back to God.

3. A third group of leaders among the Israelites were the wise, the khakhamim.

(There are certain Hebrew words that you don't want to say with someone standing directly in front of you. Khakhamim is one of those words. The kh stands for the letter that, when pronounced, sounds like you've got popcorn stuck in your throat and you're trying to get it out).

The wise man or woman, also known as a sage, was a person who closely observed life. The sage was careful to notice how things in the world work, or don't work. She noticed the attitudes and the habits that lead to success; she also took note of the attitudes and habits that lead to failure.

Based on her observations, the sage would come up with clever, memorable ways of expressing those insights. These little capsules of wisdom were called proverbs. The sage would recite old, traditional proverbs, and maybe even some new ones that she had come up with, to teach young people, to pass on to them the insights that come only from experience.

Sages, wise old men and women, filled the role of teacher to the younger generation. Inexperienced people need to learn how to get along in life, how to live wisely, how to avoid the pitfalls of foolishness, and above all how to succeed in life. The sage was the person in the community who served to accomplish that goal.

Three kinds of spiritual leaders in ancient Israel. The Book of Jeremiah refers to these categories. It speaks of the teaching of the law by the priest . . . counsel from the wise, . . . the word from the prophets (Jer. 18:18).

The overview can help us see the place the Book of Ecclesiastes. It doesn't reflect the concerns of a priest. Nor was it written by a prophet. Instead, the book falls into the category of wisdom. To be more specific, Ecclesiastes represents one of the two different kinds of wisdom writings found in the Old Testament.

Our great American psychologist William James once said that there are basically two kinds of people. There are tough-minded people. And then there are tender-minded people.

The tough-minded person asks the practical question: How does it work? What makes it go? The tender-minded person asks the reflective question: What's the point?

The tough-minded person wants to get things done. The tender-minded person wonders if this the right thing to do.

One wants to move, to act; the other wants to think, to speculate.

I suspect that William James would be the first to admit that his division of all people into two groups is a bit arbitrary. But he would also say that there's a lot of truth to this. His distinction can help us when we think about the two different kinds of wisdom writings in the Old Testament, because they reflect his two different categories.

That is to say, there is a type of wisdom writing in the Old Testament that is very tough-minded, practical, interested in how to live a successful life. And, there is another type of wisdom writing that is tender-minded, reflective, interested in the deeper, more-complex questions of life.

The first type, practical wisdom is found above all in the Book of Proverbs, which is a wisdom manual for how to live your life. Some proverbs are warnings:

Like a gold ring in a pig's snout
is a beautiful woman without discretion (11:22).

Other proverbs encourage us to value the things that really matter:

A good name is to be chosen rather that great riches,
and favor is better than gold or silver (22:1). If you earn a good reputation, you can go far.

And, all of this is seen by the Proverbs as being vitally important:

In the path of righteousness is life,
but the way of error leads to death (12:28).

The second type, speculative or reflective wisdom, is found in two books of the Old Testament: the books of Job and Ecclesiastes.

1. The book of Job explores this unanswered question: in a world created and controlled by a good God, why do terrible things sometimes happen to the best of people? In God's universe, what is the reason for undeserved suffering?

2. Our book, Ecclesiastes, explores this question: Given the injustices of life, the crookedness of the world, the uncertainty of things, and the reality of death, what is the point of living?

I wonder, What are some of the ways that people today answer that question? What do our contemporaries usually assume is the purpose of our lives?

Source: Part of this post comes from my memories of a speech by the late Robert Gordis. I listened to it so many times, it just became a part of me. During my student days at Harding Graduate School in Memphis, I would regularly listen to different cassette tapes from the School's fantastic library. I didn't know Rubel Shelley or Wolfhart Pannenberg or Carol Osburn or Robert Gordis. But it was like I knew them because I heard some of their best stuff over and over again.

Ecclesiastes: The Title

The Book of Ecclesiastes is a puzzle from the very start: What does Ecclesiastes mean?

The Hebrew title of the book is Qohelet, another word that isn't easy to figure out.

The great Jewish scholar Robert Gordis used to enjoy telling audiences that Ecclesiastes is a fine translation. "That's because we don't know what Qohelet means," he would say, "and we don't know what Ecclesiastes means either. So it's the perfect translation of a mysterious title."

But as Gordis himself knew, it isn't quite so hopeless as that. Qohelet comes from the Hebrew root qahal, a word that involves the idea of collecting or gathering. When used as a verb in the Scriptures, qahal always means "to gather people." So Qohelet is someone who assembles a crowd, or gathers an audience, presumably to speak to them.

Along this line, the ancient Greek translation of the Scriptures, the Septuagint, came up with a title that's connected to the word for "an assembly." From the Greek ecclesia (assembly) it's a short step to ecclesiastes (the assemblyman).

When translating the Latin Vulgate, Jerome used an expression that emphasized the idea of someone speaking to the assembly. Jerome's idea was an interpretation, one that's probably right.

If this view of the title is correct, then Qohelet is the description of a wise man, a sage who has spent many years looking at life. And now as he writes, it's as though he has gathered his friends and colleagues in order to speak to them, to talk about his observations, and announce his conclusion.

Martin Luther took this view and called the Book of Ecclesiastes der Prediger: The Preacher. Qohelet might be a preacher of sorts. But he's got to be one of the most unconventional preachers ever.

I want to write some more about this book. In the meantime, I'd be interested to hear your take. What are some of your observations about the Book of Ecclesiastes?

Spring Break in New England

Yeah, I know. My title sounds like a collaboration between Barry Manilow and the Beach Boys. Anyway, the title for my life on Thursday was "Amarillo to Hartford on Southwest: One Man, Three Planes, Four Flights, 2100 Miles." And here I am back in Connecticut.

Friday was such a great time with my children. Chloe's on Spring Break from UConn this week. So I picked her up that morning (yes, she was devastated about the previous night's basketball game). We went down to New Haven for lunch at Claire's Corner Copia, hanging out in bookstores, etc. Chloe wound up buying a new pair of shoes. She really liked them and besides, "They were originally $100!" (Sigh. Cha-ching).

I, on the other hand, wound up buying two new books: Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. (Yeah, that's where I got the phrase above). The book is Ammon Shea's story about reading all twenty volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary in one year. That's the equivalent of about one novel's worth of reading every day, for a year, through the world's greatest, most-technical English dictionary. He has a chapter for each letter of the alphabet, talking about some of his favorite words. For someone who sits around reading dictionaries (he's been doing it since age ten), Shea is one entertaining writer.

I also got Michael Coogan's volume on the Old Testament in Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" Series. So far, I've found this series to be a bit of a failure, mainly because the authors have a hard time hitting a balance between "informed, solid coverage" and "very short." It's the nature of the beast as far as I'm concerned. We'll see how Coogan does with the Old Testament.

Later in the day, we picked up Benjamin and Abigail. The four of us got to spend some time just hanging out together. Then it was looking around in the Barnes & Noble, followed by dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in West Hartford.

More about books: On the plane rides up here, I read most of Jon Meacham's book American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of Nation. I suspect every religious professional in the U.S. should read this book--at least the first 80 pages or so--especially if one doesn't know much about the history of the First Amendment. Meacham's book goes a long way in proving that the framers of the Constitution were neither Tom-Paine type anti-religionists nor conservative Protestants bent on making the United States a Christian nation. The book is well-written and full of tasty quotes from people like Jefferson, Adams, and Madison.
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So I'm done with the Rice Haggard series from a couple weeks back. But that experience made me realize that there are several topics I'd like to do a series of posts on. Here are a few that are running around in my head:

As Good As It Gets: The Message of Ecclesiastes

Our Turn to Preach: Structures and Message in Matthew

The Basics of Buddhism

Chapters in a Life of Paul

So, You Want to Learn Hebrew

Church Elders and Their Children
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I'm sitting here writing this post at Michele's parents' place, my Connecticut home. I've said it before, but they're such fine people, such great hosts. I'm thankful for them and for this place.

And now, we're off to Abigail's soccer game for this afternoon.

Back Again, Leaving Soon, Psalms, Ecclesiastes

Last weekend's visit to Lubbock turned out even better than I expected it would.

For one thing, Kevin Schaffer wound up traveling with me and Ken Danley. Kevin, a former member of Acappella, is the worship minister at the Central Church of Christ. We'd met once or twice before. But the car ride to Lubbock and back gave us the chance to get to know each other better.

Over the weekend I got to talk with, learn from, and worship with the following people: Terry and Charlotte Smith, Jeff Walling, Randy Harris, Mike Cope (who, if you hadn't heard, announced a transition this week), Scot McKnight, Greg Taylor, Brandon Scott Thomas, Randy Gill, Larry Mudd, and Tod Vogt. Rich stuff.

Spring Break is next week for us. I plan to get an early start, flying out to Connecticut later this week to spend some time with my kids.

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This month, I'll finish out a Sunday-morning class on the Psalms that I've been teaching at Central.

Next month I'll be teaching a four-week, Wednesday-night series on Ecclesiastes at the Colonies Church of Christ here in Amarillo. I'm so looking forward to doing that class. For one thing, I'll have the chance to get better acquainted with the people at that congregation. And, this will also force me to go ahead and finish out some material on Ecclesiastes that I've been trying to put together for a long time now.

As a lot of people have discovered, Ecclesiastes is one of the more-interesting books of the Bible. To their credit, the people who put the Scriptures together decided not to squelch this dissenting opinion.

Getting ready to teach Ecclesiastes, I've thought about working through one of the newer commentaries. I've read the great, older works of Robert Gordis and Graham Ogden.

What newer books (or classics) would you recommend?