Criswell
Theological Review 2.2 (1988) 309-21
Copyright © 1988 by
ECCLESIASTES 7:25-29 AND
THE FEMINIST HERMENEUTIC
DUANE
A. GARRETT
Mid-America Baptist
Theological Seminary,
The
origins of feminist hermeneutics are not difficult to ascertain.
Apart
from the Zeitgeist of the late 20th century, that is, the larger
Social
context of secular feminism and the expanding job market for
women in academia and industry, modem Christian women
are dis-
'tressed by what appears to be
misogyny in the male-dominated
church. Propelled with a zeal
to correct what they believe to be
centuries of injustice, feminist interpreters have
radically challenged
traditional views in the role of women. They
therefore reject the
interpretations which assert that the
husband is to rule in the home
And
that only men can serve as pastors.
The reasons for the conservative reaction to
feminism, moreover,
are equally clear. While it is certainly true that,
as many feminists
claim, some Christian men reject the assertions of
feminism because
of their insecurity, traditionalism and latent
misogyny, this is by no
means true in all or even in a majority of cases.
Something else must
account for the wide unwillingness of
conservative Christians (both
male and female) to embrace the claims of feminism.
That factor is
the fear of entering into disobedience to what
appears to be plain
teachings of the Bible (e.g., 1 Cor
the conservative would admit that a great deal
which has entered our
view of the roles of men and women is more
traditional than based on
the teachings of the Word of God, in certain
fundamental areas the
distinctions between the roles must
be maintained because they were
ordained in divine
creation and reaffirmed with divine commands.
Criswell Theological
Review 2.2 (1988) 309-321
310
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
For
the conservative, therefore, the issue focuses at the point of
obedience to God and conformity to creation.
Feminists respond to this in two ways.
Conservative Christian
Feminism
agrees that the teachings of the Bible are absolutely authori-
tative but assert that
traditional interpretations of the relevant texts
Are incorrect. A variety of lexical and
historical arguments that are
brought are arrayed with a view towards asserting,
for example, that.
"head" in Eph
indicates to the contrary the role of sustainer
and companion. Hence
these feminists assert that the Bible is
authoritative but that, rightly
interpreted, it does not support traditionally held
concepts of male
authority in home and church.2
Radical Christian feminists, on the contrary,
assert that the re-
Alities of the historical situation of the Bible
indicate the need for an
entirely new hermeneutic. The Bible, they assert,
itself reflects and is
thoroughly permeated by the patriarchal misogynist
viewpoint of the
world from which it came. Far from trying to save the
Bible from the
accusation of misogyny, these feminists are the
Bible's foremost pro-
secutors. Numerous biblical
passages are cited in evidence of biblical
misogyny (e.g., Rev 14:4). The only solution,
they assert, is to trans-
form the Bible by passing it through the grid of
feminism (i.e., "a
feminist reading"). Anything, which reflects
biblical patriarchalism, is
to be rejected or transformed.3 In this
approach, God is often referred
to by the pronoun "she" and Jesus' use
of the term "Father" for God is
not taken as proof that we should speak of God in
the masculine
gender.4
E. S. Fiorenza, a
major spokeswoman for the movement, says, "A
feminist theological hermeneutics of the Bible
that has as its canon the
liberation of, women from sexist texts, structures,
institutes, and in-
ternalized male values maintains
that solely those traditions and texts
of the Bible that transcend their patriarchal
culture and time have the
theological authority of revelation if the Bible
should not continue to
be a tool for the patriarchal oppression of
women."5 In developing
1 See S. T. Foh, Women and the Word of God: A Response to Biblical
Feminism
(Phillipsburg:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979) and J. B. Hurley, Men and Women in
Biblical Perspective (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1981).
2 See P. Gundry, Woman be Free! (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1972) and E.
Storkey, What's
Right with Feminism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1985).
3
Literature
in this area is growing rapidly, but two useful collections of essays are
L.
M. Russell, ed., Feminist Interpretation
of the Bible (
1985) and R. R. Ruether,
Religion and Sexism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974).
4 E. S. Fiorenza,
"Luke
5
E.
22 (1982) 43.
Garrett:
THE FEMINIST HERMENEUTIC 311
her paradigm for biblical interpretation, Fiorenza asserts that, first,
the need for evaluation of biblical teaching and
tradition by the
standard of the rule of faith and the teaching of
the church has always
been recognized Second, she says that the norm for
interpreting the
Bible
cannot be found in the Bible itself but only in and through the
“struggle for the liberation of women and all oppressed
people."7
Third,
she says that "the insight that the Bible is not only a source of
truth and revelation but also a source of violence
and domination is
basic for liberation theologies."8
Therefore her model of biblical
interpretation is not that it is
eternal archetype but ever in process of
being improved prototype.9 M. A. Tolbert
similarly asserts, "Feminist
hermeneutics stands over against
patriarchal hermeneutics, an advo-
cacy for the male-oriented,
hierarchically established present cultural
power system.”10
The
purpose of this paper is to deal with a text which, at a casual
reading, appears to be perhaps the most
misogynous passage of all,
Eccl
7:25-29. I deal with this text in order to challenge the feminist
assertion that the Bible is by nature misogynist
and therefore mis-
guided. I will not in this paper address the arguments
of conservative
feminists. While I have not found many of their
arguments persuasive,
acknowledge their respect for biblical authority and
do not consider
their works to constitute a threat to the
hermeneutics of biblical
Christianity. The case is different,
however, with the hermeneutics of
radical feminism. The notion that the Bible has
absorbed the cultural
norms of its world to the degree that Christians of
later generations
may radically revise its teachings has chaotic
consequences for any
semblance of biblical authority. Indeed, my real
purpose here is not
to combat feminism (although I believe it obtains
a number of
serious problems) but to uphold the Bible's
authority.
At this point we must turn to the offending
text:
25"So I turned in my heart to know and
seek and search out wisdom and
reckoning, and to understand the
evil of folly and the foolish behavior
that is madness. 26And
I discover that more bitter than death is the
woman who is a trap and whose
heart is nets and whose hands are
bonds; he who fears God
escapes her but the sinner is trapped in her.
6 E. S. Fiorenra, "Toward a Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics:
Biblical Interpre-
tation and Liberatim
Theology," A Guide to Contemporary
Hermeneutics (ed. D.
Mckim;
7 Ibid.,
378.
8
Ibid., 379.
9
Ibid., 379-80
10 M. A. Tolbfft, "Defining the Problem: The Bible and Feminist
Hermeneutics,"
Semeia 28
(1983) 113.
312
CRISWELL
THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
27Listen, this is what I have found, says Qoheleth, by adding one thing to
the other to discover
understanding: 28What my soul seeks I have not,
found. I have found one man
among a thousand, but a woman among all
these I have not found. 29But
this I have found: God made humanity
upright, but they have sought
out many schemes.
The
source of feminist irritation is not hard to find: Women appear to
be described as human traps whose only goal is to
ensnare men and
make them miserable. More than that, their innate
depravity seems
worse than that which besets men. At least Qoheleth found one in a
thousand men, but not a single woman. The
feminist L. Swidler
therefore asserts this passage to be
"especially vitriolic and bitter."11
He
adds, "This would seem to fulfill the definition of misogynism,
of
woman-hating. The author then raises
misogynism to the level of
religious virtue: 'He who is pleasing to God
eludes her, but the sinner
is her captive' (Eccles
asserts, "all women have been reduced to
essential evil."13
Examination of the Hebrew text in no way lessens
the impact of
the verses. The dreadful woman of v 26 is said to
be Mydvcm ("traps,
from
dvc, "to hunt")
and MymrH,"
("nets," which were used by both
hunters and fishermen). Indeed, the woman here
is compared un-
favorably to the black, insatiable tvm ("death"). One important con-
sideration does arise from the
Hebrew text, however, in v 29. As
R.
Gordis explains, the verse clearly does not mean that
God made
men upright but that women have sought out many
devices, as if
Qoheleth were saying that men are straightforward
but women are
cunning. Besides the fact that this
interpretation contradicts v 28, the
word Mdxh in v 29 means
"humanity" and not "men."14
Scholars have dealt with this text in a variety
of ways. W. C.
Kaiser
prefers to see the woman who is in view here not as a reference
to women in general but as the "strange
woman" of Proverbs 5-7, the
antipathy of the personified Lady Wisdom of
Proverbs 9.15 But it is
hard to escape the conclusion that Qoheleth has real women in mind
here. H. C. Leupold, more
boldly, asserts that the woman described
here is a symbol for "heathen philosophy."16
This interpretation
is absolutely out of the question. M. A. Eaton is
nearer the truth in
11 Leonard Swidler, Biblical
Affirmations of Woman (
1979) 128. Swindler identifies himself as a
feminist on p. 11.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 R. Gordis,
Koheleth, The Man and his
World: A Study in Ecclesiastes (New
15 W. C. Kaiser, Jr., Ecclesiastes: Total Life (Chicago:
Moody, 1979) 88.
16 H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Ecclesiastes (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1952) 173-75.
Garrett:
THE FEMINIST HERMENEUTIC 313
his assertion that Qoheleth
is talking --about a particular kind of
woman,"17 but this does not solve the
problem entirely. Qoheleth
after all, seem to indicate that at least a tiny
chance exists for
finding a good man, but no chance exists for
finding a decent woman
(v 28). Several commentators have noted that Qoheleth's attitude
toward women is considerably better in 9:9,18
but this too does not
entirely solve the problem here. G. A. Barton
says that --Qoheleth is
inveighing against bad women in the vein of Prov 5:4, 22-23;
22:14."19
But in all those texts the evil woman mentioned is an adul-
teress or prostitute. In
Ecclesiastes 7 nothing indicates that adultery or
prostitution is in view; indeed, the
woman whose heart is a trap to a
man can very well be his wife. J. A. Loader simply
asserts that
Qoheleth is taking up the typical wisdom theme of
the dangerous
woman.20
I should note, however, that none of the
commentaries or inter-
pretations I found regarded this
passage as evidence of the moral or
intellectual superiority of men.
Even R. Wardlaw, a conservative
Scotch
scholar of the early 19th century, in no way uses this text to
prove that women are innately more wicked or foolish
than men.21
The
importance of this observation is that it throws into doubt the
contention of fern inists
that the reason men have held on to these texts
is that they enable them to suppress and feel
superior to women. If no
such bias is found in traditional Christian
hermeneutics, it begs the
question of whether a--feminist (or any other)
reading" is not ad hoc
and innately construed to skew the natural meaning
of a text.
The
question of how this text is to be interpreted, however,
remains to be addressed. Several factors emerge
as probable control
elements. First, one must note that Ecclesiastes
often reflects an aware-
ness of and dependence on the early chapters of
Genesis. Eaton,
building on the work of C. C. Forman and
evidence behind this assertion.22
Evidence that Qoheleth builds his
reflections on the early chapters of Genesis is
conspicuous. Qoheleth's
preoccupation with death (e.g.,
17 M. A. Eaton, Ecclesiastes: An Introduction and Commentary
(Downer's Grove,
IL: InterVarsity,
1983) 116.
18 E.g., Gordis, Koheleth, 282.
19 G. A. Barton, The Book of Ecclesiastes (ICC; Edinburgh:
T. and T. Clark,
1912), 147.
20 J. A. Loader, Polar Structures in the Book of Qohelet (
1979) 51.
21 R. Wardlaw,
Exposition of Ecclesiastes (1868;
reprint ed.;
and Klock, 1982) 244.,60.
22 Eaton, Ecclesiastes, 46.
314
CRISWELL
THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
own gloominess and pessimism; it is derived from
Gen
story of the fall in Genesis 3. In addition, Qoheleth is dismayed at
how much of life is consumed by vexing labor and
hardship (e.g.,
2:18-23;
man in Gen 3:17-19. Forman notes that Eccl l:5-8 calls to mind the
descriptions of the seasons in Gen
8:21f.23 It often alludes to the
inaccessibility of knowledge (e.g.,
builds upon both the forbidden nature of the fruit of
the tree of
knowledge of good and evil and on the expulsion of
Adam and Eve
from the presence of God. Indeed, the hiddenness of God is a major
theme of Ecclesiastes (see
directly quotes Gen 3:19c in referring to the
idea that all are dust and
all return to dust (see also Eccl 12:7). Compare
also Gen 6:5-6 to Eccl
appears to be a play on the name of Adam and
Eve's lost son, lbh
("Abel").24
This preoccupation with Genesis emerges in 7:261ff as
well.
Another
important consideration is that Ecclesiastes is intensely
autobiographical and confessional.
Throughout the book, Qoheleth
repeatedly asserts his advice to be an out-growth
of prolonged ob-
serving, searching, and investigating (e.g.,
Eccl l:13, 16-17; 2:1;
4.1;
4.7; 5.18; 6.1; 7.23-25; 8.9; 9.1;10.5; 10.9-10). He often describes
his personal history in great detail (e.g., chap.
2), and is brutally frank
in describing his feelings in his observations of
life (e.g., 4:2-3).25
Finally, we must note that Ecclesiastes was
written from a man's
perspective in the man's world (as it was in that
day) of the courtly
circle in which the two most important activities were
the pursuit of
wisdom and the exercise of political power. The
wealth, power, and
preoccupation with intellectual
exploration evidenced in
23;
5:8-17; 8:1-6; 10:1-7; and 12:9-12 all indicate a Sitz
im Leben
which, in the ancient world, would have excluded most
(if not all)
women. This may seem to prove that indeed the
perspective of
Ecclesiastes
must be patriarchal and misogynist but a close inspection
of the text reveals that this is not the case.
23C. C. Forman, "Qoheleth's
Use of Genesis," JSS 5 (1960) 256-57.
24Ibid., 257-58.
25The question of the date
and authorship of Ecclesiastes is obviously significant
here. I consider the traditional view that Solomon
is the author to be considered
stronger than has recently been recognized. If
the book is Solomonic, his personal
history could have bearing on the interpretation
of this passage. But to avoid the ap-
pearance of having prejudiced
the issue and in order to demonstrate that the interpreta-
tion here proposed is not
dependent on Solomonic authorship, I speak of the
author
only as Qoheleth and rely
only on internal evidence to support the points made
concerning the Sitz im Leben of this text.
Garrett:
THE FEMINIST HERMENEUTIC 315
With this background in mind we can proceed to
the interpreta-
tion of the text itself. In
v 25 Qoheleth says that he was involved in a
quest to understand the difference between wisdom and
folly. This
assertion is similar to those noted above and
gives the reader no new
information except that it reinforces the
autobiographical nature of
what follows. In v 26 he asserts, "And I
discover (xcvmv) that more
bitter than death is the woman whose heart is traps.
..." The assertion
that what he here describes is a "discovery"
again indicates that he
is speaking of his own experience and that of the
group of men in his
circle. He has discovered that either for himself or
for his associates
(probably both) women have been bitter traps and snares and
sources
of much grief and sorrow. In short, he has seen
that for many men
nothing gives them so much trouble and misery as
the women with
whom they associate. In this context no grounds
exist for thinking that
the women he has in mind are all prostitutes and
adulteresses. The
most natural assumption is that the women who have
given these men
the most trouble are those with whom they most
frequently associate—
their wives. He adds that he has observed that
certain godly men have
escaped this misery (but this does not necessarily
mean that these men
who "feared God" were not married!).
Qoheleth's understanding of this
sad situation is determined not
only by personal experience, however, but also by
his reflection on
the Genesis narrative. In the story of the fall the
deceived woman
gave the fruit to her husband and induced him to
fall. Hence some see
in Eve a pattern of woman as a trap and a source
of deception.26 With
regard to the broken relationship between man and
woman, however,
the critical point in the Genesis narrative is not
Eve's temptation of
Adam.
Indeed it is hardly correct to say that Eve tempted Adam. Gen
3:6
only says that she gave some of the fruit to her husband and he ate
it. Even Adam, in blaming Eve for his fall and
excusing himself, does
not assert that he was deceived or tempted by her
(v 12). Far more
important with regard to the questions posed by
Eccl
on the woman in Gen 3:16b: "Your desire shall
be for your husband
and he shall rule over you." .
This verse has been greatly misunderstood and
abused in tradi-
tional theology.27 First,
"desire" here does not mean to desire sexually,
26The Targum
on
Aramaic Version of Qohelet (New York: Sepher-Hermon,
1978) 40.
27For a good survey of
interpreters' attempts to deal with this verse, see C.
Westermann, Genesis
1:11: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974)
261-63.
See also J. Skinner, A Critical and
Exegetical Commentary on
Genesis (ICC; Edinburgh: T. and
T. Clark, 1910) 83.
316
CRISWELL
THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
as if the meaning were that woman is man's sexual
slave.28 The word
translated "desire" (hqvwt) is used three times in the OT. In Cant
it does refer to sexual desire, that of a
bridegroom for his bride, but
there the word is in a context of joy and love, not
in a context of sin
and judgment.29 As A. P. Ross has
observed, a far more likely parallel
to the use of the word in Gen
to sin's desire to capture Cain. There, sin is
pictured as crouching like
a hunter prepared to spring upon its prey. The
"desire" is a desire to
master and consume.30 Besides the fact that
this use of the word is
separated from Gen 3:16 by a mere 15 verses, the
verbal parallel
between the two occurrences is very strong.
3:16b
"To your husband will be your desire,
but he will rule you."
jb lwmy xvhv
jtqvwt jwyx lxv
4:7b
"To you is its desire, but
you must rule it."
Vb lwmt htxv vtqvwt
jylxv
With
this unmistakable parallel, it is clear that the desire is not a
sexual desire of love or devotion, but is desire to
seize and control or
consume. Note especially how in Gen 4:7 sin is
"crouching at the
door"; that is, it does not directly confront
and do battle but has
assumed a posture that reflects cunning and
treachery. In the same
way, the woman of Eccl 7:26 is a "net" or
a "trap." Similarly, the
"ruling" (lwm) described in the two
Genesis verses is not benevolent
leadership but absolute domination without concern
for the well-
being for the one ruled (Cain is clearly not urged to
become a
benevolent lord over sin).
Therefore the meaning of the curse is clear. The
woman is told
that because of sin domestic life would become a
center of conflict
and struggle. Woman's situation will ever be one of
trying to capture,
manipulate, and consume her husband. Instead of
being at one with
him, she shall be at war with him. But it is a war
which in the majority
of cases she will lose. The curse indicates that
she generally will be in
a place of forced subordination and servitude.
Her life will be made
bitter and sorrowful. From human history, moreover, we
can see that
this curse has been tragically fulfilled. With the
exception of a few
28Cf. the translation in
E. A. Speiser, Genesis
(AB; New York: Doubleday, 1964)
22:
"your urge shall be for your husband."
29 V. P. Hamilton, "hqvwt," TWOT
2.913.
30 A. P. Ross, "The
Daughters of Lot and the Daughter-in-Law of
Faith
in the Struggle for Women's Rights" (paper delivered at the 1986 annual
meeting
of the Evangelical Theological Society) 10, n.2.
Garrett:
THE FEMINIST HERMENEUTIC 317
matriarchal cultures, woman's lot throughout world
history has been
one of unmitigated pain and sorrow. In addition to
the frequent
pregnancy and attendant pain and risk of health
and life that has been
the lot of most women (3:16a), the domestic and
social life of women
in most societies has been rigidly controlled and
circumscribed. Not
only has convention prevented the majority of women
in human
history from engaging in a full life in and
outside the home, but
domestic violence, neglect, and cruelty received
from her husband
and her husband's family have demoralized and made
miserable the
lives of many a woman in many cultures.
In this regard we must point out that Gen
law. While it is correct, I believe, to assert that
a man should be the
moral leader of his home, this verse does not teach
or prescribe a
pattern of Christian behavior. Such a pattern is
better seen in creation
itself, where woman is taken from man and man has a
precedence in
the family, but a precedence that can be properly
maintained only in
the context of being under God and united in love
with his wife. Paul
speaks of the husband as the head; in contrast to
recent attempts to
deplete this term of all implication of
authority, I believe the term
must be understood in its Hebraic sense (wxr), a sense that implies
leadership. But it is a leadership which is
integrally concerned for the
welfare of the wife:, metaphorically described
as the body. As the
head must make the needs of its body preeminent, so
the husband
must make the needs of his wife preeminent (Eph
But it is utterly false to treat Gen 3:16 as
prescriptive law. It is a
curse and a prophecy of the effects of sin in the
domestic area; it is
not a command. A woman who experiences a good
pregnancy and
relatively easy childbirth is not being disobedient
to God's revealed
will any more than is a man whose occupation does
not take him out
into the fields to contend with weeds and
brambles-but as a matter
of fact the curse of Gen 3:17-19 has been more
than fulfilled in history
since most men have led lives of bitter toil in the
face of a hostile
environment. Similarly, Gen 3:16 requires neither
husbands to be
harsh taskmasters nor wives to be cunning shrews. On
the contrary, it
condemns both as the outworkings
of human sin in the domestic
relationship. But the history of our
sinful race has yielded and con-
tinues to yield countless
examples of how sin has perverted the
divinely decreed order with the result that women
have been snares
to their husbands and men have been cruel and
oppressive toward
their wives. One should no more preach Gen 3:16 as a
normative rule
for the Christian home than one should preach vv
17-19 as God's
ideal for a theology of work.
In this light, Eccl 7:26ff begins to make sense.
Qoheleth, working
from the theological stance of Gen
318
CRISWELL
THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
honesty describes what he has seen in most
domestic relationships. He
has discovered that many men have their greatest
pain and their most
miserable failures in the context of their
marriages. To them, their
wives are cunning, human traps who leave them nothing
but grief and
vexation. In his own quest for meaningful
relationships he has never
found a single woman whom he did not consider to be a
lurking shark
interested in only her own advantage and gain. As
far as that goes,
however, he has only found one in a thousand men
whom he could
consider to be a true friend who spoke with
honesty and integrity.
Eccl
7:26-28, therefore, from a man's perspective, describes the
miseries of the domestic relationship.
It is, however, a picture given strictly from a
man's perspective.
This
does not mean that anything he has said is wrong or incorrect; it
only means that the woman's side is not explicitly
stated. A woman's
version of the text might look like this:
26And I find more bitter than death is the
man who is an iron fist and
whose heart is arrogant and
whose feet are steel boots. The woman who
fears God will escape him,
but the sinner he will crush. 27Listen, this is
what I have found, says Qoheleth, by adding one thing to the other to
discover understanding: 28What
my soul seeks I have not found. I have
found one woman among a
thousand, but a man among all these I have
not found.
In transforming the text in this way we see the
other side of the
domestic life of sinful humanity -woman is
oppressed by a cruel and
unfeeling husband and life is drudgery and misery.
In both cases, it is
clear that nothing brings out the sinfulness of
humanity more thor-
oughly than the marriage
relationship. Not surprisingly, pastors in-
volved in counseling often
find themselves dealing with domestic
discord and broken relationships more than with
any other area. Men
on the job or in the military often cluster to
voice their grief over how
their wives are making them suffer. Women frequently
look for a
sympathetic ear, often another wife, to whom they
can pour out their
sorrow