Trinity Journal 8 NS (1987) 159-177
Copyright © 1987 by Trinity
Journal, cited with permission.
QOHELETH ON THE USE AND ABUSE
OF POLITICAL POWER
DUANE A. GARRETT
CANADIAN
SOUTHERN BAPTIST SEMINARY
Qoheleth's insights into political
power and its use and abuse have
escaped the notice of most interpreters even
though he had a great deal to
say in this area. Scholars either ignore his
political insights altogether or
suggest that: his attitude towards the subject
borders on indifference.1
Political
oppression and the corruption that exists in high places,
however, are the only vices that Qoheleth analyzes in any detail in his
book. He hardly concerns himself with other forms of
questionable
behavior, such as a life of sensuality and
pleasure seeking; he only says
that in the final analysis these pursuits fail to
satisfy (2:4-11).
Qoheleth s concern for political
matters and in particular for matters
related to oppression is not surprising. In
ancient
the ancient near east, the divinely imposed duty of
rulers to protect the
poor and easily oppressed is part of the heritage
ofwisdom.2 Moreover,
biblical wisdom is often highly political in
nature and can frequently be
defined as the ability to work successfully in a
political situation.3 While
wisdom's many roots include the marketplace and
ordinary world of folk
wisdom, a primary Sitz im Leben of wisdom was the royal
court. In
crats, and Sumerian and
Babylonian scribes similarly had important
governmental roles.4
While not exclusively devoted to this subject, much
of Ecclesiastes addresses the political arena.
Qoheleth examines the use of
political power in eight separate
passages. These passages, when analyzed and
compared, form a coherent
statement on political authority and life under
it. This statement is
carefully woven into the fabric of the whole book
of Ecclesiastes and
makes up a
significant part of Qoheleth's world view.
1E.g.,
James L. Crenshaw (Old Testament Wisdom
[
143) comments that Qoheleth
recognized the existence of injustice but says that he, unlike
the
prophets, felt no need to do battle with it.
2See
F. Charles Fensham, "Widow, Orphan, and the Poor
in the Ancient Near Eastern
Legal and Wisdom
Literature," JNES 21 (1962)
129-39. Cf. The Protests of the Eloquent
Peasant,
ANET 407-10, and the following
passage from The Instructions for King Meri-
Ka-Re
(ANET, 415): "Do justice whilst
thou endurest upon earth. Quiet the weeper; do not
oppress
the widow; supplant no man in the property of his father. . . ."
3Cf. R. B. Y. Scott,
"Solomon and the Beginnings of Wisdom," VTSup
3 (1955) 270.
4Crenshaw, Wisdom 28.
Cf. The Instructions of Vizier Ptah-Hotep, A NET 412-14.
160 TRINITY
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I.
3:15c-17
The first important passage is 3: 15c-17. This
passage seems out of place
as it appears in most translations. In the
preceding passage, 3:9-15b,
Qoheleth contrasts the transitory nature of human
accomplishments with
the eternality of God's works. He then suddenly
moves into a brief
discourse on corruption and injustice (
this change of topic is greatly reduced if one
understands 3:15c to be transitional.
The meaning of 15c, JDAr;ne-tx, wp.ibay; Myhilox<hAv;,
is notoriously difficult.
Most
translations render it something like, "God looks for what has
passed by."5 The central problem is
the meaning of the niphal of Jdr here.
In
the qal of biblical Hebrew it always means
"pursue" or "chase," and
thus by extension from the idea of pursuit with
hostile intent, "to
persecute."6 It is found in the niphal only here and in Lam 5:5, where it
means "to be pursued.”7 Most scholars
assume that the natural transla-
tion, "God looks for
the persecuted," would be out of place in the context,
of Eccl 3:9-15, and so render ~"3 as
"that which has passed by" or
something similar. This and other such
translations, however, neither
accurately render the Hebrew nor make theological
sense.8 The line is
best understood as
meaning "God seeks the persecuted. "The use of the
piel wq.B supports this rendition. S. Wagner says that this verb is
generally used in three ways. Sometimes it simply
means to seek objects,
as in I Sam 9:3 and I Kgs
in a figurative sense, as in "to seek to
kill" (I Sam
5Cf. NIV,
6E.g. Amos 1:11; Ezek
35:6.
7Literally "We are
pursued upon our necks," the line may mean something like, "Our
pursuers are on our heels," or it could
mean, "We are driven hard," i.e. we are oppressed.
8See George Aaron Barton,
Ecclesiastes (ICC; Edinburgh: T.
& T. Clark, 1912) 107;
Michael
A. Eaton, Ecclesiastes (Downer's
Grove, III.: Inter-Varsity, 1983) 83; Franz
Delitzsch, Ecclesiastes
(
-The Man and His World (New York: Schocken Books, 1968) 156,234. "
Barton argues that in Josh
passive can mean "that which has been
driven off, "i.e. things in the past. However, in those passages
the subjects of the verbs are personal, and
interpreting the word as "things in the past" is strained.
Eaton says that in late
Hebrew Jdr
can mean
"hurry along" and thus argues that 3:15c
means that God watches over the flurry of human
activity. This too stretches the meaning of
the words; even if a meaning "hurry
along" is conceded, the translation "God seeks that ;
which (or, 'he who') hurries along" makes little
sense.
Delitzsch says
that the line means, "God seeks that which is crowded out," on the
basis of
the Arabic words mudarif and mutaradifat, but he admits that
the ancient cognates are
wanting, and that the LXX, Symmachus,
the Targum, and the Syriac
all render the line,
"God
seeks the persecuted." And Delitzsch's
translation really does not make sense.
Gordis similarly interprets the line as, "God
always seeks to repeat the past," on the basis
of Arabic and Medieval Hebrew cognates. This
rendition, while appearing to be perfect
harmony with its context, actually confuses the
issue. Qoheleth's point in
man is trapped in that nothing he does is lasting
or original ("new under the sun"), whereas
God
is free since he alone is able to be truly creative, and only his work is
eternal. Gordis's
translation makes it appear that God is an
arch-conservative who rigorously stamps out any
human innovation in order to maintain a safe level of
repetition and monotony. This is
surely not Qoheleth's
message; he nowhere blames God for the limitations of human life.
GARRETT:
QOHELETH ON POLITICAL POWER 161
used in a legal sense.9 For example, in 2
Sam 4:11, "I will seek his blood
from you," means, "I will require justice
for the shedding of his blood
from you."10 Similarly, when
said to Jacob, "Seek him from my hand"
(Gen 43:9), in other words,
"Consider
me to be accountable for his life. "When
Ecc13:15c says that
God
seeks the: persecuted, it means that he holds their persecutors
accountable.
As mentioned above, however, the translation,
"God seeks the
persecuted," appears strange in its context, a
discussion of the temporality
of humanity and the timelessness of God. This
problem could be solved
immediately if 15c were treated as belonging to the
next section, a brief
discussion of ,corruption and oppression (vv
16-17), but this solution
appears impossible since the opening words of v
16 ("And I saw
something else. ..") clearly
begin a new paragraph. While dealing with
the same subject matter as vv 16-17, 15c is outside
of and immediately
before that text.
Qoheleth, however, often uses
both prolepticism and transitional
passages. Sometimes he gives a short, proleptic summary of a topic he is
about to discuss or of a conclusion he will reach
before he actually begins
a detailed discourse. Sometimes, as here, when he
is about to move on to
a new paragraph with a new topic, Qoheleth proleptically introduces
the
new topic at the end of the paragraph before the
new one. The proleptic
line therefore serves as a transition between the
two paragraphs that deal
with unrelated topics. Other examples of prolepticism are 1:2 (which
proleptically gives the theme of the
whole book), 2:1b-2a (which states in
advance his conclusions, found in v 11,
regarding the life of sensuality),
8:
1 (a proleptic introduction to the matter of
political prudence,
discussed in 8:2-8c), and 8:8d, which prepares the
reader for a discourse
on the problem of theodicy (8:9-17). A major
transitional passage
appears in
conclusion of the work (
All of this implies that while the paragraph
division of the present text
is at the end of v 15, one must regard 15c as part
of the following
paragraph, 3:16-17, with respect to the topic of
the discourse. The first
passage to deal with the issue of political
oppression, therefore, is
3:15c-17.
As mentioned above, 15c is best translated,
"God seeks the persecuted."
Humans,
Qoheleth asserts, are creatures of time: all of their
activities are
governed by time (3:1-8), are transitory and give
no lasting benefit (v 9),
and are never able to move beyond the banal and
ordinary (v 15b). Only
God's
work is eternal, and the best people can do is try to find a measure
of happiness and contentment in this life (vv
11-14). At this point, the
discussion turns on the line, "and God seeks
the oppressed." Why does he
here introduce
the concept of political injustice? The reason is surely that
oppression and injustice, more than anything else,
fill a man's heart with
bitterness and sorrow and make it impossible for
anyone to live
9Siegfried Wagner,
"Biqqesh," TDOT 2 (1975) 233-5.
10See
also Ezek
11See discussion below.
162 TRINITY
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according to the philosophy, recommended in vv
11-14, of accepting
one's lot in life with contentment. Wherever the
legalized plundering of
people exists, no one can pass through the cycles of
life (3:1-8) with
serenity. At times weeping and mourning are
appropriate, Qoheleth says,
but joy and dancing also have their seasons. In
understanding and
accepting the limitations imposed by time, one
gains the possibility of
living with a heart at peace. But all this is rendered
meaningless when
people live under the weight of oppression.
The meaning of
law courts--the gates--and there sees injustice and
oppression where
righteousness ought to triumph and
the rights of the poor ought to be
protected. The frequent reference in the prophets
to the abuse and
plundering of the defenseless demonstrates that
such was all too common
in ancient
out his indignity in the streets, Qoheleth is no less moved by what he sees.
Like
the prophets, he considers the hopelessness of the situation (for he
knows that no one, neither king nor preacher, can
stop this universal
crime), and looks for their vindicator in God (v 17).
Qoheleth is not a
prophet, however, and he issues no stem warnings
of a terrible day of
wrath that will overwhelm the wicked and drive them
away like dust. Nor
does he offer any clear vision of a day when the
righteous will be gathered
to
more abstract and philosophical than prophetic, of a
coming divine if
judgement.
The precise meaning of v 17, especially 17b, is
somewhat debated. The
MT
can be rendered: "I said in my heart, 'God will judge both the
righteous and the wicked, for a time for
everything and every deed is
there.”’ What does he mean by "there" (MwA)? Barton amends the pointing
to Mw and so reads, "He
has set a time for every matter,"12 but as Gordis
notes, the position of the word at the end of the
line and the unanimous
testimony of the versions oppose this solution.13
Delitzsch, citing
Gen
49:24, says that MwA
here means
"with God,"14 but that text hardly
proves that MwA
here
carries that sense. Eaton compares Isa 48:16 to Eccl
here again the comparison is weak and Eaton's
interpretation is unsubstantiated.
Since the present text is eschatological (its
primary concern is with the
issue of God's judgment of oppressors), another
eschatological use of MwA
could help clarify the present text. Such a usage is
found in Ps 14:5a,
"There
they [the wicked] are in great fear. "The psalm
deals with the fool
who says there is no God and therefore feels free
to commit acts of cruelty
and oppression against God's people. V 4 asks,
"Do all the evildoers not
know?" and follows this query with the somewhat
enigmatic line in 5a, f
cited above. In context, the line must refer to some
day of judgment and
vindication of his people by Yahweh.
"There" is either shorthand for the
12Barton, Ecclesiastes 111.
l3Gordis,
Koheleth
235.
14Delitzsch, Ecclesiastes 266.
15Eaton, Ecclesiastes 85.
GARRETT:
QOHELETH ON POLITICAL POWER 163
time and place of judgment or refers to Sheol, in which case the ideas of
the grave and judgment have been merged. A related
usage is found in
Job3:
17-19, where "there" clearly refers to the grave. In this passage Job
presents the idea of judgment in the sense that
death is the great leveler
and treats the mighty and the weak alike.
A patten l of the use
of MwA thus emerges:
"there" refers to the
expectation of an eschatological divine judgment on
those who have
oppressed the poor and weak of God's people. The
time and place of this
judgment is uncertain, but it is related to the
idea of death and the grave.
Beyond
that, this "eschatological hope" is remarkably undefined. It is
only "there,” with no clear indication of how
or when this judgment will
take place. Qoheleth does
not speculate about what type of punishment
the wicked will receive. Eccl 3:15c-17 acknowledges
that political
oppression is a universal and unrestrainable
phenomenon, but offers the
the hope, albeit an undefined one, of divine
judgment and vindication.
II.
4:1-3
Qoheleth here grieves over the
hopelessness of the poor. So far is he
from having a solution to political oppression that
he confesses that in his
mind a person is better off dead--or more than that,
never having been
born--that to be alive and have to face this
heartbreaking reality. The
candor of this passage should not be taken as a
recommendation of
suicide. Qoheleth is
openly describing what he has felt. He is not here
offering the conclusions of his inquiries; still
less is he acting as a prophet
giving a Word from Yahweh on the situation. His words
therefore should
not be regarded as if they posed some theological
problem or contradic-
tion to biblical ethics:
Who, in looking on the misery of the poor and
oppressed, has not sometime felt what Qoheleth has felt?
There are several grammatical and interpretive
problems in this text.
In v 2a, the word dyami (lit.: "from [the]
hand") strikes the reader as a little
odd. Gordis is probably
correct in explaining that it is better to take it in
the sense, "in the hands of," than to
presume an understood verb. such as,
"goes forth. "16 The meaning of HaKo (2a) has also been debated. Delitzsch
said that only in this passage does the word,
normally translated "power,"
mean "violence." This interpretation is
unlikely. The word HaKo often
describes the ability to produce, be it sexually
(Job 40:16; Gen 49:3) or
with respect to the earth's fertility (Gen
sheer physical strength (Judg
16:5) or to the ability to cope with various
situations Deut 8:17-18; 1 Chr
29:14; Ezra 10:13). As applied to God, it
describes his ability to create (Jer
even to create history. The "power" in the
hands of the oppressors in Eccl
4:1
is more than their acts of violence toward the poor; it is the
unrestrained
freedom
they have to do as they wish. The politics of power
l6Gordis, Koheleth 238.
See also Eaton, Ecclesiastes 91.
17John
N. Oswalt, "koah,"
Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
(
Moody, 1980) 1:436-7.
164
TRINITY
JOURNAL
means that the poor do not have the freedom to
experience what joy life
under the sun offers. The rich, meanwhile, do
whatever they want.
Another
grammatical difficulty is found in 4:3, where rw,xE txe has no
governing verb. The solution may be simply to
supply a verb, such as
yhix;rAqA, "I called,"
but Gordis contends that rw,xE
txe is a nominative, a
usage he says is frequent in Mishnaic
Hebrew .18 In any case, it is clear that
Qoheleth considers those who have not yet been
born and seen the cruelty
of this world to be more fortunate than. both the living and those who
have lived and died.
Qoheleth expresses the depth of
his outrage at the cruelty of the social
structure in this passage. It makes him feel that
death and even non-
existence are to be preferred to life. Here again,
the idea of death
permeates his reflections on injustice and
cruelty. In the former passage,
3:15c-17,
death appears as the area of hope for the oppressed; it is "there"
that God will judge the oppressor. Here, death is
simply the better
alternative to life. In a world such as this, how
can life be said to be better
than death? It is not surprising that in
between these two. texts,
the focus is death itself. Death, the passage says,
reduced man to the level of the animals, and no
one, in looking at the
dead bodies of people and animals, can see any
evidence that man has
transcended death. God has shown us by death that we
are but animals,
and that not only because we all die, but because
we too live by the law of
the jungle.
III.4:13-16
In this text, Qoheleth
asserts political ambitions and their fulfillment c'
to be meaningless. In v 13 he claims that a poor
but wise youth is better
than an old but foolish king. In what sense is the
youth "better”? the key
is in the infinitive rhez.Ahil; (v 13b). Normally
translated, "to take advice,"
the word is better translated, "to take
warning."19 The youth's position is
superior in that, unlike the king, he still knows
how to protect his own
interests. The youth is aware of both danger and
opportunity as he moves
up. The king, however, is in an entrenched
position. He is like a warship
that has ceased maneuvering, dropped anchor, and
assumed a defensive
posture. He is powerful but vulnerable.
Interpreters often assume that v 14 refers to
the poor youth mentioned
above, but this is not correct. First, the nearer
substantive, j`l,m,, is more
likely to be the subject of v 14 than j`l,y,. Second, the text has
not yet
indicated that the youth of v 13 became king. So
far; the only king
mentioned is the old and foolish one. Therefore, v
14 tells us that the old
king too had once been in poverty. More than that,
he had actually been
in prison -perhaps for political reasons since he
"came forth to reign."
Now,
however, he is no longer astute or resourceful but rigid and cut off
from political reality.
18Gordis, Koheleth 239.
19See
GARRETT:
QOHELETH ON POLITICAL POWER 165
In due time a second youth20 (the one
mentioned in v 13) rises to power
and takes the old king's position. Like Absalom in
David's old age, he has
used his youth and political cunning to gain the
hearts of the people who
are weary of the now aloof and inflexible aged
monarch. Nevertheless, as
far as Qoheleth is
concerned, the new king's reign will be no more
significant than that of the old one. The two
together are no more than
two points in the long line of history. Just as the
masses of people who
went before them knew nothing of them, so those who
come after them
will forget soon them.21
Qoheleth makes several points in
this passage. First, he asserts that it is
better to be politically weak but aware and active
than to be powerful but
inflexible and isolated from reality. Second, he
points out that the
political world is highly unstable. Because it is
ever changing, it is
dangerous, and part of wisdom is the ability to
meet these changes. Third,
he asserts tile fulfillment of political ambitions
to be lb,h, meaningless
and transitory. The motivation behind political
ambition, fame and the
praise of the masses is utterly vapid. Politics gives
no lasting glory.
IV.
5:7-8
The next passage, 5:7-8 (English translations:
8-9), advises the reader
not to be astonished when he first faces the
realities of the politics of
oppression. The interpretation of both of these
verses is much debated.
The
first problem is why, in v 7, Qoheleth feels his
reader should not be
shocked at the sight of injustice and corruption
in government. His own
explanation
is,
in 7b, "because one bureaucrat [h.aboGA here "describes
the
hierarchy of those who hinder justice"22]
is over another, and still other
bureaucrat; are over them." But why should
this fact render the reality of
corruption ordinary and not surprising? Some have
said that Qoheleth's
point is that bureaucrats are rivals in competition
with each other, while
other scholars have argued that the line means that
officials are
protecting each other's interests.23 Qoheleth's reasoning is not nearly so
cleverly concealed; he is only saying that there
are many officials, and as
such there are many potentially corrupt officials
and many potential
occasions for corruption. Qoheleth
betrays a certain (justifiable) cynicism:
the more people are involved, the greater the
probability for wrongdoing.
V
8 is far more difficult; Gordis calls it "an
insuperable crux."24 The
king whose lands are well tilled." Apart from any grammatical considera-
20The
phrase yniweha dl,y,.ha can only mean
"the second youth" and not "the youth, the second
(person)" as some
(e.g. Eaton, Ecclesiastes 96) assert. Gordis's
argument that yniweha
here
means"successor"(Koheleth245)
is not convincing(seeScott, "Solomon,"224).
Therefore,
the
second y' tuth is the same as the one mentioned in v
13, whereas the youth of v14, who
has
become the old king of v 13, is the implied first youth.
21"Before
them" (Mh,ynep;li) means "prior
to" here, not "standing before them" (Scott,
"Solomon,"
225). As Gordis (Koheleth 245) notes, the king is generally described as
standing
befllre his people, not the people before the king.
22R. Hentschke,
"gabhoah."
TDOT 2 (1975) 360.
23Eaton, Ecclesiastes 101.
24Gordis, Koheleth
250.
166 TRINITY JOURNAL
tions, it is hard to see how
"a king whose lands are well tilled" offers a
nation a particular advantage. Delitzsch
translates the verse, "But the
advantage of a country consists always in a king
given to the arable
land. "25 That is, a king should
devote himself to agriculture instead of
war. This interpretation, which interprets 7 as
"given to" in the sense of
"devoted to," reads too much into the text and does not
relate to the
problem of corruption. Barton's translation,
"But an advantage to a
country on the whole is a king --(i.e.) an
agriculturalland,"26 makes no
sense and therefore is, as Gordis
says, "obviously unsatisfactory."27
Gordis's own translation ("The advantage of
land is paramount; even a
king is subject to the soil"28),
however, is equally doubtful. This
translation, based on Tg. Ibn Ezra, does not relate to the context (What
does the "advantage of the land. .." have
to do with bureaucratic
oppression?) and is
grammatically most unlikely. It requires that one
render lKoBa as
"paramount" and dbAf<n, as the adjective
"subject" with j`l,m,
as its antecedent, all of which are unlikely.
Norman Gottwald translates
the verse, "But the gain of a country in such
circumstances would be a
king who serves fields."29 He
comments: "It would be best, he opines, if
the king's absolute power were used to upbuild agriculture to the benefit
of the impoverished cultivators of the soil."30
Gottwald's insertion of the
subjunctive mood is questionable, however, as is his
rendition of the
niphal dbAf<n, in the active voice.
Also, the question of what this comment
on agriculture has to do with an oppressive
bureaucracy still remains.
The interpreter of this verse encounters two
problems. The first of
these is the word lKoBa, "in all."
While Eaton may be correct to render it as
"for everyone,"3. It is probably best to translate it
with Barton as "on the
whole."32 The second is the phrase, dbaf<n, hd,WAl; j`l,m,. Translated literally,
this phrase means "a king for a tilled field.
" The niphal of dbf here, as in
all other cases,33 means
"tilled." Only "field, " and not
"king, " may act as
its subject. "Tilled field," by metonomy, represents the whole concept of
agriculture. The verse may be legitimately, if
periphrastically, translated:
"Here
is something which, on the whole, benefits the land: a king, for the
sake of agriculture. "
The above translation clarifies the relationship
of the verse to its
context. Qoheleth has
told the reader not to be surprised at the
corruption that exists in all bureaucracies--the
sheer numbers of people
involved makes some degree of abuse of power
inevitable. Nevertheless,
Qoheleth does not espouse anarchy. Governments
may be evil, but they
25Delitzsch, Ecclesiastes
294-5.
26Barton, Ecclesiastes
126.
27Gordis, Koheleth 250.
28Ibid.
29Norman K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible: A
Socio-Literary Introduction
(Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1985) 581.
30Ibid.
582.
31Eaton, Ecclesiastes
101.
32Barton, Ecclesiastes
126.
33Ezek 36:9, 34; Deut
21:4.