Copyright © 1974 by
Westminster Theological Seminary, cited with permission.
QOHELETH'S WORLD AND LIFE VIEW
AS SEEN IN HIS
RECURRING PHRASES
H.
CARL SHANK
WITHIN
the scope of Old Testament ethical problems falls
the viewpoint of Qoheleth,
or the Preacher, of Ecclesiastes.
A
superficial reading of the book reveals a man who definitely has
a negative viewpoint of life in its many facets.
If indeed the book
is a unity, composed by one wise man, then the
theme of pessi-
mism or cynicism becomes a
suggested option. But the ethical
questions arising from such an understanding of
the book become
crucial. Can a thoroughly pessimistic view of
life have any place
in the canonical books of Scripture? What exactly
is the goal of
Qoheleth's
ethics?
Further, what does the God of Qoheleth
really have to do with his life and standards of
conduct? Again,
does not the recurring theme of "there is
nothing better for a man
than that he should eat and drink and make his soul
enjoy good
in his labor" (cf.
sentiment?
A.
QOHELETH'S ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE: CRITICAL VIEWS
Of course the modern critics of the Bible have
seized upon the
pessimism-cynicism suggestion with a
vengeance. Morris Jastrow
has suggested that the book teaches an ethical
cynicism, where,
in the face of no real goal to life, good humor is
still to be main-
tained. 1 A popular
view, held until recently, noted the phrase
"Vanity
of vanities" and attempted to draw certain parallelisms
in thought and perspective between Qoheleth's notion of "vanity"
and Heraclitus's view
that "all is flux".2 However, most critical
1 Cf. Morris Jastrow, A Gentle Cynic (
1919).
2
Cf.
Carl Knopf, "The Optimism of Ecclesiastes," Journal of Biblical
Literature, XLIX (1930), 195-199.
57
58
scholars today reject this argument as
unconvincing. The recog-
nized modern critical writer,
G. Von Rad, has related the book
to a supposed stage in
"belief in Yahweh's action in history grew weak" and
Ecclesiastes
"fell back on the cyclical way of thinking common to the
East."3
D.
Kidner comments that Von Rad's
argument rests on "preca-
rious assumptions".
Along with the questionable premise that
the thinking of the Ancient Near East was
"cyclical", the dating
of the book still remains too much of an open
question to make
definite conclusions concerning the strength of
belief "in Yah-
weh's action in history".4
R.
B. Y. Scott, in the Anchor Bible
series, suggests the follow-
ing concerning Qoheleth's ethic:
His ethic has no relationship to divine
commandments, for
there are none. It arises
rather from the necessity of caution
and moderation before the
inexplicable, on the acceptance of
what is fated and cannot be
changed, and finally on grasping
firmly the only satisfaction
open to man -the enjoyment of
being alive. The author is a
rationalist, an agnostic, a skeptic,
a pessimist and a
fatalist (the terms are not used pejora-
tively !).5
Scott
adds that Qoheleth teaches "philosophical
nihilism" and
has no real "religious" point of view. In
response to such a
characterization of Qoheleth's
ethics, we note that Scott, along
with Von Rad, assumes the
non-Christian ethical construct of a
God,
hidden behind an "impenetrable veil", and One
who can
offer no clear revelation to Qoheleth.
Qoheleth's "God" is the
Great
Unknown of neo-orthodox theology.6 Qoheleth's
wisdom
lay in "recognizing the limitations of human
knowledge and
3 G. Von Rad, Old Testament
Theology (
1962),
p. 454.
4 Derek Kidner, "Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament,"
New
Perspectives on the Old
Testament,
ed. J. Barton Payne (
Books,
1970), p. 125.
5 R. B. Y. Scott, Qoheleth, in the Anchor Bible (
day, 1965), pp. 191-192.
6 This is substantially
true of the view expressed in G. A. Buttrick, et
al.
(eds.), The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. V (New York:
Abingdon, -1956),
p.
22: "He (Qoheleth) does not doubt the existence
and sovereignty of
God,
but his God is absentee, lost in the distance, not only apparently
careless of mankind but at variance with
it."
QOHELETH'S WORLD AND LIFE VIEW 59
power"7 affirms Scott.
Consequently, man cannot have an
absolute good in the universe; he must remain
satisfied with the
relative good found in
"relishing being alive".8 It does seem that
Scott
relies upon some kind of Kantian noumenal-phenomenal
distinction at this point. At the very least, his
scheme is based
upon a faith-knowledge dialectic where Qoheleth's faith (if he
possesses any) has nothing to do with his
intellectual compre-
hension and explanation of the
world about him.
Is indeed the goal of Qoheleth's
ethics some deterministic yet
strangely "hidden" and silent Elohim-God, who barely resembles
ethical dilemma arising from hopeless pessimism?
Must we
finally agree with the non-Christian ethical
view that since it is
hopeless and foolish to look for perfection in
this world and
since, after all, God and man on Qoheleth's
model are subject to
certain limitations it is best to seek to
improve conditions to
some extent, at least? Must we conclude that man
should enjoy
himself (
ever God may say?
B.
QOHELETH'S ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE: CONSERVATIVE VIEWS
In response to critical views, evangelicals have
attempted in
various ways to justify Qoheleth's
seemingly negative attitude
about life. For the most part, they have recognized
the distinc-
tively recurring phrases in
Ecclesiastes.9 However, it seems to
me that they have not really dealt honestly with
them.
Leupold analyzes the phrases
"under the sun", "vanity of
vanities; all is vanity", and suggests that Qoheleth deliberately
concerns himself only with the things of this
world. Revelation
and the world to come are, for the sake of
argument, temporarily
ruled out. It is by this ''as if" technique that
Leupold explains
Qoheleth's seemingly negative outlook on the world.10
Actually,
7 Scott, p. 206.
8 Ibid.,
p. 196.
9 There are six of these
recurring phrases in the book of Ecclesiastes;
the phrases and Scriptural references are listed in
this section.
10 This is especially
apparent in H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Ecclesiastes
(Columbus:
Wartburg Press, 1952), pp. 92-93.
60
however, Qoheleth
really does "fear God and keep his com-
mandments."
Even Hengstenberg,
though he has some valid penetrating
remarks on the message of Ecclesiastes, points
out that the theme,
or themes, are difficult to delineate. In fact the
whole book,
including these recurring themes, is
"unintelligible except on the
historical presupposition that the people of God
was in a very
miserable condition at the time of its
composition."11 The Per-
sians held dominion over the
people of God. They were in a state
of deepest misery and had consequently fallen prey
to vanity.
The
radiant glory of Solomon's day was no more (
and this was a time of persecution.12
The date of composition was
either contemporaneous with or after the time of
Malachi. Thus,
Qoheleth, in demonstrating the utter vanity of
this life, would
enable the people to appreciate fully the "fear
of God" and "what
a precious treasure man has in God".13
Yet, even if one accepts
a late, post-exilic dating and non-Solomonic authorship, both of
which are unsettled in scholars' minds, what about
the seemingly
"obvious" tone of resignation demonstrated over and over
again
in these phrases? Even on the historical construct
of Hengsten-
berg and others they may still seem to portray Qoheleth as a
man of "questionable" or
"confused" ethics.
The frankness of the introductory note to the Scofield Bible
concerning the recurring phrases and the entire
book plays havoc
with conservative "glossing over" or
"dressing up of" the thought
of Qoheleth.
This is the Book of man 'under the sun',
reasoning about life;
it is the best man can do,
with the knowledge that there is a
Holy God, and that He will bring everything into
judgment
. . . Inspiration sets down accurately what
passes, but the
conclusions and reasonings
are, after all, man's.14
The
spectre of pessimism once-more appears on the horizon
of
Qoheleth's thought.
Although these conservative writers have
different emphases
11 E. W. Hengstenberg, Commentary
on Ecclesiastes (
Smith,
English, and Co., 1860), p. 45.
12 Ibid.,
pp. 2-16.
13 Ibid.,
p. 16.
14 Quoted in ].
The Evangelical Quarterly (1946), pp. 20-21.
QOHELETH'S WORLD AND LIFE VIEW 61
and methods of interpretation, they will all agree
on one crucial
ethical area, namely the situational perspective
of Qoheleth.
Qoheleth is a man who, though he does fear God
and stresses
the keeping of His commandments (
about him from the standpoint of reason that has very
little
relationship with his "blind
faith" in the Creator. A distinct
dichotomy between faith and reason can be clearly
seen in Leu-
pold, Delitzsch,
and Scofield when they deal with the recurring
phrases. Even Hengstenberg
does not totally escape this faith-
reason dialectic. He mentions that Qoheleth's
pervasive use of
the name Elohim shows
that "the problem before the writer
is considered from the point of view of Natural
Theology
with the aid of experience, and of reason as
purified by the Spirit
of God."15 Finally, Sierd Woudstra, who criticizes Leupold for
his nature-grace dichotomy in interpreting Qoheleth's thought,
falls into speaking of two concurrent lines of
thought prevalent
in Qoheleth: "Koheleth is on the one hand dealing with life as
he observed it, while on the other hand he knew
and was con-
vinced by faith that things
were different."16
However, Woudstra here
raises an important issue in the
interpretation of the ethical
perspective of Qoheleth. If there does
exist a distinction here, that distinction is not
between faith and
reason but between faith and sight, i.e. between
"faith~' (that
comes from special revelation) and that revelation
presently
available to any natural man as he perceives the
creation about
him. Of course, such a distinction can be seen in
the New Testa-
ment record (cf. Rom.
31).
But, in what sense and to what degree is such a "distinc-
tion" relevant to Qoheleth?
To begin with, Qoheleth
was not merely a theologian working
from the construct of "natural theology"
who then attempted to
understand God's creation without the
interpretative key of
special revelation. As we shall demonstrate
later, he looked upon
life and the world from the perspective of an Old
Testament
believer who had understood the reality of. the curse of God
placed upon life "under the sun" in Gen. 3.
Hence, Qoheleth's
15 Hengstenberg,
p. 26.
16 Sierd
Woudstra, "Koheleth's
Reflection Upon Life," (unpublished
Th.
M. Thesis,
Woudstra's
evaluation of Leupold on p. 106.
62
wisdom and knowledge of this world was not merely that
of a
propositional and sense-experience
sort. He approached the
world and the life-situation by presupposing a
Creator God who
had indeed revealed Himself in creation, in the
fall and in the
subsequent history of redemption. He stood in a
culture which
knew Yahweh and the world about them in terms of
direct
revelation given through the Law and the Prophets. Conse-
quently, his knowledge of
anything must presuppose his knowl-
edge of God, which sprang from a proper attitude of
the fear of
God. Thus, Qoheleth's “faith"
and "sight" were not something
wholly distinct from and independent of each other
(cf. below,
Phrase 4).
But also, they do not oppose one another in the book of Eccle-
siastes. The
historical-redemptive antecedents of Qoheleth's sight-
perspective find their point of reference in the
fall and curse of
Gen. 3. Intimations to such a reference-point
are found in an
exposition of some of his recurring phrases and
their contexts
(cf. below, Phrase 1, Phrase 4). Moreover, the twin-idea
of all
men being "of dust" (
to dust again" (
they die, no doubt has its primary reference in Gen.
3: 19: "In
the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread till thou return unto
the ground; for out of it wast
thou taken; for dust thou art and
unto dust shalt thou
return."17 Further, the consequences
of
Qoheleth's sight-perspective merely drive him to
acknowledge
that wisdom resides in fearing God and keeping His
command-
ments (
falls into the imperfect ethical thought of the Old
Testament
and that we must therefore expect some sort of
faith-reason, or
rather faith-sight, dichotomy cannot be maintained.
Yet, in another sense, since Qoheleth
does refer back to the
17 Comparing the Hebrew of Gen. 3:19 with Ecc.
notice some interesting syntactic parallels:
rpfh-lx bw (Ecc.
bVwt
rpf-lx (Gen.
3:19)
Crxh-lx rpfh bwyv (Ecc.12:7)
Hmdxh-lx (Gen. 3:19)
Hengstenberg maintains that the
foundation of Ecc.
Gen.
3:19 (op. cit., p. 118) while allusion is made to Gen. 3:19 in Ecc.
12:7
(cf. p. 253.).
QOHELETH'S WORLD AND LIFE VIEW 63
fall and the resultant curse, he like Paul in Acts
14 (cf. Acts 17
and also
revelation made available by the Creator God to all
natural men
who live in the light of the fall. Qoheleth gives the natural man
an astoundingly lucid description of what he can
behold in this
world and his life which should drive him to seek God
and His
self-revelation in Jesus Christ. To
demonstrate this we notice
two points.
First of all, to the Lycaonian
Gentiles Paul and Barnabas in
Acts
14: 15ff. restrict their case to that revelation available to
these people in the Creator God (vs. 15)
providentially giving
them "rains and fruitful seasons filling your
hearts with food
and gladness." (vs. 17) F. F. Bruce suggests
that the imagery
here is drawn from several Old Testament texts, one
of which
Ecc. 9: 7 (cf. below, Phrase
5).18 This "gladness" was a gift
God
to these Gentiles by which they should have discerned His
rule over them.19 It was therefore
foolish and vain
them to attempt to perform that worship before Paul
and
Barnabas
which, by the light of even natural revelation alone,
belonged only to the Creator.
Then, also, the theme of foolishness for
unregenerate men not
recognizing the "power and divinity" of
the God of the creation in
which they live and move is brought out clearly in
Rom. 1: 18ff.20
18 Cf. F. F.
Bruce, Commentary on the Book of Acts (
1954).
The term for gladness (eu]frosu<nh)
is used in the
of Ecc. 9: 7 and
translates HmW. Other possible
references to Old
Testament
imagery for vs. 17 are Ps. 4:7 and Is. 25:6. At the
very least,
the Apostles may be alluding to the passage in Ecc. 9:7.
19 "This eu]frosu<nh
can also be gratefully understood as the gift of God
by which even the heathen may discern his
providential rule, Acts 14:17."
(R.
Bultmann, article on eu]frni<uw
/ eu]frosu<nh,
Vol. II, TWNT, ed. G.
Kittel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1964), p. 774.
20 M. D. Hooker maintains
that Paul in Rom.
of Adam in mind: "In these verses he
deliberately described man's pre-
dicament in terms of the
biblical narrative of Adam's fall. Not only does
the language of this section echo that of Gen. 1
:20-6 but the sequence of
events is reminiscent of the story of Adam in Gen.
1-3." (M. D. Hooker,
"A
Further Note on Romans 1," NT
Studies 13 (Jan., 1967), p. 181;
cf.
also his "Adam in Romans 1," NT
Studies 6 (1959-1960), pp 297-306).
C.
K. Barrett develops this thesis in From
First Adam to Last (
1962,
pp. 17-19) and claims that the moral wickedness described in
1
is the direct result of the Fall.
64
These
unrighteous acts of the Gentiles in the light of God's
natural revelation proceeded not from a mere
deficiency in mental
capacity but from moral obtuseness, or
foolishness (vs. 22).21
Again,
F. F. Bruce points out that the term used by Paul for
"fool" probably refers back to the "fool" of
the Old Testament
Wisdom
Literature.22 Here we have a tie-in with Qoheleth's
exposition in Ecclesiastes. As natural men observe
the creation
about them there are only two possible options for a
philosophy
of life. One is to claim the "wisdom" of
this world and thus
become fools in the sight of God. The other is to
recognize the
stark reality of the picture Qoheleth
paints for him and to heed
the command, "Fear God and keep His
commandments" (cf.
below, Phrase 6). True wisdom resides in this alone.
Before we consider the recurring phrases, it is
necessary to
make some preliminary remarks on the method of
interpretation
of Qoheleth's ethic in
these phrases. To begin with, we should
attempt to understand the book in the apparent
way Qoheleth
has composed it. He has done so by using certain
phrases which
occur over and over again throughout the twelve
chapters. I
think that J. Stafford Wright has a valid
hermeneutical principle
in mind when he suggests that examination of these
recurring
phrases reveals, at the very least, Qoheleth's thought in the im-
mediate context of the book.23
Secondly, Qoheleth's
directive in
vs.
14 skilfully summarizes and concludes his whole
ethical
Finally, Robert Haldane
in his Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans
(Banner,
1960) notes that the wrath of God "was revealed when the
sentence of death was first pronounced, the earth
cursed and man driven
out of the earthly paradise. . ." (P. 55).
We might therefore be able to draw a
redemptive-historical link between
the Fall/Curse, Qoheleth
and Paul in Rom. 1 and hence in Acts 14 and 17.
21 Cf. F. F. Bruce, Epistle to the Romans, Tyndale Series (Grand
Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1963). Calvin says that impiety here should
be joined
to unrighteousness (Commentary on th'e Epistle of Paul the Apostle to
the Romans, p. 68).
22 Cf. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Romans. He also notes
that
parallels exist between later Israelite Wisdom
Literature (c£.. Wisdom
12-14).
Hooker (op. cit.) make a similar point in his
exposition of this
section.
23 Wright, op. cit., p. 22
has a rather uncritical way of suggesting this
hermeneutical principle.
Nevertheless, I feel he has a valid principle in
mind.
QOHELETH'S WORLD AND LIFE VIEW 65
stance. Qoheleth's ethical integrity is grounded in the practice
of the fear of God along with the keeping of His
commandments,
and however we analyze the rest of the book we must
not con-
travene Qoheleth's
own ethical conclusion.
Third, we must remember that Ecclesiastes
appears in the
broader context of the Wisdom Literature of the
Old Testament.
That
literature, though similar in some formal characteristics
with other Ancient Near East Wisdom Literature,
cannot be
identified with it in its ethical perspective. Qoheleth's wisdom
has its foundation clearly laid in the fear of the
Lord.
Finally, we must understand Qoheleth's
ethical perspective in
the general context of the rest of the Old
Testament and in the
light of the One who embodied this wisdom in the New Testa-
ment, even Jesus Christ. We
affirm that Qoheleth does not
disagree with other Old Testament thought.
Rather, he writes
in the context of the doctrines of the fall and
man's sin. He does
not dispute their revelatory character and
relevance to his
situation; he assumes their validity for his life
and world view.
Also,
he looks forward in hope to the New Testament in his
doctrine of the fear of the Lord and the coming
judgment of
the secret thoughts of man.
C.
QOHELETH'S ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE IN LIGHT OF THE
RECURRING PHRASES
1. Phrase 1: “All is vanity" or “This is
vanity"
(1:2, 14; 2:1,11, 17, 26,
15, 19,21,23; 3:19;
4:4, 8, 7, 16; 5:7(6), 10(9); 6:2, 4, 9, 11, 12;
7:6, 15;
This phrase is the most dominant and pervasive
of all the
recurring phrases in Ecclesiastes. Hengstenberg disagrees with
those who would attempt to make this phrase the one
theme of
the book since it does not sufficiently explicate
some of the
other material in the book. Yet its dominance in Qoheleth's
thought renders it a key to the interpretation
of life "under
the sun".
Woudstra states the main
exegetical question concerning this
class of phrases well:
Is Koheleth only
saying that man's accomplishments under
the sun are transitory in
character, are devoid of any perma-
66
nence, or is he saying that
human existence and everything
that goes with it is futile
and meaningless?24
The
latter, Leupold holds, gives the term hebel (lbh) a pessi-
mistic connotation not
warranted by the facts.25 He claims that
the term refers to "that which is fleeting and
transitory and also
suggests the partial futility of human
effort."26 Woudstra, on the
other hand, opts for the latter description of hebel and denies
that this implies a pessimism that the critics would
like to see
here.
A
thorough study of the word in the contexts mentioned above
reveals that the term takes on different
connotations in different
contexts. Theophile
Meek says that "in this short book, hebel
would seem to be used in at least five different
senses: 'futile'
(most frequent, e.g., 1:2), 'empty' (e.g.,
6:4), 'senseless' (e.g.,
therefore proposes that the term takes on
different meanings in
different contexts. With respect to other Old
Testament litera-
ture, hebel can refer to that which is
"unsubstantial, evanescent"
as far as a basis for religious trust is concerned
(cl. Jer.
51:18;
(vs. 6), over the labor to attain breaths of
wind.
His "precious
things" cannot endure because they partake of the
nature of
"vanity".
The power of Meek's
suggestion in the immediate context of
Ecclesiastes
lies in the fact that it seems to give the term the
flexibility of connotation that Qoheleth
evidently employs in these
recurring phrases.28 Different
"aspects" of the idea of vanity are
employed by Qoheleth to
vividly illustrate the reality of the curse
of God placed upon the work of man after the Fall
(cl. Gen.
3:
17-19). Therefore, an attempt to find a "static" meaning to
hebel in Ecclesiastes, as Woudstra and others do, fails to take
note of the richness of the concept as used by Qoheleth.
Those
aspects which are available to every man, and from
24 Woudstra,
p. 38.
25 Leupold,
p. 41.
26 Ibid.
27 Theophile
J. Meek, "Transplanting the Hebrew Bible," Journal of
Biblical Literature, 79 (1960), p. 331.
28 Note also the
variability of connotations in the use of the term Mlf
in Ecclesiastes: 1:4;
QOHELETH'S WORLD AND LIFE VIEW 67
which none can entirely escape, are a life and labor
that are
wearisome (cf. Job. 7:3), filled often with sorrow
and pain (cf.
Job.
at the very least. Also, Qoheleth
tells us that this created
partakes of the character of "vanity"
(cf.
man's effort in this context is given to him as a
gift of God
(
efforts are "meaningless" or that the
situation in which he finds
himself forces him to sin, since God made labor
a good gift. It
is the fear of God alone and the keeping of His
commandments
which can give men the ability to enjoy this gift of
labor. Yet,
Qoheleth's faith does not change the character of a
created order
which now partakes of the character of vanity (cf.
Rom. 8 and
below). Consequently, excruciating moral problems do
exist for
Qoheleth because the ground after the curse
brought on by the
becomes an occasion for temptation.
2. Phrase 2: "under the sun" (1:3, 9,
14;
19, 20, 22; 3:16; 4:1, 3, 7, 15; 5:13, 18; 6:1, 5,
12; 8:9, 15, 17:
9:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 10:5)
This second phrase forms the immediate context
of a world
which has the constitution and course of
"vanity". It has refer-
ence to the place where the
toil of man occurs and is tantamount
to Crxh-lf (cf.
to Qoheleth.
3. Phrase 3: "striving after wind" (