ECCLESIASTES: KOHELETH'S QUEST
FOR LIFE'S MEANING
by
Weston W. Fields
Submitted in partial
fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of Master of
Theology in
Grace
Theological Seminary
May 1975
Digitized by Ted Hildebrandt
and Dr. Perry Phillips,
PREFACE
It was during a series of lectures given in Grace
Theological Seminary by
Professor Thomas V. Taylor on the
book of Ecclesiastes that the
writer's own interest in the
book was first stirred. The
words of Koheleth are remark-
ably suited to the solution of
questions and problems which
arise for the Christian in the
twentieth century. Indeed,
the message of the book is so
appropriate for the contem-
porary world, and the book so
cogently analyzes the purpose
and value of life, that he who
reads it wants to study it;
and he who studies it finds
himself thoroughly attached to
it: one cannot come away from
the book unchanged.
For the completion of this study the writer is
greatly indebted to his
advisors, Dr. John C. Whitcomb, Jr.
and Professor James R.
Battenfield, without whose patient
help and valuable suggestions
this thesis would have been
considerably impoverished.
To my wife Beverly, who has once again patiently
and graciously endured a writing
project, I say thank you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
GRADE PAGE iii
PREFACE iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS v
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT
OF PURPOSE 1
II. THE TITLE 5
Translation 5
Meaning of tl,h,qo 6
Zimmermann's Interpretation 7
Historical Interpretations 9
Linguistic Analysis 9
What did Solomon collect? 12
Why does Solomon bear this name? 12
The feminine gender 13
Conclusion 15
III. DATE, AUTHORSHIP, AND
LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND 16
Introduction 16
Authorship and Linguistic Background 16
The Traditional View 16
Arguments Against Solomonic Authorship 17
A literary device 18
Aramaic background 22
Definition of "Aramaisms" 23
History of Aramaic 26
Late-dating by Aramaisms 30
Limited vocabulary 32
Later documents 33
Reasons for Aramaisms 36
Noun formations 37
Reasons for non-routine terms 38
Conclusion on Aramaisms 40
An Aramaic original 41
Introduction 41
Proofs for an Aramaic original 42
Ecclesiastes 7:12 42
Ecclesiastes 10:15 44
vi
Chapter
Ecclesiastes
11:1 45
Proofs for a Hebrew original 47
Two Hebrew
dialects 47
Paronomasia
48
Canaanite
parallels 49
Ben Sira 49
Characteristics
of a translation 50
Conclusion on an Aramaic original 52
Ecclesiastes 1:12 52
Ecclesiastes 1:16 54
The Sitz im Leben of the
book 55
Arguments for Solomonic Authorship 56
Phoenician background 56
Introduction 56
Linguistic uniqueness 58
A literary genre 59
Dahood's arguments 63
Ecclesiastes
1:10 63
Ecclesiastes
1:16 64
Ecclesiastes
2:2 64
Ecclesiastes
2:24 65
Other
examples 65
Use of Ugaritic 71
Evaluation of Dahood 73
Building and commerce 74
Tradition 75
Internal arguments 77
Date 78
Conclusion 80
IV.
KOHELETH'S THEME AND DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT 82
Introduction 82
Theme 83
Unsympathetic
Interpretations 83
Sympathetic
Interpretations 90
A Suggested Theme 91
Development of Thought 94
Conclusion 98
V.
SELECTED DIFFICULTIES 100
Introduction 100
Vanity of Vanities 101
Definition 101
Usage of lb,h, 105
Relationship of the Name
"Abel" 108
Jewish Interpretations 109
vii
Chapter
Conclusion on lb,h, 111
Under the Sun 111
Occurrences of the
Phrase 112
Definition of the Phrase
114
Significance of the
Phrase 115
The Relationship of
Inspiration and Revelation 116
Introduction
116
Definition
of revelation and inspiration 117
Revelation
117
Inspiration
117
Correlation
of inspiration and revelation 118
Koheleth's
revelational teachings 120
Conclusion
on revelation and inspiration 122
The Meaning and Place of Pleasure 127
Introduction 127
Consideration of the
Texts 127
Ecclesiastes
2:1-11 127
Description
of the experiment 127
Linguistic
analysis 128
Ecclesiastes
2:1 128
Ecclesiastes
2:3 130
Ecclesiastes
2:8 133
Conclusion
on 2:1-11 134
Ecclesiastes
2:24-26 135
Description
of the passage 135
Linguistic
analysis 138
Ecclesiastes
2:24 138
Ecclesiastes
2:25 139
Conclusion
on 2:24-26 140
Ecclesiastes
4:8 140
Ecclesiastes
7:15-18 142
Description
of the passage 142
Linguistic
analysis 142
Oqd;ciB; 142
Ecclesiastes
7:16 143
Ecclesiastes
8:15 147
Ecclesiastes
11:9, 10 149
Conclusion 150
Death and Immortality 152
Introduction 152
Consideration of the
Texts 153
Ecclesiastes
2:12-17 153
Ecclesiastes
3:15-22 154
Figures
of speech 154
Psychology
of man and animals 155
viii
Chapter
Immortality
162
Ecclesiastes
4:1-3 163
Ecclesiastes
6:3, 12 166
Ecclesiastes
9:1-12 168
Old
Testament doctrine of Sheol 169
Interpretation
of the passage 173
Word
meanings 174
hW,fEma 174
NOBw;H,v; 175
tfadav; 176
hmAk;HA 177
Conclusion
on this passage 178
A
suggested translation of 9:10 180
Ecclesiastes
12:7, 13, 14 180
VI.
A SUMMARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL MESSAGE OF KOHELETH 181
Introduction 181
Consideration of the Topics 181
Insufficiency of Human
Endeavor 181
The problem
of knowledge 181
The
emptiness of things 183
Unthinking
materialism 184
Lack of
personal importance 185
Conclusion
on human endeavor 186
God's Supply of Life's
Needs 186
Stability 186
Time 187
Physical
requirements 188
Moral requirements
189
Life's
values 190
Sovereignty
of God 191
Conclusion 192
VII.
NEW TESTAMENT PARALLELS 193
Introduction 193
The Parallels 193
Summary 196
VIII.
NEAR EASTERN PARALLELS 197
Introduction 197
Some Parallels 197
Hittite 198
Aramaic 199
Egyptian 200
Summary 203
ix
Chapter
IX. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 204
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED 211
CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF
PURPOSE
Few books of the Bible have suffered in recent years
from so much neglect as the
book of Ecclesiastes. Further-
more, a large portion of those
who have studied it have
unsympathetically criticized
and maligned both its author
and its message, until it has
come to be all but ignored by
even those who accept its
canonicity and inspiration. The
author of this book has been
accused of scepticism, of
fatalism, and of Epicureanism.
His words have been denounced
as "not revelation"
and human only.1 It is contended that
"anyone who essays to
explain Coheleth is doomed to failure;
it is vanity and a chase after
wind."2 Another has called
it "the strangest book in
the Bible."3 Suspected in days of
orthodoxy,4
neglected in periods of optimism, treasured in
1E. Schuyler English, et al., eds., The New Scofield
Reference Bible (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1967),
pp.
696, 702.
2Roland E. Murphy,
"The Penseés of Coheleth," The
Catholic Biblical
Quarterly,
17 (1955), 314.
3R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs-Ecclesiastes (hereinafter
referred
to as Ecclesiastes), in The Anchor Bible, ed. by
W.
F. Albright and David Noel Freedman, et
al. (
Doubleday
and Company, Inc., 1965), p. 191.
4Robert Gordis, Poets, Prophets and Sages (Blooming-
ton,
2
days of frustration and
disillusionment, the writings of
Koheleth have always drawn men,
yet somehow eluded them.
Still, the enigmatic writing of
the king of
endures, the symbol of the ache
of disillusion and of the
peace that is possible
afterwards. "Whoever has dreamt
great dreams in his youth and
seen the vision flee, or has
loved and lost, or has beaten
barehanded at the fortress of
injustice and come back
bleeding and broken, has passed Kohe-
leth's door, and tarried awhile
beneath the shadow of his
roof."1
The book is unworthy of the abuse it has often
received at the hands of
commentators, for it consists of,
as John Trapp said more than
three hundred fifty years ago,
golden words, weighty, and worthy of
all acceptation;
grave and gracious apophthegms, or
rather oracles, meet
to be well remembered . . . compiled
and composed with
such a picked frame of words, with
such pithy strength
of sentences, with such a thick
series of demonstrative
arguments, that the sharp wit of all
the philosophers,
compared with this divine discourse,
seems to be utterly
cold, and of small account.2
It is not, and probably never will be, among the
most popular books in the
Bible. Yet, after one has studied
this book, it is difficult for
him to regard it with indif-
ference. It will either be
distrusted and minimized, or it
lIbid., p. 325.
2John Trapp, A Commentary on the Old and New Testa-
ments, Vol. III (5 vols.:
reprinted, 1868), p. 155.
3
will be accepted and utilized.1
It is from this book that
many Christians, though
separated in time from its author by
several thousand years, and
much richer than its author in
available theological
knowledge, could gain a very needed
message: that a life lived for
self and the world is "vanity"
and that nothing "under
the sun" every really satisfies.2
The book is not, however, without its problems and
obscurities, and the problems
posed by Koheleth seem to take
on increased proportion as they
cut across contemporary
concepts of thinking. But if
the reader will approach the
book with an open mind, divest
himself of unfavorable presup-
positions, and seek to
understand the book for what Koheleth
meant it to be, he will see
what he is being warned against,
and how wise that warning is
for this age.3 All that is
needful is to read Koheleth
himself with sympathy and imagi-
nation. "Then the dry
bones will take on flesh and his
lArthur Maltby, "The
Book of Ecclesiastes and the
After-Life,"
The Evangelical Quarterly, XXXV:1
(January-
March,
1963), 39.
2Ecclesiastes is included
among the "Wisdom" litera-
ture
of the Bible. For an excellent discussion of this
classification,
see W. O.
the Son of Sirach or
Ecclesiasticus,
in The
for Schools and Colleges (
Press,
1912), p. xlvii.
3Thomas V.
lished
mimeographed material for lectures in Grace Theologi-
cal
Seminary, March, 1972), p. 8. The page numbers of the
material
were added by the writer of this thesis.
4
spirit will live again."1
It is the purpose of this thesis to examine the book
of Ecclesiastes in order to
determine the veracity of its
teachings and the cogency of
its argument; to understand its
outstanding teachings; and to
explain some of the more prom-
inent difficulties. Included as
necessary
sions are the problems of
authorship and date (and the under
lying problem of the linguistic
background of the book), the
theme and development of
thought in the book, explanations
of significant problems, a
summary of the prominent theolog-
ical teachings, New Testament
parallels to the teachings of
Ecclesiastes, and parallels in
other Near Eastern literature.
Bible quotations are the writer's own translation,
unless otherwise annotated.
1Gordis, Poets,
Prophets, and Sages, p. 329.
CHAPTER II
THE TITLE
Translation
The English title, "Ecclesiastes," comes from
the
first line of the book in the
Septuagint: [Rh<mata
]Ekklhsi-
astou? ui[ou? Dauid.1 ]Ekklhsiastou? is a translation of the
Hebrew tl,h,qo, the Hebrew title of the author which is
also
used for the book, and usually
transliterated, Koheleth or
Qoheleth. Both the derivation
and the meaning of this word
are enigmatic. The word occurs
seven times in the book:
three times in the first part
(1:1, 2, 12). and three times
in the conclusion (12:8, 9,
10), with one occurrence in the
middle (7:27). It is not a
proper name, but an appellative,
a fact evident both from its
having the article in 12:8 and
its being construed with a
feminine verb in 7:27.2 This fact
has been recognized by major
translators over the centuries,
as evidenced in the LXX
translation (meaning, "one who par-
ticipates in a popular
assembly"), the title of Luther ("Der
lAlfred Rahlfs, ed.,
Septuaginta, Vol. II (2 vols:
p.
238. This is the text of the LXX used throughout the
thesis.
2Christian David
Ginsberg, The Song of Songs and
Coheleth (hereinafter referred to
as Coheleth) (2 vols. in
one:
p. 1.
6
Prediger"),1
and Jerome's title "Concionator."2 Actually,
the English title
"Ecclesiastes" is a direct carry-over from
the Vulgate, which merely
transliterated the LXX.3
Meaning of hl,h,qo
"The precise signification of this appelation has,
from time immemorial, been a
matter of great contention, and
the occasion of numerous and
most conflicting opinions."4
While some feel that the
meaning of the name is truly lost
and will be forever unknown,5
others, notably Renan and
Zimmermann, have suggested
ingenious solutions to the meaning
of the word. Renan's guess was
that hl,h,qo is an abbreviation,
much as Mbmr is an abbreviation for Maimonides, but Gordis
contends that this
"explains nothing."6 Jastrow suggests
that "Koheleth" is a nom de plume for Solomon and that the
1H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Ecclesiastes (herein-
after
referred to as Ecclesiastes) (
Book
House, 1974), p. 38
2Ibid.
3Robertus Weber, et al., eds., Biblia Sacra Iuxta
Vulgatam Versionem, Vol. II (2 vols.:
bergische
Bibelanstalt, 1969), p. 986.
4Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 1.
5Gordis, Poets, Prophets and Sages, p. 326.
6Idem., Koheleth, the Man and
His World: A Study
of Ecclesiastes (hereinafter referred
to as Koheleth) (New
7
word was arrived at by
substituting the root lhaqA,
"assem-
ble," for MlewA, "complete," and by having a t replace the h
of hmolow;.1 This suggestion Gordis labels
"too ingenious to
be convincing."2
Zimmermann's
Interpretation
Zimmermann has a much more involved argument for the
derivation of the word.3
He contends that the equivalent of
tl,h,qo in
Aramaic is the feminine participle of hwAn;KA, since
wnaK; is a
very frequent translation word for lhaqA in the
Tar-
gumim.4 According to
him, the writer of the book used this
pseudonym with dviDA-rBA to attract attention to his work. It
is assumed that he knew of the
name rUgxA (Prov. 30:1) and
modeled his pseudonym upon it (rgx=wnk=gather).5
rUgxA is
regarded in rabbinic tradition
as one of the names of Solo-
mon. It is fairly certain as
well (according to Zimmermann)
1Morris Jastrow, Jr., A Gentle Cynic: Being a Trans-
lation of the Book of
Koheleth, Commonly Known as Ecclesias-
tes, Stripped of Later
Additions
(hereinafter referred to as
A Gentle Cynic) (
1919),
p. 68.
2Gordis, Koheleth, p. 204.
3Frank Zimmermann,
"The Aramaic Provenance of Qohe-
leth,"
Jewish Quarterly Review, XXXVI:1
(July, 1945), 43-5.
4Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the
Talmud Babli and
Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature
(hereinafter
referred to as Dictionary), Vol. I (2
vols.:
5This would be the
original according to Zimmer-
mann's theory.
8
that hl,h,qo must mean "Solomon," perhaps
cryptically, as Renan
long suspected. It is
Zimmermann's hypothesis of an Aramaic
provenance of Koheleth which
supplies his key here, for he
finds his answer to the
cryptogram in numerology. hwAn;KA adds
up arithmetically to hmolow; (k=20; n=50; w=300; h=5; total,
375. w=300; l=30; m=40; h=5;
total, 375).1
While C. C. Torrey speaks of Zimmermann's hypothesis
as "convincing,"2
the writer is unconvinced not only because
such a theory presupposes an
Aramaic original for the book,
which is doubtful enough in
itself (and must preclude Solo-
monic authorship), but also
because of the untenability of
such numerological
interpretations generally.3 It must not
go unnoticed that Targum
Jonathon uses tl,h,qo not hwAn;KA.5
1Zimmermann, "The
Aramaic Provenance of Qoheleth,"
43-4.
2Charles C. Torrey,
"The Question of the original
Language
of Qoheleth," Jewish Quarterly
Review, XXXIX:2
(October,
1948), 156-7. For the numerical value of all the
Hebrew
letters, cf. J. Weingreen, A Practical
Grammar for
Classical Hebrew (
edition,
1959), p. 1.
3Cf. John J. Davis, Biblical Numerology (Grand
Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1968).
4tvlvdg
tvxrqm
reads: xUh tl,h,qo xBenat;xid; hxAUbin; ymegAtuPi
.
. . dvidA rBa hmolow; (tvlvdg tvxrqm, Vol. 1 [NewYork:
Parses
Publishing
House, Inc., 1951]). This is translated, "The
words
of the prophecy which Koheleth who is Solomon, the son
of
David, prophesied." Sperber also has tlhq, but does not
point
it (rbrpw rdnsklx, ed., tymrxb wdqh ybtk, x-d
jrk
[Ndyyl: lyrb
.
y .
x, 1968),
p. 150).
5Jastrow states that the
Targum thought of Solomon
as tl,h,qo (Jastrow, Dictionary, Vol. II, p. 1322).
9
Historical Interpretations
There have been numerous other explanations for the
word, including suggestions
that the word means "preacher,"
"gatherer of wisdom,"
"collector," (as of a compiler of a
book), "eclectic"
(because of his supposed skill in select-
ing and purifying the best of
the systems of different philo-
sophers), "accumulated
wisdom," "reunited soul" (describing
Solomon's readmission into the
congregation of
sequence of his repentance),
"penitent" (describing the con-
trite state of Solomon for his
apostasy), "assembly," "acad-
emy," "old man,"
"exclaiming voice," "Sophist," "philo-
sopher," and
"departed spirit."1 Most of these suggestions,
however, are better discarded.
Perhaps the best explanation
is one which finds its roots in
a linguistic and historical
explanation of the word within
Hebrew itself.
Linguistic Analysis
tl,h,qo is the
Qal active participle, feminine singular,
from the root lhaqA, meaning "to assemble."2 This verb is
1Ginsburg, Coheleth, pp. 3-7.
2F. Brown, S. R. Driver,
and C. A. Briggs, eds.,
A Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament (herein-
after
referred to as BDB, Lexicon) (
don
Press, 1968), p. 874; cf. Ludwig Koehler and Walter
Baumgartner,
Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros
(herein-
after
referred to as KB, Lexicon) (
1968), p. 829.
10
the root to which Albright
traces the word lOq,
"voice,"
rather than to the root lvq, since in the Siloam inscription
the word is written lq, not lvq.l
lhaqA can be compared with
the Arabic qalah, the Ethiopic kaleha,
the Aramaic xlAqA, and
the Syriac 
all
with the idea of "to call," from the
original idea of
"sound."2 The ambiguity, however, is not
in the verbal root, but in the
participle as used in the
context of the book. The
feminine participle refers to the
author of the book, who is
obviously masculine if Solomon is
meant, and who is to be
construed as masculine in any case,
since the word is qualified by MilAwAUryBi j`l,m, dviDA-NB,.
Some, in fact, trace the Hebrew word back to an
Aramaic original, most of those
being adherents to the theory
of an Aramaic original for the
book. One of the reasons for
supposing that tl,h,qo was originally an Aramaic term is that
the verb lhaqA is not used in the simple conjugation in
Hebrew,
but is so used in Syriac, where
it is supposed, "it can only
1W. F. Albright,
"The High Place in Ancient Pales-
tine,"
in Supplements to Vetus Testamentus,
Vol. IV, ed.
by
G. W. Anderson, et al. (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1957), p.
256.
Cf. Loren Fisher, ed., Ras Shamra
Parallels, in Ana-
lecta Orientalia, 49 (Roma: Pontificium
Institutum Biblicum,
1972),
II 497 a-g, p. 329; II 94 g, p. 136. For the Siloam
inscription,
see H. Donner and
Aramaische Inschriften, Band I (3 Bände:
Harrassowitz,
1971), text 183, line 3, p. 34.
2BDB, Lexicon, p. 874; KB, Lexicon, p. 831. Cf.
also
the discussion of lq in Charles-F. Jean and Jacob
Hoftijzer,
Dictionnaire des Inscriptions Sémitiques
de
l'Ouest (hereinafter referred
to as DISO) (
Brill, 1965), p. 258.
11
represent an old heritage once
common to all Aramaic."1
Edward Ullendorff has likewise
suggested that tl,h,qo is
actu-
ally a translation of an
Aramaic form, xlAhEqA. He
blames the
translator for some of the
confusion when he states that
"the translator was
apparently not quite clear about the
function of the status emphaticus in Aramaic (hence tl,h,qo
appears in Hebrew with or
without the definite article)."2
He further states that in
Aramaic-Syriac lhq not
only
connotes "to summon an
assembly" (=lyhqh [the Hiph'il]), but
also means "litigiosus,
pertinax."3 "It would be hard to
imagine a more suitable name
for the putative author of the
book of Ecclesiastes than the
'arguer.'"4 tl,h,qo is variously
defined among the lexicons as
"a collector" (of sentences)
or "a preacher,"5
as well as "speaker (in an assembly)."6
Since the verb means primarily
"to gather together into an
assembly," or "to
assemble," it is doubtless best to relate
it directly to the meaning,
"collecting" or "assembling."
If this definition is accepted,
then there are three ques-
tions about this collecting
which must be answered: (1)
1H. L.
Ginsberg,"Ecclesiastes," Encyclopaedia
Judaica, 1971 ed., VI, 353.
2Edward Ullendorff,
"The Meaning of tl,h,qo," Vetus
Testamentum, 12 (April, 1962), 215.
The status emphaticus,
however,
is most elemental in Aramaic, and it is incredible
that
any translator worthy of the name should be "unfamiliar"
with
it.
3Ibid. 4Ibid.
5BDB, Lexicon,
p. 875. 6KB, Lexicon, p. 829.
12
What did Solomon collect? (2)
Why does he bear this name
here?1 (3) Why is
the word in the feminine gender?
What
did Solomon collect?
An examination of the passages in which the verb lhaqA
is used, either in the Niph'al or the Hiph'il, reveals that
the word is invariably used for
collecting or gathering
persons, especially for
religious purposes. Likewise, its
derivatives, lhAqA, hl.Ahiq;, Myliheq;ma, and tOlheq;ma,
without excep-
tion denote assemblies or
gatherings of people.1 "The
natural signification of tl,h,qo therefore is, an assembler of
scattered
people into the more immediate presence of God; a
gatherer
of those afar off unto God."2
Why
does Solomon bear this name?
The historical event which gave rise to the name is
probably that recorded in 1
Kings 8 (cf. 2 Chr. 5), where
the writer records that Solomon
gathered all
for the dedication of the
temple, that epoch-making assembly
which was among the most
important in all the history of
Israel.3 On this
occasion, Solomon not only called the
1KB, Lexicon, p. 829; BDB, Lexicon,
pp. 874-5.
2Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 2."
3C. H. H. Wright, The Book of Koheleth, Commonly
Called Ecclesiastes (hereinafter referred
to as Koheleth)
(London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1883), p. 85.
13
people together, but he also
preached to them indirectly
through the prayer in which he
consecrated the temple, and
directly through his blessing
and exhortation of the people.
It is not without significance
that the root lhaqA
appears in
this chapter no less than 5
times (1 Ki. 8:1, 2, 14, 22, and
55). It is entirely possible
that Solomon was named tl,h,qo as
a result of this temple
dedication.1
The
feminine gender
There have been numerous explanations for the femi-
nine gender of tl,h,qo. Wright explains it on the analogy of
Arabic formations as an
intensive feminine formation.2
Others have suggested that
there is really no problem in-
volved in this usage since
there are other instances in
which an individual occupying a
post of honor is designated
by a name descriptive of the
functions he discharges or the
dignity he enjoys.3
Some examples are tr,p,so,
"scribe" (Neh.
7:57), and tr,k,po in the compound name MyibAc;.ha tr,k,
1Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs
and Ecclesiastes (hereinafter referred
to as Ecclesiastes),
trans.
by M. G. Easton (
Publishing
Company, reprint, 1970), p. 202.
2W. Wright, ed. and
trans. from the German of
Caspari,
A Grammar of the Arabic Language,
revised by.W. R.
Smith
and M. J. de Goeje, Vol. I (2 vols.:
the
University Press, 1955), p. 137, sect. 233.
3Duncan H. Weir,
"Ecclesiastes," Fairbairn's
Impe-
rial
Standard Bible Encyclopedia, reprint, 1957, II, 184.
14
gazelles" (Ezra 2:47).1
Apparently these names were first
extended to people holding the
office and finally became
personal names.2 A
further parallel can be seen in Arabic
nomenclature where the feminine
form of the word may be used
to denote an activity, office
or function. Thus, Friday is
known as the Yaum al-Jum'ah, the Day of Gathering
(for
prayer). The word Khalīfah is used for the supreme
ruler of
the Islamic world. It is only
in transliteration that the
word has been
"masculinized" into "Caliph." "Here is an
invariable use of the feminine
to indicate a masculine of-
fice Similarly, for the leading
divine or a first-rate
scholar, the feminine 'Allamāh is employed."3
On the other hand, Ginsburg maintains that the femi-
nine gender is employed because
Solomon personifies wisdom,
a view which he feels finds
confirmation in Ecclesiastes
7:27, where tl,h,qo is used with a feminine verb (tl,h,qo hrAm;xA), a
usage even Rashi and Ibn Ezra,
though interpreting tl,h,qo dif-
ferently, explained by the fact
that "wisdom is being spoken
of."4 Yet, the explanation offered for the word in
lWright, Koheleth, p. 279.
2Georg Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament,
trans.
by David E. Green (Nashville: Abingdon Press,1968),
p.
336.
3Eric F. F. Bishop,
"A Pessimist in
(B.C.),"
1968),
33.
4Ginsburg, Coheleth,
p. 7.
15
connection with the feminine
gender as used in other Semitic
languages seems to have the
most force.1
Conclusion
It is the conclusion of the writer, therefore, that
the translation
"assembler" is probably most accurate. Any-
one who assembles will probably
also speak to the assembly,
and therefore the meaning
"preacher" is logical by exten-
sion. Throughout this thesis,
however, the writer prefers
to follow the example of most
authors by simply transliter-
ating the word
"Koheleth."2
1For further examples see
E. Kautzsch, ed., Gesenius'
Hebrew Grammar, ed. and trans. by A.
E. Cowley (hereinafter
referred
to as GKC, Grammar) (
Press,
1970), p. 393, sect. 122r.
2The precise
transliteration would be qōhelet,
but
initial
K and C are so widely used in place of Q, that the
most common transliteration,
Koheleth, is employed.
CHAPTER III
DATE, AUTHORSHIP, AND
LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND
Introduction
The matter of the date and authorship of Ecclesiastes
is an extremely complex
subject, not only because the date
and authorship are inevitably
interrelated, but also because
one's view of the linguistic
background of the book also
determines the boundaries for
fixing the authorship and the
date. These three subjects are
therefore considered togeth-
er in this chapter.
Authorship and Linguistic
Background
The Traditional
View
Ecclesiastes has traditionally been ascribed to
Solomon. This tradition finds
its basis in a number of
indications in the book, not
the least of which is that Solo-
mon was the only immediate dviDA-NB, who was lxerAW;yi-lfa
j`l,m,
MilAwAUryBi
(Eccl.
1:1, 12).1 The significance of this fact
should not be overlooked, for
this categorical statement
1This tradition is
evidenced in the title of the
book
in the Targum and the Syriac Peshitta. For the rela-
tionship
of the Targumim and the Peshitta, cf. R. K.
referred
to as Introduction) (
Publishing Company, 1969), pp.
240-42.
17
must be honestly explained by
any who attempt to circumvent
Solomonic authorship. Such
Solomonic authorship has, begin-
ning with Luther and
accelerating in the last century, been
almost universally abandoned.
Liberal and orthodox alike
have concluded that it is a
late document, and therefore
could not have been composed by
Solomon toward the end of
the tenth century B.C.
Arguments Against Solomonic
Authorship
It is said that one of the first to question the
Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes
was Luther, who in his
Table-Talk
explained the book as one of the more recent of
the Old Testament. He supposed
that the book was written by
Sirach rather than Solomon, and
that it might be "a Talmud,
collected from many books,
perhaps from the library of King
Ptolemy Euergetes, in
Solomonic authorship he was
followed by Hugo Grotius (1644),
who based his argument of
lateness on the language of the
book. Finally, in the present,
many scholars have complete-
ly discarded Solomonic
authorship. Scott, for example,
states: "It is quite out
of the question that the king
1Delitzsch, Ecclesiastes, p. 204. Though the writer
was
unable to find the edition of Table-Talk
which included
this
statement, it is well to note that Luther seems to sup-
port
Solomonic authorship in "Defense and Explanation of All
the
Articles" (in Luther's Works,
Vol. 32, ed. by George W.
Forell [
18
[Solomon] was in fact the
composer of the whole book of
Proverbs, of Ecclesiastes and
Wisdom . . . .”1
A
literary device
It is first of all suggested that Solomon was
intended
to be a mere artistic device
designed to present more
effectively the message of the
unknown late author.
Since Solomon was known to have
experienced the satis-
faction of every human ambition and
had drunk to the
full every possibility of earthly
pleasure, he would
serve as an admirable test case in
evaluating hedonistic
enjoyment and intellectual achievement
as over against a
life entirely devoted to God.2
Fohrer, accordingly, states that "actual Solomonic
authorship is out of the
question. The association with
Solomon is a mere literary
form, only slightly disguised and
not carried out
systematically."3
While Muilenburg contends that "a Solomonic origin
has been given up by all modern
scholars, and it [Ecclesias-
tes] has subsequently been
dated as early as the fourth cen-
tury B.C. and as late as the
time of Herod,"4 it appears
1R. B. Y. Scott,
"Solomon and the Beginnings of
dom
in
East, Vol. III of Supplements to Vetus Testamentum (
E.
J. Brill, 1969), p. 262.
2Gleason L. Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament
Introduction (hereinafter referred to
as Introduction)
(Chicago:
Moody Press, revised ed., 1974), pp. 478-9.
3Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament, p.
336.
4James Muilenburg,
"A Qoheleth Scroll From
Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research, 135
(October,
1954), 20-21.
19
that the sequence of events was
just the opposite. On the
basis of its language, it was
dated later than the time of
Solomon;. consequently,
Solomonic authorship was given up.
Scott is among the most adamant
in his denial of the Solo-
monic authorship. He glibly
assures his readers that "there
is of course no possibility
that the Solomon of history com-
posed this book; to claim this
is like claiming that a book
about Marxism in modern English
idiom and spelling was writ-
ten by Henry VIII."1
He feels so certain that the role of
Solomon is assumed for literary
effect that he states that
"no-observant reader could
suppose otherwise."2
Appeal is often made to other books where such a
literary device is apparently
used. The most notable is the
apocryphal book known as the
Wisdom of Solomon. It is gen-
erally believed that this book
was written in Greek during
the first century B.C., even
though the superscription of
the book claims for it
Solomonic authorship.3 The appeals
1Scott, Ecclesiastes, pp. 95-6. 2Ibid., p. 96.
3Cf. Rahlfs, Septuaginta, Vol. II, p. 345, where the
title
reads SOFIA SALWMWNOS. The Peshitta extended the
superscription
to "The Book of the Great Wisdom of Solomon,
the
Son of David" (W. O.
the Books of the
Apocrypha
[
Christian
Knowledge, 1935], p. 196). Also see W. J. Ferrar,
The Uncanonical Jewish
Books (
Christian
Knowledge, 1918), p. 33; and especially, R. H.
Charles,
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the
Old Testa-
ment, Vol. I (Oxford: At the
Clarendon Press, 1913), p.
519.
20
to such a book, however, are
not valid, for this apocryphal
book is not inspired and whatever
falsehoods it might perpe-
trate are really of little
concern.1 On the other hand,
Ecclesiastes is inspired, and
while Wright is certain that
"the authority and
trustworthiness of the book of Ecclesias-
tes are not imperilled by the
denial of its Solomonic au-
thorship,"2
such a denial appears, in fact, to be accom-
plishing that very peril. The
book states that the author
was (1) a son of David, and (2)
King over (in)
No one fits this description
except Solomon. Therefore, a
denial of Solomonic authorship
necessarily involves a denial
of the integrity of at least
two verses in Ecclesiastes
(1:1, 12), for there could not
be a more explicit descrip-
tion of Solomon, unless his
name were used. Only if one
concedes that such a literary idiom
is legitimate can it be
concluded that "its author
was not Solomon, but one of 'the
wise' whose name can no longer
be recovered;"3 and that it
was written "not in the
time of Solomon, i.e. about 930
1Zimmermann argues that
most of the Apocryphal books,
including
the Wisdom. of Solomon, were originally written in
Hebrew
or Aramaic (Frank Zimmermann, The Inner
World of Qo-
heleth [
98-100).
2Wright, Koheleth, p. 110.
3Samuel Cox, The Book of Ecclesiastes in The Exposi-
tor's Bible, ed. by W. Robertson
Nicoll (
21
B.C., but some five or six
centuries later."1 Only then can
one agree with Wright that
the author had not the slightest
idea of committing any
fraud whatever, but simply sought to
assert in the
strongest manner possible that the
views he advocated,
in direct opposition to the Jewish
sensualist school of
of that heavenly wisdom which had
been bestowed upon the
great Solomon.2
Barton, for instance, is so certain about the non-
Solomonic authorship that he
makes this asseveration: "The
fact that Solomon is not the
author, but is introduced in a
literary figure, has become
such an axiom of the present day
interpretation of the book,
that no extended argument is
necessary to prove it."3
He further asserts that upon the
basis of the book's linguistic
features, Solomonic author-
ship is "unthinkable.
"4
There are other arguments against Solomonic author-
ship of the book which shall be
taken up below. All who
deny his authorship would agree
with Ginsburg, who, after
enumerating several other
proofs against it, proposed that
lIbid.
2Wright, Koheleth, p. 80.
3George Aaron Barton, A Critical and Exegetical Com-
mentary on the Book of
Ecclesiastes
(hereinafter referred to
as
Ecclesiastes), in The International Critical Commentary,
ed.
by S. R. Driver, et al. (
1908),
p. 68.
4Ibid., p. 59. Also cf. Otto Eissfeldt, The Old
Testament, An
Introduction,
trans. by Peter A. Ackroyd (New
22
"the strongest argument,
however, against the Solomonic
authorship of this book, is its
vitiated language and
style."1 There
is, however, little agreement about these
phenomena, consisting of many
supposed Aramaisms and affini-
ties with other books which are
late and/or partly Aramaic,
such as Nehemiah, Daniel, Ezra,
and Malachi.2 But it is
primarily out of respect for
these linguistic features of the
book that the date of composition
is lowered, and Solomon's
authorship is denied. The
linguistic background of the book
is therefore considered next.
Aramaic
background
Those who argue that the language of Koheleth can be
explained upon the basis of
Aramaic influence can be divided
into two groups. There are
those, first of all, who view
the language of the book as a
reflection of post-exilic
times, when the Jews were
speaking Aramaic increasingly, and
when Hebrew began to be
influenced as a consequence. Many
contend that the Hebrew of
Koheleth bears strong resemblances
to the Hebrew of the later
Mishnah.3 The second group asserts
that the book was originally
written in Aramaic.
1Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 253.
2E. J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament
(Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1952),
pp.
339-40.
3Ibid.,
p. 40.
23
Definition of
"Aramaisms"
The use of "Aramaisms" for dating a book is one
of
the most tenuous procedures in
biblical linguistic study.
For many years such arguments
were proposed to support a
late date for such books as
Daniel, Jonah, and Chronicles.
However, in recent times such a
position has generally been
abandoned, for from the
earliest times Hebrews and Arameans
were in constant and intimate
contact.1 Yet, Wright, Gins-
burg, Delitzsch, and others of
their era, though not des-
tructively critical, felt that
the Aramaisms of Ecclesiastes
indisputably rendered it late.2
Lamentably, Gordis is
correct when he states that
"one still encounters the sim-
plistic argument that the
existence of an alleged 'Aramaism'
is evidence of a late date for
the document."3 On the other
hand, a more balanced and
sophisticated analysis of Arama-
isms has been recently
emerging, as evidenced by Barr's di-
vision of Aramaisms into four
categories:
1. "Aramaism" may mean a statistical
displacement
towards what is more frequent
in Aramaic, and more
1Raymond A. Bowman,
"Arameans, Aramaic, and the Bi-
ble,"
Journal of Near Eastern Studies,
VII:2 (April, 1948),
70.
2Cf. Wright, Koheleth, p. 120; Ginsburg, Coheleth,
p.
253; and Delitzsch, Ecclesiastes, pp.
210-17.
3Robert Gordis, "On
Methodology in Biblical Exege-
sis,"
The Jewish Quarterly Review, XLI:2
(October, 1970),
105.
24
infrequent in Hebrew. It is
common knowledge, for instance,
that xtAxE is the normal Aramaic word for the verb
"come."
This word does occur, however,
in the Hebrew of the Old
Testament in about twenty
instances, mostly in poetry. But
if xtAxE is found to occur more frequently for
"come" in a
certain text, and especially
outside a poetical context,
then "the situation in
this regard is more like that which
exists in Aramaic, and someone
may say that this is an 'Ara-
maism."'1 This
is a most unfortunate circumstance in termi-
nology, for there is no
question that the phenomenon itself
is real Hebrew; "the only
difference is in the distribution
and frequency."2
It is of incalculable importance that any
discussion of such phenomena
distinguishes between what is
not normal Hebrew, and what is
only statistically unusual.
2. "Usage may be identified by means of an appeal
to Aramaic, where this usage
has not previously been recog-
nized as existing in Hebrew
though it is well known in Ara-
maic."3 This is
meant to be an identification of a normal,
if uncommon usage in Hebrew,
not an identification of an
Aramaic word which does not
appear in Hebrew. Here, too,
the term "Aramaism"
is unfortunate. In such cases, the
1James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of
the Old Testament (hereinafter referred
to as Philology)
(Oxford:
At the Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 121.
2Ibid.
3Ibid.,
p. 122.
25
usage is a native Hebrew one,
inherited from earlier Semit-
ic, but when it is called an
"Aramaism" this only means that
the sense was discovered in
Aramaic, because through its
sparse usage in extant Hebrew
literature, its meaning had
been lost.1
3. "'Aramaism' may mean that an expression of Ara-
maic type was deliberately
used, or that, if not deliberate-
ly, at least in fact, the
existence of an Aramaic phenomenon
is actually affecting the
choice and the character of Old
Testament usage."2
It is possible, for instance, to explain
unusual locutions by northern
Israelite speakers such as
Hosea on this basis,3
and it might also be possible to ex-
plain many of Koheleth's
unusual expressions upon the basis
of all the contact he had with
foreign, Semitic-speaking
peoples such as the Arameans,
the Moabites, and especially,
the Phoenicians.
4. Lastly, the term "Aramaism" is sometimes
"used
when scholars hold that a text
was originally written in one
language and then translated
into another, and that the
characteristics of the diction
of the former state have been
carried over into the
latter."4 This has been argued for
both Job and Ecclesiastes, but,
as Barr and Gordis point out,
1Ibid.
2Ibid., pp. 122-3.
3Ibid., p. 123.
4Ibid.
26
if they were translations, they
were rather poor ones.1
Gordis characterizes Aramaisms in a slightly differ-
fashion:
(1) examples of the North-West
Semitic vocabulary and
usage indigenous to both Aramaic and
Hebrew, which be-
came frequent in Aramaic but
remaining rare (or poetic)
in Hebrew. Such forms are generally
early and cannot be
invoked for a late date and are not
really "Aramaisms"
at all; (2) Hebrew borrowings from
nearby Aramaic during
the pre-Exilic period, especially
during the heyday of
the
the Babylonian Exile and the early
post-Exilic period,
when Aramaic became the lingua franca of the
(4) idioms and morphological forms
introduced into He-
brew and patterned after Aramaic
usage, with which the
Hebrew writer or speaker was
familiar, because Aramaic
had become the vernacular of the Jewish community.2
History of Aramaic
Old Aramaic is the language (with some dialectical
variants) of the most ancient
inscriptions from
able and widespread group whose
earliest manifestations (in
extant inscriptions) go back to
at least the first millen-
nium, and survives in a few
places to the present.3 It is no
doubt true that "l'araméen
fortement influencé par le
1Ibid.; cf. Gordis, Koheleth,
p. 414.
2Gordis, "On
Methodology in Biblical Exegesis," 107.
3Sabatino Moscati, ed., An Introduction to the Com-
parative Grammar of the
Semitic Languages
in Porta Linguarum
Orientalium, Neue Serie, VI, ed. by
Bertold Spuler and Hans
Wehr
(hereinafter referred to as Comparative
Grammar)
(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz,
1969), pp. 10-11.
27
cananéen."1 Old
Aramaic, was, essentially, an unknown lan-
guage before the end of the
19th century. Then several in-
scriptions were discovered at
Zinčirli: the Panammu II In-
scription in 1888, the Panammu
I in 1890, and the Bir-RKB in
1891. In 1891 the inscriptions
of Sin-zer-ibni were dis-
covered at Nerab, and in 1898
Peiser published the enigmatic
inscription on a stele from Ördek-burnu.
In 1908 Pognon
published the important Zakir
Stele, which he had previously
discovered.2
Because of its affinities with
contemporary Canaanite,
and its considerable divergences
from later Aramaic,
the language of these inscriptions
was regarded by most
scholars as an artificial mixture of
some kind. The two
Panammu Inscriptions, moreover,
presented so many spe-
cial problems in orthography and
morphology when com-
pared with the other inscriptions,
that it became neces-
sary to suppose a separate Zincirli
dialect.
With the discoveries of
more recent years, suffi-
cient data accumulated to classify
the language of the
inscriptions as Old Aramaic.3
The relationship of Aramaic to the Hebrew of the
Bible is not always clear. It
is known that from the very
beginning of the Hebrew nation
(Abraham) there was a relation-
ship with the Arameans
(Abraham's stay in
1Henri Fleisch, Introduction a 1'Étude des Langues
Sémitiques (Paris: Librairie d'Amérique
et d'Orient, 1947),
p.
71.
2Frank M. Cross and David
N. Freedman, Early Hebrew
Orthography in American Oriental Series, ed. by James B.
Pritchard,
Vol. 36 (
1952),
p. 21.
3Ibid., p. 22.
28
11:31). Laban, of course, used
Aramaic in his encounter
with Jacob, recorded in Genesis
31:47. From the time of
David forward there was
widespread contact with Arameans.
David married an Aramean
(Maacah, 2 Sam. 3:3; 1 Chr. 7:14),
and Solomon ruled over much of
4:21).1 It is not to
be supposed strange, therefore, that
there should be cultural (and
therefore linguistic) inter-
changes. "The mutual
influence of the two languages [Hebrew
and Aramaic] reaches back to
early times: Aramaisms occur
in the earliest part of the Old
Testament."2 Driver has
argued that Hebrew is not pure
Canaanite, but a mixed lan-
guage in which traces of the
original Aramaic substratum are
still perceptible.3
Even in "Old Aramaic" several cultural
strains are observable.
diverse cultures, Semitic and
non-Semitic, of the adja-
cent areas have blended into curious
mixtures. It is
thus with the so-called "Old
Aramaic" of the region,
which is almost completely Canaanite
rather than Ara-
maic. In the Kilamwa inscription it
is only the word
"son" (bar), used in the royal genealogy, that
can be
recognized as Aramaic. Syntax and vocabulary are
1For the extent of Solomon's
kingdom, see the maps
in
Yohanan Aharoni and Michael Avi-Yonah, Macmillan
Bible
Atlas (New York: Macmillan
Publishing Company, Inc., 1973),
p.
74, maps 113 and 115.
2R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament
(New
York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1941), p. 687. Cf.
also
GKC, Grammar, pp.. 16-17, sect. 2u,
w.
3G. R. Driver,
"Hebrew Language," Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 1972,
XI, 279-80.
29
usually Canaanite; there are even
instances of the waw-
consecutive usually associated with
Hebrew. The spel-
ling of words manifests the
defective short forms fre-
quently encountered in Phoenician.
The alphabet too is
distinctly Canaanite; the letters
are quite similar to
those of contemporary Phoenician but
with the odd dif-
ference that the characters are not
incised but carved
in relief and in such fat and pudgy
shape that the gen-
eral appearance of such writing
resembles Hittite hiero-
glyphs. In some instances even the
shape of the monu-
ment suggests a Hittite prototype.
Indeed, such royal
names as Quril, Kilamwa, and
Panamwa, found in these in-
scriptions are non-Semitic,
apparently Anatolian. Thus,
in most "Old Aramaic writing,
several cultural strains
are observable, and there is almost
nothing distinctly
Aramaic.1
These characteristics of the "Old Aramaic" are
ex-
tremely important to the
discussion of the Solomonic author-
ship, because the period from
which these apparently very
homogeneous inscriptions date,
is approximately the time in
which Solomon lived.
It may also be that the language of Ecclesiastes
differs somewhat from other
biblical literature because the
style most of the books were
written in was apparently a
"specialized literary genre which was studied and cultivated
by the artists and writers of
that period."2 According to
Chomsky, furthermore, it may be
safely announced that the classical
models of the bibli-
cal language are not typical of the
daily conversational
language employed by "the
butcher, the baker, and the
candlestick maker." Undoubtedly, the conversational
1Bowman, "Arameans,
Aramaic and the Bible," 70.
2William Chomsky, Hebrew: The Eternal Language
(
1969), p. 48.
30
language was simpler, more flexible,
and lacking the
artistry characteristic of the
biblical style. It had
more in common with the so-called
mishnaic or post-bib-
lical Hebrew. It made up in
simplicity, flexibility,
and dynamic qualities for what it
lacked in grandeur
and elegance.1
Chomsky concludes that there seems to have existed
in pre-exilic
Side by side there were the
literary or classical tradition
and the popular or
conversational tradition.
The first tradition followed
generally the Canaanitic or
Ugaritic literary models, which date
back to the pre-
biblical days. In its poetic style,
its parallelisms,
vocabulary, metaphors, and
locutions, the Bible fre-
quently evinces a striking
resemblance to these ancient
documents. The second tradition had
its roots, appar-
ently, in the vernacular, which the
early Hebrew ances-
tors had brought with them from
their native homeland in
ditions admitted, on occasion, of
free intercrossing and
mutual influence, as will be pointed
out in Chapter IX
of this volume. It is nonetheless
quite probable, as
will be indicated later, that the
Canaanite influence
was prevalent in literary Hebrew,
while the Aramaic in-
fluence was preponderant in the
vulgar or conversational
Hebrew.2
The possible influence of Canaanite on the language
of Koheleth is taken up below.
For the present, however,
the reader should notice that
at least part of the linguis-
tic peculiarities of the book
may be a reflection of a more
conversational than literary
Hebrew.
Late-dating by Aramaisms
In his commentary on Ecclesiastes, Wright compiled
lIbid., pp. 48-9.
2Ibid.,
p. 49.
31
at least 98 expressions which
he said were "worthy of notice
as belonging mainly to the
modern period of the Hebrew lan-
guage,"1 and
which, therefore, supported the contention that
the Aramaisms of the book make
a late date certain. Others,
such as Hengstenberg, who
allowed only ten Aramaisms in the
book, are much more modest.2
It is, unfortunately, beyond
the scope of this thesis to
discuss each of these instances
individually, but the
methodology of such procedures must be
carefully scrutinized.
When one speaks of "Aramaisms" he must first of
all
define which of the types of
Aramaisms he means.3 If it is
an "Aramaism" so
named because it is statistically unusual,
but perfectly normal Hebrew,
its bearing on the date of the
book is negligible. If an
Aramaism is used to date Ecclesi-
astes, it must be proven that
(1) the word was borrowed at
a time subsequent to Solomon,
and that (2) Hebrew did not
have and would not have used
such an expression. These two
criteria seem reasonable
enough, but they make it very
1Wright, Koheleth, pp. 488 ff.
2Ernest W. Hengstenberg, A Commentary on Ecclesi-
astes (n.p.: Sovereign Grace
Publishers, 1960), p. 9.
3Cf. the distinctions of
Barr and Gordis above. On
the
relationship of Hebrew and Aramaic, cf. Zellig S. Harris,
Development of the
Canaanite Dialects,
Vol. 16 in the Ameri-
can Oriental Series, ed. by W. Norman Brown
(
Kraus Reprint Corporation,
reprint, 1967), pp. 1-28.
32
difficult for the late-date
theory of Ecclesiastes, predi-
cated upon the language of the
book, to stand. This is for
several reasons.
Limited vocabulary.--While
it is true that there is
presently extant a vast Hebrew
vocabulary, it is not true
that the Hebrew of the Bible
represents all the Hebrew words
which must have been in use in
ancient times. It is true,
for example, that the word hfAwA does not appear in biblical
Hebrew, though it does appear
in biblical Aramaic and in
modern Hebrew.1 One
must nevertheless be very cautious in
pronouncing on these grounds
that it did not exist in Hebrew
during biblical times, for the
word appears as a Canaanite
gloss in the Amarna letters.2
One here reaches the limits
which are set for linguistic
assertions about a dead lan-
guage which has left only a
very restricted body of litera-
ture. There are numerous
objects and realities of Hebrew
life for which biblical Hebrew
has no known name. The non-
occurrence of the word in the
literature presently extant is
not proof that it was unknown.3
The same applies to
lBDB, Lexicon, p. 1116.
2It is listed as "šêtu, Stande [hour], kanaan.?
[canaanite?]"
in J. A. Knudtzon, Herausgegeber, Die
El-Amar-
na-Tafeln, Band II (zwei Bände:
Aallen: Otto Zeller
Verlagsbuchhandlung,
Neudruck, 1964), p. 1521; 138:76.
3James Barr, Biblical Words for Time (
33
instances of hapax legomena, whose only parallels can
be
found in Aramaic. It is almost
inconceivable
that the seven or eight vocables
found in the Hebrew
Bible constituted all the words that
were current in
the language during that period,
just as it would be ab-
surd to assume that the 25,000 words
used by Shakespeare
or the 12,000 words employed by
total vocabulary in vogue in their respective periods.l
Later documents.--Furthermore, one may not legiti-
mately maintain that a document
is late merely because it
contains words which do not
occur in the earlier ones pres-
ently extant.
find of Egyptian Aramaic papyri
gives us words not known be-
fore--except, if at all, in
documents written hundreds of
years later."2
of proof that will prove almost
everything to be late, and
especially the parts considered
late to be early, is absurd
and inadmissable as evidence in
a case designed to prove
that some documents are later
than others because they con-
tain words of this kind."3
By statistical analysis of the
books of the Old Testament he
demonstrated that some of the
later books (Ezra 1-6, Malachi,
Ezekiel) have a far smaller
1Chomsky, Hebrew: The Eternal Language, p. 209.
2Robert Dick Wilson, A Scientific Investigation of
the Old Testament (hereinafter referred
to as Investigation)
(Philadelphia:
The Sunday School Times Co., 1926), p. 132.
3Ibid.,
p. 133.
34
percentage of words occurring 5
times or less, and also oc-
curring in the Talmud, than do
some of the earlier writings
("J," "E,"
Sam. --Kings, "P," and the "Deuteronomist").1
The
presence of "rare"
words in a document is no proof of its
relative lateness. Many of
these "rare" words were labeled
"Aramaisms" in
previous years because they were more common
in Aramaic than in Biblical
Hebrew, but the argument is not
valid.2
H. L. Ginsberg alleges that the Hebrew of Koheleth
must represent "the latest
stage in the evolution of bibli-
cal Hebrew"3
because the root JqaTA (4:12;
6:10) "can only be
borrowed from Aramaic; and not
before the seventh century
B.C.E., since the initial
consonant represents a Proto-Se-
mitic t which was only
shifted to t in Aramaic in the sev-
enth century B.C.E."4
He also argues that the nouns MysiDer;Pa
and MgAt;Pi must be late because they are borrowed
from Persian
and "
sixth century B.C.E."5
In these statements, however, he has made some basic
lIbid., p. 135.
2But see GKC, Grammar, where upon this basis these
are
late-dated: Joshua, Ruth, Jonah, Ecclesiastes, Job, et
al. (p. 16, sect 2u).
3Ginsberg,
"Ecclesiastes," p. 350.
4Ibid.
5Ibid.
35
methodological errors. He has
assumed that the word JqeTA
could not have been known
earlier than the Aramaic inscrip-
tions in which it is now extant
(the word originated only
just prior to the inscription?)
and he assumes that the pre-
cise date of the phonetic shift
of which he speaks is known
(it originated just prior to
the inscriptions?). As to the
"Persian" words,
Ginsberg again assumes too much. He not
only supposes that the words
could not have been adopted
earlier than the period of
Persian domination, he also sup-
poses that they could not have
been shared by Hebrew as
words common to both. From a
purely linguistic standpoint,
there is nothing about the
words which is necessarily
strange or foreign. It is true
that the usual Hebrew pat-
tern is formed with a
triconsonantal root, but
forms are attested over the entire
Semitic area on the
pattern C1aC2C3aC4u:
e.g. Heb. 'aqrāb, Syr. ‘əqarbā,
(Eth. 'aqrab "scorpion." Examples of other four-radical
patterns are Akk. humsīru "mouse,"
Heb. 'akkabīš "spi-
der," Syr. 'uqbərā "mouse," Ar. qunfud "hedgehog," Eth.
hanbāl
"saddle."1
It is one thing to make assertions like Ginsberg's;
it is another to substantiate
them. In view of the very
scanty inscriptional evidence
available for Aramaic from the
early part of the first
millennium B.C., it seems better to
resist generalizations about
what words were or were not in
the language, and when they
originated.
1Moscati, Comparative
Grammar, p. 84.
36
Reasons for
Aramaisms.--There are yet other factors
in deciding the impact of the
supposed Aramaisms of Ecclesi-
astes. A Hebrew writer could
have used an Aramaic word to
denote a thing, or to express a
thought,"either because
there was no Hebrew word that
he could equally well employ
[at least from his own
vocabulary], or because he was him-
self strongly under Aramaic
influence, or because he wanted
to show off his acquaintance
with foreign tongues."1 Both
the former and the latter of
these are distinct possibili-
ties for Solomon. Certainly
they are just as possible as
the overworked second one.
It should not escape the reader's notice that Solo-
mon had every opportunity to
imbibe foreign expressions. As
was previously pointed out, he
had a step-mother who was an
Aramean, Maacah (2 Sam. 3:3),
of which union with David were
born Tamar and Solomon's
notorious brother Absalom (2 Sam.
13:2). When difficulties beset
him in
his Aramean grandfather in
Geshur that Absalom fled for pro-
tection.2 A certain
close relationship is therefore as-
sumed, and it is not improbable
that Solomon himself may
have at times visited this
step-grandfather as a child, not
to speak of the contact he
probably had with the Aramaic-
1Wilson, Investigation, p. 140.
2Bowman, "Arameans, Aramaic, and the
Bible," 70.
37
speaking Maacah. Furthermore,
Solomon himself married an
Aramean (1 Kings 3:1, 11:3). He
also had other wives from
the Ammonite, Moabite, Hittite,
Phoenician, and Egyptian
kingdoms.1 He even
occupied
built store-towns in Hamath.3
Consequently, one would not
be surprised that he might
choose to write something spiced
with foreign expressions and
words. This is only a conjec-
ture, but it is a possibility.
Noun formations.--It
has also been alleged that
nouns ending in N are Aramaisms. The same is argued for
many of those ending in tU. However, it has been demon-
strated that such nouns are
found throughout Semitic lan-
guages at all stages of their
development.4
1Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, Vol. I (Phil-
adelpia:
The Jewish Publication Society of America, re-
print,
1967), p. 161. Also see Charles Foster Kent, The
Founders and Rulers of
United
Scribner's
Sons, 1908), p. 1.
2Theodore H. Robinson, A History of
(2
vols.:
p.
256.
3Merrill F.
cus (London: James Clarke
and Co., Ltd., 1957), p. 54.
4Moscati, Comparative Grammar, pp. 82-3; 96 ff.
Cf.
also
lists
of Thutmes [sic.] III have seventeen nouns ending in
n out of 119 all told.
The Sendscherli Inscriptions have no
nouns
in n but the Sachau papyri have scores. They are
found
also in the Sabean and Minean Inscriptions and are
common
in Arabic and Syriac. There are 14 in the code of
Hammurabi
alone and 26 in the Babylonian of the Amarna
Letters."
38
Exclusive of proper names, about one
hundred and forty
nouns ending in n are found
in Biblical Hebrew. Sixty-
three of these are met with in the
Pentateuch. Of the
sixty-three, the Targum of Onkelos
renders twelve by the
same nouns ending in n, and
fifty-one by other nouns,
most of them ending in n. It
will thus be seen that
where the subject-matter is exactly
the same, the Hebrew
original and the Aramaic version
have exactly the same
number of words ending in n.
Judging from this fact, it
is left to our readers to determine,
if they can, wheth-
er the ending n is more
characteristic of Aramaic than
of Hebrew.1
There are several specific instances of supposed
Aramaisms in Ecclesiastes which
is true that the word NOFl;wi is found only in Ecclesiastes
(8:4, 8), it is also true that
its root occurs in Akkadian,
as well as in Hebrew, Arabic,
Aramaic, and Syriac.2 Some-
times "rare" words
are "rare" only in the sense that they
appear few times in the
biblical text. This does not mean
that they were not common in
the Hebrew language.
Reasons for
non-routine terms.--Besides the fact
that some of the terms in
Ecclesiastes may be strange only
because such a small amount of
literature from Solomon's
time is presently extant, there
are other reasons which can
1Wilson, Investigation, pp. 147-8. It is also in-
teresting
that in the Mesha inscription, the plural ending
in is consistently used,
instead of the more Hebraic im.
Yet,
in many respects the Mesha inscription is very similar
to
Hebrew (Chomsky, Hebrew: The Eternal
Language, p. 67;
cf.
Cross and Freedman, Early Hebrew
Orthography, pp. 39,
43;
A. H. Van Zyl, The Moabites [
1960],
p. 171-2).
2Wilson, Investigation,
p. 151.
39
be adduced for their
peculiarity. One may be that the char-
acter of the subject matter,
rather than the lateness of the
time of composition, has made
the language somewhat differ-
ent.1 Furthermore,
it is difficult to see why it would be
more likely that the thoughts
of the unconventional writer
would find expression in the
language of every day, or the
language of the historian or
prophet. Koheleth was a so-
phisticated writer who may have
written for learned readers
and, who, in any event, wrote
for some audience who would be
able to understand and
appreciate his language.2 Moreover,
if Solomonic authorship is accepted
for Ecclesiastes, and
Davidic authorship for many of
the Psalms, Solomon would
certainly have had an
exceedingly rich literary heritage
from his father, which may have
had the effect of making his
own writing (especially if he
chose to let it) singularly
distinctive. Who, having
translated the Psalms can gainsay
David's vocabulary?
In addition, the task of the writer of Ecclesiastes
was rendered difficult by two
other facts. The Hebrew lan-
guage has rather simple
structure, and only a relatively few
syntactic devices are available
to express all possible nu-
ances of meaning. Moods of
verbs must be inferred from the
lIbid., p. 150.
2Mitchell J. Dahood,
"Canaanite-Phoenician Influence
in
Qoheleth," (hereinafter referred to as "Qoheleth")
Biblica, 33:1
(1952), 31, note 1.
40
context, and subordinate
clauses of all varieties are exter-
nally indistinguishable from
coordinate clauses. These fac-
tors obviously complicate the
understanding where precision
is essential.1 Yet
another difficulty in the understanding
of Koheleth, his modes of
expression, and his vocabulary, is
that he was struggling to use
Hebrew for philosophic pur-
poses, a use to which the
language was not normally applied.
A millennium and a half later,
"medieval translators still
found that Hebrew had not yet
fully developed the flexibili-
ty, precision and vocabulary
necessary for the treatment of
philosophic themes."2
Koheleth's comparative success in
this respect is a tribute to
his literary skill.
Conclusion on Aramaisms
It is, therefore, the conclusion of the writer that
the date, and the limits it
places upon the authorship, must
be decided by means other than inferences drawn