Aside from my book analysis of Dan McClellan’s The Bible Says So back in June, I haven’t written all that much here on my blog for the past 4-5 months. There are a variety of reasons, but now that I’m back teaching high school full-time, the easiest answer is this: April-May was end of the school year chaos, and by the end of July and early August, I’ve been preparing for the upcoming school year. Another factor is that I’ve been spending my time reading through and paraphrasing Irenaeus’ Against Heresies.
In any case, I feel I should start trying to put out a few more posts. Given the twin facts that (A) in early June I came out with my Blue-Collar Bible Scholar’s Reader’s Guide to the Old Testament (Volume 1 and Volume 2), and (B) I’m not a good promoter/salesman, I guess I need to get over myself and actually try to promote it a bit! And so, I thought I’d start by writing about Ecclesiastes.
A Bit of an Introduction: The Literary Structure of Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes is one of those books in the Bible that everyone seems to be intrigued by, but no one really knows what to do with. I remember back in high school after a basketball game, I was driving a friend of mine home, he said, “Do you know what my favorite book in the Bible is? Ecclesiastes, because it is so depressing.” I don’t know why I remember that, but I do.
Typically, when people do address Ecclesiastes, the same things seem to get the spotlight: Solomon wrote it (did he?), it is “all things are meaningless” or “all things are vanity” (what does that even mean?), and scholars love to use the word “Qoheleth” instead of “Teacher” (because, you know, it sounds smarter?). More times that not, though, people love to just mine it for special verses: “Cast your bread upon the waters…” and stuff like that.
Now, I’ve always liked Ecclesiastes, but for the longest time, I couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. In my Biblical Studies background, whenever I came to a biblical book, one of the things I always tried to do is to understand it’s overall structure. If you get my Blue-Collar Bible Scholar: Reader’s Guide to the OT or NT, you’ll see that I give a visual literary chart for every book in the Bible, so that you can get a better understanding of how it is laid out—and that will affect how you interpret any specific verse or passage, for (as I was always taught) context determines meaning.
The thing with Ecclesiastes, though, there really doesn’t seem to be any discernable structure to it. Yes, there is a clear introduction and clear conclusion, but everything in the middle just seems to be jumbled up, with random observations and sayings. So, what do you do with it?
It wasn’t until probably around 2010, when I was the Biblical Worldview teacher at a small Christian high school in Alabama, that I came up with something—a few things, actually—that I felt helped make sense of Ecclesiastes. As for any discernable overall literary structure, I came to see that Ecclesiastes was laid out more or less like this:
The Prologue (1:1-11) and Epilogue (12:9-14) are quite obvious. What also should be fairly easy to see is that there are bookend opening and closing sections in 1:12-3:22 and 10:16-12:8. In 1:12-3:22 we are told of the Teacher’s quest for wisdom, and then in 10:16-12:8 we are told of what the Teacher has learned from his quest and his ultimate conclusion about Life and God. In between is 4:1-10:15, but that’s quite a big chunk of text. It’s in these chapters where we get seemingly random observations and sayings. But if you look at these chapters closely, you’ll see that, for the most part, the Teacher’s main focus is 4:1-6:12 is the contemplation of oppression and evil. The focus changes, though, in 7:1-10:15, where the Teacher contemplates wisdom and folly. The fact is, you’re just not going to find much “wisdom/folly talk” in 4:1-6:12, or much “oppression/evil talk” in 7:1-10:15. For chapters that seem to be full of random verses, I have a hard time thinking that is just a coincidence. For that reason, I’ve come to see Ecclesiastes as being laid out in the literary structure that I show in the chart.
Genesis Allusions
The biggest thing that helped me understand what is going on in Ecclesiastes is when I came to realize that, yes, the entire thing seems to be set against the backdrop of the early chapters in Genesis, particularly Genesis 3-4. Again, I came to see this while I was teaching my Old Testament class to freshmen in high school at my old school. No, it is not explicit, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Of course, if you don’t know Hebrew and are relying solely on English translations, it’s not as clear. Consider just the first few verses in Ecclesiastes (I’m putting the words I’m going to focus on in bold). I’ll compare the NRSV, NIV, and my own translation (the JAV!):
| NRSV | NIV | JAV |
| 1The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? | The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”3 What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? | 1The words of the Teacher, Son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2“A breath of breaths!” says the Teacher. “A breath of breaths! Everything is a breath!” 3What advantage is there for Adam for all the toil that he toils under the sun? |
I’ll eventually get to the question of the identity of the Teacher, but for now, I want to point out three things. First, there is the question, “What does verse 2 mean?” Let’s face it, there’s a big difference between saying something is “meaningless” and something is “vanity.” If you go the “meaningless” route, congratulations, you’re playing footsie with Nietzsche under the table of Nihilism. If you go the “vanity” route, then you’re saying that everything is just for show and prestige, I suppose? But neither translation gets to what the Hebrew actually says.
The actual Hebrew word is havel, and it means either a “puff of air” or “vapor”—or basically a breath. On top of that (drum roll, please) it is also the name of a pretty famous character in Genesis 4: Abel. Given the fact that Abel is introduced in Genesis 4:2 and is murdered by Cain a mere six verses later in 4:8, it’s no wonder why his name is Abel. Life is but a breath, and Abel’s life lasted for six verses!
Given that, it should be pretty clear what the Teacher in Ecclesiastes is saying about life. It’s not that it’s “meaningless” or “vanity”—it’s a mere breath. It’s here today and gone tomorrow. It’s fleeting. And that fact about life drives so much of what the Teacher says throughout Ecclesiastes. But more on that later. For now, given what should be that clear Genesis 4 allusion to Abel, the very next verse should also stand out.
I say “should,” but unfortunately, the way it is found in most English translations, it’s easy to miss because the Hebrew word “Adam” isn’t translated as “Adam.” The NRSV translates it as “people,” while the NIV just sticks to “man.” Now, it is true that the Hebrew word “Adam” does, in fact, mean “man” (as in mankind), and thus, yes, “people” in general. At the same time, though, given the fact that one of the main themes in Ecclesiastes is one of the Teacher seeking wisdom, if I told you there is a story in the Bible about how Adam reaches out for wisdom only to be repaid with toil, frustration, and death, what story do you think I was referring to? I’m pretty sure you’d be thinking about the story in Genesis 3. And while we’re at it, what does Adam (and Eve) soon realize shortly after the events in Genesis 3? Yes, they soon realize, when their son Abel (“breath”) is killed by Cain, just how much of a fleeting breath life really is.
When you read Ecclesiastes in Hebrew, all of that (Adam, toil, and breath) smacks you in the face within the first three verses. Read a bit further, and in the first couple of chapters you find that in the Teacher’s quest for wisdom, he discovers life is a “breath of breaths” because you must leave everything you attain to others when you die.
Ultimately, Ecclesiastes is a contemplation of the purpose of life. In the Teacher’s search for wisdom, he comes to realize that if you dedicate yourself to the accumulation of “things,” you’re going to end up hating your life and finding no joy in it. Everything you do will seem like wearisome toil…and then you die. He realizes there is a whole lot of foolishness and injustice in the world, and things don’t seem “fair” …and then you die. That seems pretty depressing, but that’s the point. What the Teacher learns is the sad reality of the human race “in Adam.”
The story in Genesis 3 isn’t just a story of a literal couple, it is an explanation of the reality of human existence. The Genesis 3 story is the story of humanity. And that, I believe, is why the writer of Ecclesiastes has subtly set his entire work against the backdrop of Genesis 3. That realization helps us understand the larger, albeit subtle, context that buttresses what Ecclesiastes is all about. It’s not simply (as my high school friend said) just “so depressing.” It’s a very insightful observation about the reality of human existence. It is a contemplation of all the complexities, frustrations, and enigmas we encounter in life. But although it begins with a pretty depressing view of life, and although that runs all the way through the book, there are also a number of other things going on in Ecclesiastes that are quite surprising.
In my next post, I’ll touch upon just a few of those surprising things. (Spoiler alert, the historical King Solomon didn’t actually write Ecclesiastes).
