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Sep 11, 2019 · Attending to ongoing debates about the “meaning of life” in Ecclesiastes, this article determines how Qoheleth addressed meaningfulness by drawing on a threefold scheme of definitions for life’s meaning.
- Arthur Keefer
- 2019
Understood on its terms, Ecclesiastes is about making sense of life in light of the certainty of death and the uncertainties of life (3:1–15). It is the product of an investigation into human life based on Qoheleth’s personal experiences and observations.
- The Meaning of Hevel (הבל) in Qohelet
- The Meaning of Simḥah (שמחה) in Qohelet
- The Examination of Pleasure
- When Pleasure Is Foolish
- When The Best Isn’T Good Enough
- The Wisdom of Pleasure
- Accepting Our Allocated Portions
- Qohelet’s Focus on The Inner Life
- Reading Qohelet on Sukkot
Qohelet’s favorite word for condemning the world (“everything” [1:2; 12:8]) and a variety of different things within it is hevel. Hevel, literally “vapor,” is usually translated “vanity”/“vain” (in the sense of trivial or futile), “futile,” “ephemeral,” and the like. Although some things Qohelet calls hevelare indeed ephemeral, such as youth (11:10...
The root used most often for the actions and experience Qohelet commends is s.m.ḥ. (ש.מ.ח), both in the noun simḥah and the verb samaḥ. Simḥah and samaḥ in Qohelet are usually translated “happiness”/“be happy” (or “joy”/“be joyous”). This translation turns Qohelet into a “preacher of joy,” as he has been called, but he is no such thing. Qohelet has...
Qohelet sought to know what is good for man to do in life. He begins by examining pleasure (2:1a). At the beginning of his investigation, he decides to amass simḥah and (synonymously)tov, “good.” We know from 2:10 that he succeeded in doing so. He got himself material indulgences: houses, gardens, money, and other “delights of man” (2:8). These are...
Some pleasures—excess in food and drink, for example—have intrinsic flaws, but these are not the pleasures Qohelet praises (though he does denigrate them in 10:16, when describing dissolute rulers). In 2:4-10, he tells how he amassed pleasures in large quantities, but he does not consider them excessive. They are his “portion”—what God has allocate...
Qohelet is greedy, not for possessions but for possession itself. The gnawing awareness that he cannothold on to the good things he owns spoils their goodness for him, at least until chapters 9-11, when he commends life’s pleasures less tentatively. Even there this commendation is directed to others. Qohelet does not seem to have gotten much satisf...
For all his complaints, Qohelet does have good things to say about simḥah and its synonym rʼh tov/tovah “seeing good.” Pleasure is “good” (3:12, 22; 5:17; 8:15). It is man’s “portion” (2:10; 3:22; 5:17; 9:9), allocated and approved by God (2:24, 26; 3:13; 5:18; 9:7). It is God’s gift to those he favors 2:26)). Indeed, pleasure is the best thing in ...
The most important motive Qohelet gives for enjoying life’s pleasures is that they are man’s portion, his ḥeleq. They are allocated by God, even if not justly distributed (2:10, 21; 3:22; 5:17-18; 9:9). Qohelet says this several times, for example in 3:22: To take pleasure in one’s works (that is to say, his achievements, his earnings) is to accept...
Qohelet’s approach to discovering “what is good for a man to do in life” is unique in the Bible. He assumes that “what is good” is to be found within his heart, mainly in the enjoyment of material pleasures. He will add other good things to these,but he never gives up his expectation that the good will be discovered by looking inward and observing ...
But it is fair to also read the book in the spirit of different times, as Jews did in subsequent generations. The book of Qohelet is now read in the synagogue on the intermediate Sabbath of Sukkot. There is no mention of this practice before medieval times, but by the eleventh century the practice was known among the Ashkenazim, and it was subseque...
May 12, 2020 · Attending to ongoing debates about the meaning of life in Ecclesiastes, this article determines how Qoheleth addressed meaningfulness by drawing on a threefold scheme of definitions for life’s meaning.
Furthermore, the predominantly philosophical approach reveals a disinterest in situating Ecclesiastes in history and seeking to understand Qoheleth’s illustrative examples according to their potential historical referents.
The direction of this interpretive essay suggests that Qoheleth's stance to- ward life has been clouded by commentators unable to break out of their alien (to Qoheleth) work-dominated mind-sets.
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Sep 11, 2019 · Qoheleth was primarily concerned with life’s “coherence,” which depends on predictable and reliable patterns in life that render it sensible, yet he also addressed life’s “purpose” and “significance.”
