Pondering Ecclesiastes

Friday, Oct. 13, 2023

Several years ago, I undertook to read the entire Bible straight through, from Genesis to Revelations.

I didn’t get far. The stories of Genesis and the first part of Exodus weren’t too bad, but then came chapter after chapter dealing with every detail of crafting the Ark of the Covenant, the Altar of Holocausts and the priestly vestments. This minutiae continued into Leviticus, which lays out all of the different types of offerings, what is considered clean and unclean, the penalties for various sins, as well as a whole lot of other particulars that made my mind glaze over. I skimmed most of Numbers and Deuteronomy, tried hard to be interested in the conquests described in Joshua and Judges, and finally gave up.

Last week, though, something I was reading referenced the Book of Ecclesiastes. After following up the quote that had led me there, I flipped to the start and read all 12 chapters. Much of it was familiar – most people recognize the sayings “There is nothing new under the sun” and “To every thing there is a season,” even if they think the latter is a lyric from Pete Seeger’s song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Then, too, Ecclesiastes 1:5 (“The sun rises and the sun goes down...”) brings to mind Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, and the repetition of “a time to” in the first part of Chapter 3 has been used in titles of everything from a James Bond movie to a John Grisham book.

Recognizing those references led me to Wikipedia, which has a whole list of Western literature and music influenced by Ecclesiastes. Some of them I recognized, some weren’t familiar, and others I’d forgotten, like the main character in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, who memorizes much of Ecclesiastes. I read Bradbury back in high school, and I remembered his character memorizing a slice of the Bible, but couldn’t have told you which part.

Other than a fun couple of hours with trivia, I enjoyed reading Ecclesiastes for quotes that were new to me: “The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness; and yet I perceived that one fate comes to all of them.” The cynicism of this fits right into the overall tone of the book, whose author seems to have lost his faith in redemption, but I like the quote because it’s a reminder that even though we all die there are still things worth seeing in this world rather than bumbling through the darkness like a fool. And the writer seems to agree at times, as evidenced by this quote: “It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.”

On the other hand, he’s not a complete fan of wisdom, because he says, “In much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”

One distraction that took me down a different rabbit hole was the translation of Ecc 1:14, “... all is vanity and a chase after wind,” according to the translation in my Bible at home. However, the King James Version is “... all is vanity and vexation of spirit,” and yet another translations says it’s “like chasing the wind.” Myself, I like the last translation, which reflects how utterly fruitless the author perceives the effort to be. 

Reflecting on the book as a whole, it occurs to me that human spirituality hasn’t changed much in the 2,500 years since Ecclesiastes was written. We’re still trying to figure out the meaning of life, fearful that it’s a pointless quest, yet still aware that “a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.”