Ecclesiastes

John Goldingay

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781725273153, 9781725273160
• eBook ISBN: 9781725273177
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Ecclesiastes is the most surprising book in the Scriptures. It challenges its readers to reconsider what they think life is about and how far it is possible to understand God's involvement in the world. This commentary seeks to help people enter the world of Ecclesiastes and see how it can increase their understanding of God and of themselves.

Qohelet 1:1–3

Introductions

Translation

1The words of Congregationalist,a son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2Mere breath, a mere breath, Congregationalist said;

mere breath, a mere breath, everything is a mere breath.

3What is the advantage for a personb inc all his hard work at which he works under the sun?

a.The word qōhelet102 occurs in BH or MH only as a designation of the speaker in this book. KJV translates it “preacher,” NIV “teacher,” CEB “teacher of the assembly,” but its etymology does not imply such a specific meaning; it simply suggests a member of the assembly. The spelling Qoheleth follows an alternative pronunciation of Hebrew, less fashionable nowadays (there are other alternative ways of transliterating the word, such as Coheleth, Kohelet, and Koheles).

b.Hā’ādām with the article, literally, “the person” (“the human being”); BH can use the article to denote a single example of a category of things (so also, e.g., 3:22; 6:7; 7:14; see GKC 126q, r, s).

c.For bә, KJV has “of,” CEB “from,” ESV “by,” Message “for”; the preposition can refer to the price of something (BDB, 90a).

Overview

Qohelet begins with three forms of introduction:

•to the person who will be speaking from now on in the book (v. 1)

•to the book’s axiom (v. 2)

•and to the question that will occupy attention for the opening chapters (v. 3).

The first extant commentary on Qohelet is the Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes, written (according to Jerome)103 by Gregory Thaumaturgos (AD 213–70) from Turkey, who studied with Origen in Alexandria. The exposition begins:

These words speaketh Solomon, the son of David the king and prophet, to the whole Church of God, a prince most honoured, and a prophet most wise above all men. How vain and fruitless are the affairs of men, and all pursuits that occupy man! For there is not one who can tell of any profit attaching to those things which men who creep on earth strive by body and soul to attain to, in servitude all the while to what is transient, and undesirous of considering aught heavenly with the noble eye of the soul.104

Also working with the assumption that 1:1 refers to Solomon, the Targum has him foreseeing the hollowness of his and his father’s achievements, in light of the way subsequent events made their hard work pointless. The Targum imaginatively expands on the translation of vv. 1–3:

The words of prophecy which Qohelet, that is, the son of David the King, who was in Jerusalem, prophesied. When Solomon the King of Israel foresaw, by the spirit of prophecy, the kingdom of Rehoboam his son, which will be divided with Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and that Jerusalem and the holy temple will be destroyed, and that the people of Israel will be led into captivity, he said by the divine word, Vanity of vanities is this world! vanity of vanities is all which I and my father David have laboured for, all of it is vanity! What advantage is there to a man, after his death, from all his labour which he laboured under the sun in this world, except he studied the word of God, in order to receive a good reward in the world to come from before the Lord of the world?105

Commentary

1 The opening phrase the words of compares with the opening of Jeremiah and Amos; hence the Targum’s rendering “the words of prophecy which Qohelet prophesied.” The comparison might thereby imply that v. 1 is a worrying beginning; it harbingers “words of reproof” (e.g., Deut 1:1; 32:15; Amos 1:1; 4:1; Jer 1:1; 30:6; 2 Sam 23:1, 6).106 While similar introductory phrases appear elsewhere without disquieting connotations, notably in Prov 30:1; 31:1, this opening does suggest that what follows will be “grave, weighty, and profitable sayings, . . . such as are worthy of applying the mind to, and very meet to be well kept in memory.”107

The wor...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• General Editors’ Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Introduction
• Qohelet 1:1–3: Introductions
• Qohelet 1:4–11: Things That Go Round and Round
• Qohelet 1:12—2:26: A Testimony
• Qohelet 3:1–15: Time
• Qohelet 3:16—4:3: Faithlessness and Extortion
• Qohelet 4:4–16: What’s the Good? (1)
• Qohelet 5:1–9 [4:17—5:8]: Learn from Solomon’s Story
• Qohelet 5:10 [5:9]—6:9: Just Give Me Money (Or Not)
• Qohelet 6:10—7:14: What’s the Good? (2)
• Qohelet 7:15—8:1: Faithful and Faithless, Seeking and Not Finding
• Qohelet 8:2–15: Power and Dire Situations
• Qohelet 8:16—9:12: The Shadow of Death
• Qohelet 9:13—10:15: How Smartness Fails
• Qohelet 10:16—11:6: The Uncertainty Principle
• Qohelet 11:7—12:8: Enjoy Your Youth, But Be Mindful, Young Man
• Qohelet 12:9–14: A Postscript