First, what about the indirectness that follows? There is no straightforward plunge into narrative (as in Genesis or Job) or divine blessing and worship (as in Psalms) or a sermon from Moses (as in Deuteronomy); these are not “the proverbs of Solomon.” The most we can say is that, as in Jeremiah and Amos, “the words of . . .” introduces collected sayings. The fact of their collection already hints at editorial presentation and, since this is now a scriptural text, canonical evaluation of the material.

Second, what is the identity of “the Teacher”? Is the Hebrew term qōhelet a proper noun or a title? The construct form “words of” followed by a noun has the above parallels and others, such as Neh. 1:1, where a specific person is narrated in Israel’s salvation history: “The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capital.” Yet the noun in Ecclesiastes is unknown as a proper noun, but is related to a verb—for “calling” or “assembling.” Thus qōhelet designates a function or occupation; since no other proper noun is provided, it is sometimes handy to refer to this speaker as “Qoheleth.” He is not likely speaking in front of a gathered community as a contemporary preacher or professor would, so renaming Qoheleth “the Preacher” or “the Teacher”—though frequently tempting—misleads. The end of the book (12:9–10) clarifies the sense in which Qoheleth taught: whether or not he assembled an audience, as a wise man he assembled and arranged proverbs. The best name for the book’s main voice is therefore “the Sage,” a person of wise character whose skill in reflecting upon life gets preeminently put to use in writing, apparently behind the scenes.

Third, how do these words relate to Solomon? Are he and Qoheleth one and the same figure? In 1 Kgs. 8, Solomon assembles the leaders of Israel for the sake of dedicating the temple. Moreover, Ecclesiastes immediately identifies the Sage as a son of David and king in Jerusalem. Hence it was natural for ancient Jews and Christians to see King Solomon as the author. The Latin title “Ecclesiastes” is directly borrowed from the Greek ekklēsia, which could designate nothing more than an assembly (stemming from qōhelet). But of course ekklēsia calls to mind the church as well. On this reading Solomon typifies Jesus Christ, drawing together people “from the ends of the earth to listen to . . . [his] wisdom” (Matt. 12:42; Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs, prologue, in Ancient Christian Writers 26.39–46, 51–52).

Origen influenced early Christians to see Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs in terms of a pattern for becoming wise unto salvation. For the beginning of the Christian pilgrimage, Proverbs is Solomon’s book of “the most basic religious instruction,” regarding “good conduct.” At the end, Song of Songs is Solomon’s book of “the most sublime religious achievements,” regarding “the mystical contemplation of divine things.” Ecclesiastes stands in the middle, pertaining “to those whose religious instruction is already significantly under way, but who have yet to attain the highest goals of that instruction. It is the next to last stop in the project of learning to love.” A parallel structure appears in Dante’s medieval Commedia with its threefold organization according to Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso (Christianson 2007: 38–39): first the conversion by which one begins the journey away from hell; then the purgation by which one ultimately becomes fit for paradise and the vision of God. Whatever one makes of the Song of Songs, the first two stages highlight real progression: the wisdom of Proverbs sets a person on the path of fearing the Lord; the Sage in Ecclesiastes purges us of naïve and wrongful earthly attachments, advancing that holy fear.

Despite these insights, the classic “Jesus is the Ecclesiast” approach works against the tendency to see these words as those of an aging, repentant Solomon. If part of the point of Solomonic authorship is his autobiography—Ecclesiastes offering the reflections of a king for whom wisdom had to become more than worldly skill, via the school of self-imposed spiritual hard knocks—then it is hard to press the parallels to Christ very far. Indeed, the text itself works against directly Solomonic authorship. For one reason, Ecclesiastes lacks the proper noun “Solomon” provided directly in Proverbs. For another reason, the text presents Qoheleth in the third person, not only at the beginning and the end but also in the middle—at 7:27. For a third reason, there are apparently hints of criticism regarding Solomon’s successors (e.g., 2:19).120

It is not necessary to settle authorship as a historical question. Rather, discerning the text’s self-presentation has implications for how its message works with the Solomonic persona. Solomonic authorship, though not necessarily impossible, threatens to obscure the indirectness and the canonical filter through which we gain access to and evaluation of the Sage’s words. This filter also grants perspective on Solomon himself as the paragon of human wisdom. If Solomon wrote the book, then he certainly did so with a great deal of self-critical awareness and not always as a positive christological figure. The vocation of the Sage vis-à-vis the Messiah, in some cases, is to depict the fall from which we are redeemed, not just the paragon of redemption. The proof of the pudding on this score becomes clearer as the book’s quest advances, particularly in Eccl. 7.

Fourth, then, how do these words relate to Jesus? Little in Ecclesiastes points explicitly to Christ, as if these words and the Sage’s persona were typical of the Son of God or his most direct address to the church. Yet not all divine speech in scripture occurs via prophetic oracle in which we hear, “Thus says the Lord.” The Bible also takes up human words—in this case, with all their traces of our experience and struggle—for us to weigh them and be prodded by them as we pursue the fear of the Lord (12:9–14). These words can teach wisdom precisely because of their earthy—even edgy—character. In other words, the best way to read this Old Testament book christologically is to take seriously the full depth of its portrayal of human experience—warts and all. We can see more clearly what it means for Jesus Christ to be our wisdom only when wisdom’s worldly paragon—no less than the biblical Solomon—gets taken down a notch or two: “Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:22–24).

All is hebel. Ecclesiastes 1:2 continues the verbal indirectness, with “says the Teacher,” while announcing the book’s most prominent term: hebel. Its virtual restatement in 12:8 forms an inclusio, sandwiching the body of the book inside. In English its most frequent translation, or cultural association anyway, is “vanity” (e.g., RSV, NRSV, NASB). But possibilities abound: “meaningless” (NIV, TNIV); “[absolute] futility” (Holman Christian Standard Bible); “utterly absurd”;121 “[utterly] enigmatic” (Bartholomew 2009: 104–7); and so forth. Such translations present to readers the fruit of skilled interpreters’ labor. Yet they threaten to obscure a basic metaphor and a key question, as well as a long history of interpretation.

The basic metaphor is vapor. We can see its importance by noting the connection with “chasing after wind” (1:14; 2:11, 17, 26; 4:4, 16; 6:9). The metaphorical concreteness is further evident with hebel applying “under the sun.” Ironically, then, the “breath” most fundamentally associated with the word vanishes quickly in a haze of abstract translations, all with negative connotations. The key question likewise vanishes: whether the meaning of hebel is the same in every case throughout or instead involves nuances that sometimes call for different terms.

To be fair to translators, they face a virtually impossible task. Nevertheless, readers need to become familiar with a complex history of interpretation in order to situate the word properly within a context of linguistic and churchly actions and reactions. Christianson 2007: 140 summarizes this history in five stages. First, the contemptus mundi (“contempt for the world”) reading—popularized by Jerome—suggested that since everything earthly is vanity, the book points toward the love of God and our future heavenly home. Second, from Martin Luther and other Protestant (especially Puritan) commentators, is the opposite approach, which rejects the use of Ecclesiastes to call for asceticism and instead highlights the book’s calls to earthly joy. Navigating the tensions between these two stages frames the chief challenge of theological commentary. The third through fifth stages, from the Renaissance through early modernity to the present, manifest more fragmentary appeals to particular expressions from the book, chiefly oriented around its preoccupation with death. Reflection on death resonates with the focus on human experience that characterized these ages, of concern to all people, not just Jews and orthodox Christians. But the challenge remains to move beyond resonating with the poetry and memorable prose—to understand how the affirmations of joy in Ecclesiastes relate to its hebel motif and thereby to discern what theological message emerges from all this material on facing death.

Jerome, whose Latin translation of the scriptures dominated Western culture for centuries, did not follow early Greek translators who understood hebel as vapor. Instead he went with the Septuagint’s Greek rendering (mataiotēs) and thus introduced the abstract vanitas to render hebel. While the Latin vanitas could include less negative meanings such as “unsubstantial” or “lacking in permanence” within its semantic range, the meanings “useless,” “futile,” or “illusory” came to dominate.122 The early Christians struggled with this reading: “If everything that God made is very good, then how can everything be vanity—and not only vanity, but even vanity of vanities?” (Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes 1.2, in Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 72.252 and Wright 2005: 194). Augustine and others answered this with respect to humanity’s fall into sin and God’s resulting curse on creation. Yet, though acknowledging the beauty of God’s creation as such, Augustine asserted that “corporeal beauty is the lowest beauty” (Of True Religion 21.41, in Library of Christian Classics 6.244–45), quite apart from the fall that also factors into vanity. This sort of thinking appears strikingly in Origen, who equates vanity with the material body (On First Principles 1.7.5, in ANF 4.264). The appropriate response to this situation would be asking God to “turn my eyes from looking at vanities” (Ps. 119:37). The true message of Ecclesiastes tells these readers, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2).

Luther, however, believed that such classic readers taught “contempt of things that have been created and established by God. Among these is St. Jerome, who by writing a commentary on this book urged Blesilla to accept the monastic life. From this source there arose and spread over the entire church, like a flood, that theology of the religious orders or monasteries.”123 The affirmation of ordinary life became a badge of Protestant identity and tremendously influenced the development of the modern West. Amid all these options and opinions regarding hebel, what should we make of the contemptus mundi tradition in a commentary that takes seriously the church’s classic heritage? About hebel, as with so much else, seeking too much clarity is like chasing after wind. However, what can we say with some confidence, especially in relation to the rest of scripture?

First, hebel is probably one among the many allusions in Ecclesiastes to Genesis: in this case, to Abel. The fleetingness of his godly young life seems absurd, like much that the Sage ponders. Cain too may be present in Ecclesiastes, with an echo in the verb for buying (qānâ) in 2:7. So is Adam, whose name names our species.

Third, there are New Testament echoes to consider. Paul speaks in Rom. 8:20–21 of God’s subjecting creation to “vanity” (mataiotēs) with a view to its redemption. James 4:14 refers to our lives being like “mist” (atmis) that vanishes quickly. Making this connection clear, among others, is the Codex Vaticanus translation of Eccl. 9:9 with atmos. “Meaninglessness” would be too strong in Rom. 8, while fleetingness is clearly the key concern of Jas. 4. So far, we have reasons for taking hebel in a less negative sense than many usually do.

Fourth, however, almost half of the thirty-two hebel occurrences outside Ecclesiastes deal with idols, so in some cases the transitory nature of life is not the key issue. Despite the despairing tone in a number of passages, whatever this condition is, “‘vanity’ does not mark a world without God; it marks a world subjected by God.”126 In the words of Ellul 1990: 53, “Smoke or mist diffuses; it has no result: it is not nothingness!” This emphasis on divinely ordained (lack of) results is especially important in light of another major theme in Ecclesiastes, profit, which is announced by way of a question in 1:3. What causes the lack of results to render everything hebel is human preoccupation with turning life toward one’s permanent advantage: in short, idolatry. Thus Rom. 1:21 becomes relevant, describing idolatrous pagans: “For though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, ...