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Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
Iain Provan
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Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
Iain Provan
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The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today'' context.
To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections:
- Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context.
- Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible.
- Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved.
This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.
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Theology & ReligionSous-sujet
Biblical StudiesText and Commentary on Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes 1:1â11
THE WORDS OF the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2âMeaningless! Meaningless!â
says the Teacher.
âUtterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.â
3What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
4Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10Is there anything of which one can say,
âLook! This is something newâ?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.
Original Meaning
WE MOVE SWIFTLY, as the book opens, from the speaker to words that are spoken; yet the speaker intrigues us. He is, according to the NIV, âthe Teacherâ (vv. 1â2). Traditionally rendered as âPreacherâ (KJV, NASB), the Heb. is qohelet, probably meaning âparticipant in an assemblyâ (Heb. qahal, Gk. ekklesia, âassemblyâ; see the Introduction), or perhaps âone who assembles (a group).â We will refer to him for the sake of simplicity as âQoheletâ in the commentary, without meaning the reader to take this as a proper name.
Qohelet addresses his gathered listeners, the Israelites. He is âson of David, king in Jerusalemâ (v. 1). We immediately think of Solomon, yet it is not likely that the historical Solomon is truly the speaker. More likely Qohelet merely adopts the persona of a Davidic king for a while (probably to be identified with Solomon by his readers, although âsonâ itself need only imply a descendant) in order to facilitate those aspects of his exploration of âlife under the sunâ that require Solomonâs type of experience. He âbecomesâ for a while a king within the world of the text (see the Introduction), later abandoning this disguise in favor of others.
In the same way that Qohelet thus presents himself to us in different guises so that we may explore different aspects of reality with him, so too Qohelet himself is âpresentedâ to the reader by still another personâthe one who transmits his words to us and who makes himself known to us explicitly in 12:9â14. For all we know, we only have access to Qoheletâs words at all because this person thought them of sufficient value to pass on to his âsonâ (12:12).
Whether this âeditorial voiceâ is also to be identified throughout 1:1â2 is unclear. It is true that Qohelet is referred to in 1:1â2, as in 12:9â14, in the third person, and it is possible therefore that our âsecond voiceâ is here adding to his later epilogue an introduction to Qohelet and his words. Yet it is also possible for authors to refer to themselves in the third person, especially when introducing previously delivered sayings or previous writings that were produced, as it were, by âanother personâ (the author as he was back then). It is therefore difficult to know for sure whether parts of 1:1â2 derive from Qohelet himself or not.
This issue in any case is only important if one believes there is some conflict of perspective between Qohelet and his admirer, so that the speaker and the transmitter of his words are not saying quite the same thing. It has indeed been suggested that 1:2, along with its parallel in 12:8, represents too much of an overstatement:
1:2: âMeaningless! Meaningless!â says the Teacher. âUtterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.â
12:8: âMeaningless! Meaningless!â says the Teacher. âEverything is meaningless!â
Qohelet does not elsewhere, it is argued, speak of everything as hebel (the Heb. word behind NIVâs problematic âmeaninglessâ; see further below). It has even been suggested that 1:3 is overly anthropocentric, being focused on the usefulness of the world for human beings, whereas the remainder of the book is not (e.g., 12:1â7).1
The second of these points may quickly be addressed: It is not at all clear why one author (or an author with his editor) cannot look at the world now from one perspective and now from another. The whole book of Ecclesiastes, as we will see, contains such shifts in perspective, as human existence is considered from different points of view, with the aim of commending certain viewpoints over others. The first point, however, requires a more extended discussion, for everything depends on what we think hebel means. Here we come to a crucial matter of interpretation, given the frequency with which hebel occurs in Ecclesiastes (more than thirty times outside 1:2) and its importance in Qoheletâs thought.
It is certainly true that to translate hebel as âmeaningless,â as the NIV does, causes serious difficulties for the interpretation of the book as a unified work, for even a cursory reading of Ecclesiastes demonstrates that Qohelet does not consider everything âmeaningless.â On the contrary, he is constantly to be found recommending certain ways of being to his listeners precisely because it is possible for human beings to know the goodness and joy of existence (cf., e.g., 2:24â26; 3:12â13, 22). âEverythingâ is not âmeaningless.â
Consideration of the use of hebel elsewhere in the Old Testament does not lead us in this direction for its meaning either. Hebel means âbreathâ or âbreezeâ (Isa. 57:13), and thus by extension things that are insubstantial or fleeting or actions that are in vain or to no purpose (BDB, 210â11). Ephemerality is thus one of the main associations of hebel, including actions that are âpassingâ in the sense that they make no permanent impact or impression on reality; they are futile or pointless, and their effects do not last. It is plainly true that everything to do with human (indeed, all mortal) existence, even if not meaningless, is nevertheless âephemeralâ or âfleeting.â Consider the following texts (Ps. 39:5; 144:4; Prov. 31:30):
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each manâs life is but a breath [hebel]. (Ps. 39:5)
Man is like a breath [hebel];
his days are like a fleeting shadow. (Ps. 144:4)
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting [hebel];
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. (Prov. 31:30)
Nothing lastsâneither beauty nor life itself. It is particularly clear that throughout Ecclesiastes 11:7â12:8, hebel most naturally refers to this transient nature of human existence. It makes little sense for Qohelet to advise a young person to be happy while living reverently before God only then to remind him that âyouth and vigor are meaninglessâ (11:10)! It makes great sense for him, however, to offer this advice in the context of the brevity of youth, just as people generally are urged to enjoy all their years because âeverything to come is fleetingâ (11:8, pers. trans.). The summarizing conclusion that follows the graphic description of aging and death in 12:1â7 as well as all of Qoheletâs words (12:8) most naturally refers likewise to the fleeting nature of all things, not to their meaninglessness. If 12:8 has this meaning for hebel, then 1:2 most likely does so as well. Other verses where hebel is best translated in a similar way include 6:12, 7:15, and 9:9.
There is no conflict between Qohelet and his editor. Both wish us to understand, as the foundational truth on which Qohelet premises all his words, that life is âlike a breath.â The seriousness with which they wish their readers to grasp the point is indicated in the structure of 1:2, which is better seen in the NASB than in the NIV: â âVanity of vanities,â says the Preacher, âVanity of vanities! All is vanity.â â The fivefold repetition of the word hebel (translated here âvanityâ), and in particular the repetition of the phrase habel habalim, âvanity of vanitiesââa construction that conveys intensity and superlative, as in âheaven of heavensâ (lit., Deut. 10:14; NIV âthe highest heavensâ) or âSong of Songsâ (Song 1:1, i.e., the best of songs)âdrives home the message. We may translate Ecclesiastes 1:2 this way:
âThe merest of breaths,â
says Qohelet,
âThe merest of breaths.
Everything is a breath.â
It is not, however, just the ephemerality of reality, from the mortal point of view, that Qohelet has in mind in using hebel. It is also the elusive nature of reality, that is, the way in which it resists our attempts to capture it and contain it, to grasp hold of it and control it. This is true at the level both of understanding and of action. The way in which the world works is in some measure comprehensible to us, yet in significant measure beyond our grasp. It resists our attempts to sum it up (thus passages like 1:12â18; 7:23â29). Connected with this is also a resistance to our attempts to manipulate the world through our actions so that it produces consistent and predictable outcomes. The world has its own rhythm and order, to be sure, but it is not controllable by mortal beings.
At times Qohelet underlines this truth by representing reality as a solid and relentless entity on which human activity does not have significant impact and in respect of which human achievement seems trivial and insignificant (e.g., 1:1â11). Here it is the ephemeral, phantomlike nature of the human being when contrasted to the larger ongoing reality that disallows mortal control, for mortal actions have a fleeting, insubstantial nature in respect of the universe. The case is similar to that in Psalm 39:6, 11 (following on from 39:5, cited above):
Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain [hebel];
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it. . . .
You rebuke and discipline men for their sin;
you consume their wealth like a mothâ
each man is but a breath [hebel].
The very thought of Psalm 39:5 is found in Ecclesiastes 2:18â19 and elsewhere. However, the truth that human activity characteristically does not make the impact on reality that people hope for and may indeed have been led to expectâthat it is from this perspective pointless or futileâis not only represented in terms of phantoms who are unable to exert force on solid reality. Qohelet frequently underlines the same truth by using a quite different metaphorâby combining a hebel-saying with a reference to âchasing after the windâ (Heb. reÊżut/raÊżyon ruaáž„, as in 1:14, 17; 2:11, 17, 26; 4:4, 6, 16; 6:9). Here the image is of something that is solid trying to grasp something that is not. To chase the wind is to seek to grasp hold of and control something beyond our grasp and uncontrollable. This is self-evidently futile; it makes no more sense for a person to expect to grasp wind than for a ghost to expect to get hold of a chair.
Again, the point is not that human activity intrinsically, whether in the realm of thought or action, is âmeaninglessââQohelet clearly does not believe this. He commends wisdom over folly (e.g., 2:13â14) and advocates all sorts of activity as good and worthwhile in itself (e.g., 9:7â10). The emphasis lies not on whether certain ways of being or doing possess meaning in themselves, but on whether these ways of being or doing succeed in achieving the goals that humans often set before themselves.
Qohelet thinks not. The human attempt to impose self on reality in this ...