"The author of Ecclesiastes, the Teacher, is a sage who has lived longand has grown weary of life’s vicissitudes.
Death makes fools even of
the wise.
Q: What does it matter how hard one works if after death one’s
name is forgotten and one’s riches are given to someone else
(Ecclesiastes 1:11; 2:18-19)?
A: All is hevel (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The refrain runs throughout the book (25 times in all). Though traditionally translated “vanity,” hevel is better translated “absurdity, meaninglessness, vapor.”And
yet, the Teacher is not a nihilist....
Teacher recognizes a certain reliable order that God has put in
creation, a time and a season for everything (3:1-8).
We
are to recognize our own mortality in the face of God’s eternity and be
appropriately chastened: “I know that whatever God does endures
forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has
done this, so that all should stand in awe [literally, “fear”] before
him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).
The knowledge that life is hevel
(fleeting, ephemeral) should lead us neither to asceticism nor to
licentiousness. It should lead, instead, to humility ...Martin Luther writes of the
misplaced desire that Ecclesiastes seeks to address:
“What
is being condemned in this book, therefore, is not the
creatures [i.e.
the things God has created] but the depraved affection and desire of us
men, who are not content with the creatures of God that we have and with
their use but are always anxious and concerned to accumulate riches,
honors, glory, and fame, as though we were going to live here forever;
and meanwhile we become bored with the things that are present and
continually yearn for other things, and then still others.”Luther’s description fits our society as much or more than that of 16th
century Europe. Ecclesiastes seeks to address such soul-sickness with a
reality check: We are going to die. Such knowledge, however, should
lead not to despair but to humility." KathrynM.Schifferdecker
