Price Far As The Curse Is Found

Ecclesiastes and the Man of Sorrows
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-0983-4997-4
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 198 Seiten

In this book, William Price has offered a prolegomenon for the Old Testament book Ecclesiastes. Before exploring traditional interpretations of the book, he critically explores our society's view of the world around us and how that affects our understanding of Solomon's dour book. William then examines the intertextuality of Ecclesiastes with the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament. He gives us clues on how we might pair Ecclesiastes with the gospel.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Price, William

Leseproben

Jesus, Lover of my soul,

Let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll,

While the tempest still is high!

Hide me, Oh my Savior, hide,

Till the storm of life is past;

Safe into the haven guide;

O receive my soul at last.

—Charles Wesley13

“Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”14 These are Solomon’s opening words. Nothing equals this cry in all of Scripture. It strikes us as a white squall at sea, without warning, and with violence. And it is followed by wave after towering wave of supporting argument, an assault on our belief that all is, or should be, well with the world. Solomon gives no quarter; there is little space for hope. He is the Ebenezer Scrooge of the Old Testament.

For this chapter to have full effect, I ask you, the reader, to pause. In a quiet moment, perhaps with a cup of good tea, read Ecclesiastes thoughtfully in one sitting. Go out into the storm, so to speak, with-out your oilskins, and feel its full force. Might I suggest you read it in the King James version? Robert Alter claims, “[The] King James Version is still the most adequate rendering of Qohelet’s style—in many respects, it is one of the best performances of the 1611 translators. . .”15

Then read on.

* * *

Structure

The dominant feature of Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s cry, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” That cry appears at the beginning of the book and at its end. In 1:2, it begins a poem, and in 12:8, it concludes a complementary poem. The two poems form an inclusio16 around the central text. The poems stand out not only by their literary art but also because they are written in the third person while the middle text is in the first person. The shift in person has led some to conclude that two hands are at work. But such a conclusion may be steered more by the scholar’s prior interpretive commitments than by the text itself. One need only look at another book in Israel’s wisdom literature, Job, to see a similar literary structure.

The two poems have strong ties to the creation account of Genesis in vocabulary and theme. They are poems about life on a cursed earth. They are poems about death. The first (below) features the cry of vanity at the head of the poem; the second (following) features the cry of vanity at the end of the poem, a deliberate positioning.17 The first poem is cosmic in scope and concerns the endless cycles of creation and the death of generations of men and women; the second is individual and personal and describes old age and death metaphorically.

Poem 1 (Ecclesiastes 1)

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.18

Poem 2 (Ecclesiastes 12)

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;

Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.19

David Clemens makes a case that the two poems are the most significant structural elements of Ecclesiastes and that death is the dominant motif of the book.20 Common vocabulary and themes bind the poems (see Appendix C).

Death is clearly the second poem’s theme. But the ties between the two suggest that death is also the dominant theme of the first poem. Of all creation’s cycles—the rivers and sea, the wind, the rising and setting sun—death is the most unrelenting. We see this in the contrasts and the similarities of human life and the cycles of creation.

Contrasts

There is a strong sense in the first poem that the creation is achingly old, and we who must perish are subject to the relentless march of time. “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.”21

We are born, but nothing is new. As we age, the only possible response we can have to ancient, unchanging creation is our weariness. Man, through ingenuity and labor, might shape this world to a degree, but it is the world that will wear a man down. Futility must penetrate and color man’s soul despite his every resistance. And it is in old age (the second poem) that futility asserts itself in personal finality: death. The futility we see in all creation will take us captive; we cannot escape the curse. The rivers must flow to the sea; the ocean must, in the end, reclaim the shore.

Death, like an overflowing stream,

Sweeps us away; our life’s a dream,

An empty tale, a morning flow’r,

Cut down and withered in an hour.

—Isaac Watts22

Similarities

Three elements of creation are likened to the life of man: the sun, the wind, and the rivers. The sun rises; the sun sets. A day is born; a day dies. Then a new day is born, and the last is no more.

The wind blows to the south and then turns to the north and repeats the cycle. There is no record on the everlasting earth of its circuit. There is only today’s wind. So is the life of man. He is born; he toils; he dies. Just as the wind goes and comes, so a man’s “spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”23

The rivers all run into the sea, but the sea is not full. So, a man labors all his life, but there is no enduring result of his work.

Most interpretations of Ecclesiastes turn (too quickly!) on a few words or phrases unique to the book. But those words or phrases are not turnkeys to popular interpretations. Far from it. Properly understood, they steer us in other directions.

Words and Phrases

Vanity

The English vanity has two meanings:

1.Excessive pride in one’s appearance or accomplishments; conceit;

2.Something vain, futile, or worthless.24

It is the latter meaning that is in view in Ecclesiastes.

The word vanity appears in various forms seventy-eight times in the Old Testament.25 Nearly half (thirty-eight) of those are in Ecclesiastes alone, a book comprising less than 2 percent of the text of the Old Testament. Ecclesiastes fairly drips with this word. Vanity is repeated five times in the second verse of chapter 1...