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[First posted in 2013. Sinaites do not consider the whole of the “Bible” as the “very words of God” like we did when we were Christians. We have come to believe that the Torah or first five books of Moses contain “the very words of God” as well as instructions given to Israel’s Prophets directed to Israel , specifically warnings about judgment if they continued to be disobedient to the Torah. So we read Wisdom books as words of men who have gained wisdom from the instructions of YHWH in the Torah: Proverbs 1:7 & 9:10:, Psalm 111:10: “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” First posted in 2013, part of Wisdom Books – 1; from our MUST READ/MUST OWN: A Literary Guide to the Bible. Reformatting and highlights added.—Admin1.]
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Proverbs
None of the biblical writings is strictly speaking a “book” in the modern sense, which carries a connotation of final form—something the ancient works did not have until a canon or normative version was fixed by the tradition. Moreover, in the earlier period scrolls were used that had to be rolled and unrolled. Even the later codex did not have a binding to enclose its contents. The necessary fluidity of what we retroactively call a book in the Bible is especially evident in Proverbs, which, it is generally agreed, is a collection of literary proverbs and Wisdom poems.
There is a consensus on the outline of Proverbs and also on a very broad chronology.
- Chapters 10-22:16 and 25-29 probably come from an earlier period, before the Babylonian Exile.
- Chapters 22:17-24:34 may be later and are thought to be heavily dependent on an Egyptian Wisdom text, the Instruction of Amenemopet.
- Chapters 1-9 are later, probably post-Exilic, and form an introduction to the rest of the collection.Chapters 30-31 are a kind of appendix and may be late, like chapters 1-9.
- This segment is made up of Wisdom poems of varying lengths, including narratives in which Lady Wisdom speaks (1:20-33, 8:22-31).
This way of outlining the contents indicates a continuous tradition reflected in the construction of a longer and longer scroll.
But who composed it, and for whom?
Answering this question is difficult. When we consider a work like Abot in the Talmud we are aided by our knowledge of the rabbinic tradition. Abot was evidently intended as a compendium offering a summary of what the “fathers” (sages and rabbis) taught. It presents primarily maxims, but these maxims are obviously related to the legal cases catalogued in other tractates of the Mishnah, as well as to issues later taken up and tales in the Gemara (the extension of the Mishnah).
Concerning Proverbs, however, we cannot say as much.
- Perhaps Proverbs was “a source book of instructional materials for the cultivation of personal morality and private wisdom.”
- It could have served as a source of loci communes or “commonplaces” for speakers and sages. The different collections in chapters 10-29 would have been especially appropriate for such a use.
The introduction to the entire collection (1:1) attributes the proverbs to Solomon.
- Chapters 10-22:16 are headed “the proverbs of Solomon,”
- and chapters 25-29 are identified as “proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah kind of Judah copied out” (25:1).
In fact, although there are few allusions in Proverbs to the national religious traditions and cultic institutions, the attribution of the entire work as well as parts of it to Solomon shows the mythic tendency of the later Wisdom tradition.
- The legend of Solomon as the wise ruler of Israel’s golden age (1 Kings 3:16-28, 4:20-34, 10:1-29) resulted in his becoming the “patron saint,” so to speak, of the Wisdom tradition in post-Exilic and Hellenistic times.
- His name is also associated with the Song of Songs in the Old Testament and Book of Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon) in Apocrypha.
- We have also the Psalms of Solomon from the same period as the Wisdom of Solomon, about the first century B.C.E.
- A still later work, the Odes of Solomon, was probably written after 100 C.E. It may have been written by a Jew and revised by a Christian, though this is uncertain. In style and theme it is akin to the Gospel of John.
The mythical principle at work in bringing these texts under the aegis of Solomon is a truth cherished in every traditional society, namely that only the arche or beginning is valuable. In this case, Solomon’s reign is viewed as the beginning and point of orientation of Israelite Wisdom.
Although this mythic tendency has little to do with the specific form and content of the proverbs and collections in Proverbs, it underwrites the voice of the elders that the transmitters believed was speaking through the proverbs and allies this voice of authority, albeit tenuously, with a great figure of Israel’s history.
One problem in reading the actual proverbs of the collection is that they have indeed become proverbial, especially as translated in the King James Version.
Pride goeth before destruction,
and an haughty spirit before a fall. (16:18)
A soft answer turneth away wrath:
but grievous words stir up anger. (15:1)
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging:
and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. (20:1)
These renderings in the King James Version are part of our cultural heritage and still retain their literary force. Yet even when the effect in English is pleasing, the Hebrew poetry may not be adequately conveyed.
A literal rendering of Proverbs 16:18 would be something like this:
Before breaking [is] pride
and before falling [is] haughtiness of mind.
What gives this proverb its punch in Hebrew is a quick juxtaposition of images, an almost stroboscopic effect. First there is a rapid flash of words: “before breaking,” followed by “pride” without a verb; then a second phrase flashes: “before stumbling” (or “reeling”), followed by “haughtiness of mind” (or “spirit”). The King James Version is not bad, though it misses the total effect. But some of the modern translations merely compound the boredom readers may feel for the commonplace and their resistance to it when it is associated with the voice of authority. The New English Bible, for example, is accurate enough, but it practically turns the proverb into pale prose:
Pride comes before disaster,
and arrogance before a fall.
Here all the vividness, the picturing power of the proverb, is lost.
It would be wide of the mark to argue that all the proverbs are literary masterpieces. But they are poetic compositions; that is, they are clearly intended as elevated speech which has marked features of special linguistic ordering. Some of them are artful to the point of being real literary art so that it is possible to speak of a “poetry of Wisdom.” The literary foundation of this Wisdom poetry is the binary proverb, which is composed of two members or phrases drawn together into a sort of parallelism. The various forms that are typical of Wisdom literature may be viewed as extensions and variations of this formal base. Here are two proverbs which I have translated more or less literally in order to suggest this rapid binary, juxtapositional form:
Despiser of his neighbor: lacking of mind
and man of discernment: keeps still. (11:12 [AT])
Goer as gossip: concealer of counsel
and faithful of spirit: concealer of speech. (11:13 [AT])
The King James Version, in a comfortable prose amble, renders:
He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbor:
but a man of understanding holdeth his peace.
A talebearer revealeth secrets:
but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.
The two proverbs just cited are instances of what biblical scholarship called the “sentence” or “sentence proverb”: an observation or assertion composed of two members or phrases that are usually in synonyms or antitherical parallelism.
One scholar has recently called into question the very existence of parallelism as the basic structure of ancient Hebrew poetry; and indeed, the standard definitions, which usually emphasize compositional elements of equal importance, balance, and antithesis, are doubtless inadequate. Nonetheless, parallelism is a convenient descriptive word when properly qualified, as I shall show later in this section.
Another kind of proverb is the “instruction” or “instruction proverb.” It is characterized by a verb in the mode of command or prohibition, with a second member, or set of members, that gives an explanation. Here are two examples:
Speak not in the ears of a fool:
for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. (23:9)
Remove not the old landmark;
and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
For their redeemer is mighty;
he shall plead their cause with thee. (23:10-11)
The second text is clearly an expansion of the instruction form, and it illustrates concretely how closely related the Wisdom and legal traditions were in their concern for the right ordering of human life. The first member of the proverb is a prohibition which is almost exactly the same as the one in Deuteronomy 19:14.
The literary proverbs were composed from the stuff of life, the concerns of different spheres of existence. The common ground shared by Deuteronomy 19:14 and Proverbs 23:10 illustrates this principle. Two forms that were derived from folk traditions are particularly interesting and merit mention here. One was the folk saying. In the Old Testament there are some folk sayings that are generally recognized by biblical critics (for example, Gen. 10:9; Judges 8:21; 15:16; 1 Sam. 10:11,12; 24:13, 14; 2 Sam. 20:18; 1 Kings 20:11; Jer. 13:12,23; 17:11; 31:29; Ezek. 18:2). They typically very concise, use alliteration and assonance, and often employ wordplay. Like the literary short forms of Proverbs, these sayings presuppose the principle of retributive justice. These literary and conceptual features are shared with the proverbs of the Book of Proverbs, though the latter display a refined poetic development within the constraints of parallelism and the explanatory clauses of the instruction form.
It is instructive to find folk saying in Proverbs that are expanded into binary proverbs. Here are two examples:
When pride cometh, then cometh shame:
but with the lowly is wisdom. (11:2)
In all labour there is profit:
but the talk of the lips tendeth to poverty. (14:23 [AR]).
In the first one, the folk saying is pithy and assonant, its point reinforced by internal rhyme (ba’ zadon wayavo qalon, “comes pride then comes shame”). That could be followed by any number of second phrases, but what actually follows offers a vivid poetic contrast, one far removed from the ambience of the folk saying. The contrast would be comparable to taking one of our own sayings, “Birds of a feather flock together,” and adding to it “but fools fare ill with the wise.”
In the second member of Proverbs 11:2 the image of the “lowly” is a subtly clever contrast to “shame.” The latter in Hebrew, qalon, comes from a root meaning “light” or “worthless.” The form of the proverb suggests that truly weighty people, those who have wisdom, make themselves light or apparently example, Proverbs14:23, the first member has a familiar meaning, like the German Arbeit macht Freude,“Work brings joy,” and similar sayings in other cultures. The second member, while not producing a highly nuanced effect, comes across with a certain vigor by the use of the contrasting “poverty” (“penury” in the King James Version). The effect is more sparkling in the Hebrew words motar/mahsor: profit is set against lack, plus against minus, and the opening and closing consonants of the two words are the same. Perhaps “profit” and “privation” would give a better sense of the sound play in Hebrew.
The other form derived from folk traditions that merits attention is the riddle. In the Old Testament the only full quotation of what we normally call a riddle is ascribed to Samson in Judges 14:14, but the Israelites may have understood their word hidah much more broadly than our ordinary usage.
The Hebrew word is used in Numbers 12:8 as the contrary of YHWH’s communication with Moses: “With him will I speak mouth to mouth… and not in dark speeches [behidot].” In two psalms the word is connected to the word for parable or proverb (mashal) (Ps. 49:4, 78:2). The introduction to Proverbs states that a wise person will learn “the words of the wise, and their dark sayings” (1:6). There is therefore no doubt that the riddle or “dark saying” was one of the literary forms associated with Wisdom, and since riddles are always popular at the folk level, their use offers another example of the relation of literary proverbs to popular culture.
To what extent are there riddles in Proverbs? Given the broad semantic range of the Hebrew term hidah, there are certainly many enigmas or dark sayings among the proverbs. But even with the common usage of the English term in mind, we can discern partially concealed riddles that have been adapted to the form of the binary proverb. It may have been a great challenge to take a riddle, form a riddling assertion from it for the first member of the proverb, then fashion the answer into the second member. This could take the form of an arresting metaphor in the first phrase, which is then answered with a conventional teaching in the second phrase.
As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout,
so is a fair woman which is without discretion. (11:22)
In other words, “[What is as amazing or incongruous as] a gold ring in a swine’s snout?” The riddle is answered in the second line. Exactly the same in form is this proverb:
Clouds and winds and no rain
is a man who boasts of a gift not given. (25:14 [AT])
A riddle is employed within a longer poem in 6:27-28:
Can a man take fire in his bosom,
and his clothes not be burned?
Can one go upon hot coals,
and his feet not be burned?
These questions presuppose the riddling form, “Who is it that?” or “Who is the man?” Whatever the correct response might be to a riddle like this in the folk setting, the answer in this poem is “he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife” (6:29). As a hidah in the context of a short poem it is understandably more complex than the popular riddle would be. The right answer intimates that yes, in one respect the man’s clothes are not burned, nor are his feet. There is no observable sign of his escapade—immediately. But he is bound to be “burned” by dishonor (6:33), one the worst things possible in the world of traditional Wisdom. He may also have to face the wrath of the woman’s husband, who burns with his own fire, the fire of jealousy (6:34)!
The dynamic elements of the literary proverb are —
- intensification,
- narrativity, and
- metaphoric play.
Intensification refers to the strengthening or sharpening of the second phrase of the binary form. The second member is often not a simple parallel to the first, but augments it. The following two proverbs illustrate intensification.
By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted:
but by the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown. (11:11[AR])
The tiller of the soil has his fill of bread:
but the pursuer of vanities has an empty head. (12:11 [AT])
The first member of Proverbs 11:11 reads initially like a vague and somewhat ambiguous generalization. Does a city grow and prosper because the upright are simply present in it (see Ezek. 14:14), or because they pronounce a blessing upon it? Even if the second meaning is intended, the thought seems rather abstract. But with the completing antithetical phrase the total image becomes concrete and vivid. It is the mouth of the wicked—their concrete acts of speaking—that destroys a civilized community. In 12:11, the first member has the style of a folk saying. The second member sets up a contrast with the first and so makes the binary proverb a more inclusive comment on life in the world. It does this by depicting a type of human being who is removed from everything solid and substantial. This person pursues “vanities” (in Hebrew reqim, “empty things”) rather than working his soil; rather than being full or satisfied he is empty or lacking. The Hebrew expression, hasar-lev, literally “lacking of mind,” is a way of saying “empty-headed.” The extreme contrast between this pursuer of vanities and the tiller of his soil results in a revised view of the latter. Now he is not simply the model of an able farmer, but a paradigm of the prudent person.
In the binary proverbs that work by intensification there is a kind of silent adverbial emphasis implied at the beginning of each member which is more effective by not being stated. “[As is well known,] by the blessing of the upright the city if exalted / [even more so,] by the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown.” One confirmation of the actuality of intensification lies with the two proverbs which utilize af-ki, “how much more [or less],” rather than the simple conjunction “and” (15:11, 19:10).
Delight is not seemly for a fool:
how much less for a slave to rule over princes. (19:10 [AR])
Narrativity is the telling of a process of acts, events, or experiences. It would obviously not be present except in the very compact form in proverbs, which make up a genre lying to the contrary extreme of narrative forms. But the use of tightly controlled narrative phrases empowers many of the proverbs. Narrativity often also involves intensification, but the object is to depict an orderly process moving from one state to another along a path of consequences. For a little humorous scene I would cite Proverbs19:24:
The sluggard hides his hand in the dish—
he won’t even lift it to his mouth! [AT]
The two phrases here are not parallel. In fact the juxtaposition is a little surprising: we would expect the sluggard to be pictured as a glutton is the second member, or to be told that he expends no effort to work for his food. Instead, we leave him with his hand buried in the bowl. This is pointedly aborted narrativity: we would expect an action or further action, but nothing happens—an apt fate for the sluggard.
A more typical example of narrativity is a proverb which is a paradigm of the role of language in the world of Wisdom.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue:
and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. (18:21)
In the first phrase we are given a tableau which then comes alive with movement in the second phrase. The tongue is a feminine noun in Hebrew. The expression “in the power of “ is literally “in the hand of.” We glimpse a picture of a woman who holds death and life in her hand. We sense a mythic allusion, and the second phrase verifies this intuition: her ‘ohavim, her friends or lovers, shall eat of the fruit she offers. We are reminded of the woman in the paradisaic garden. The fruit is taken by those who love language. The outcome of their action is ambiguous—or perhaps one should say her fruit is ambiguous. Is it good fruit, the fruit of life, or is eating language’s fruit always a partaking of life and death together? Perhaps the proverb intends to say more or less what Lady Wisdom says in 8:17: “I love them that love me”(see 8:21).
If a proverb achieves its effect by means of narrativity, the key to reading it may reside in the second phrase or member, especially if the first member makes a general assertion or states a general principle. “The memory of the just is blessed” (10:7a) is a line well known to the Jewish tradition in its Hebrew form (zekher tsadiq livrakhah). But the narratival contrast of the second member may have been the proverb’s source of appeal in the biblical period: “but the name of the wicked shall rot” (10:7b). Similarly, the explanatory clauses of two instruction proverbs (23:17-18, 24:19-20) both begin with a traditional truism about the principle of retribution, which is then filled out by a compact narration of consequences:
For surely there is a future [AR]
and [even more surely] thine expectation shall not be cut off. (23:18)
For there shall be no reward to the evil man;
[surely] the lamp [AR] of the wicked shall be put out. (24:20)
I have added adverbial qualifiers to the second members in order to bring out the intensification that reinforces the narrative quality.
As significant as narrativity and intensification may be, metaphoric play is the most important element of Wisdom poetics, as it is of language in general. My starting point is Benjamin Hrushovski’s illuminating argument that metaphor is not merely one imaging word that expresses concretely a reality absent from the text. Most biblical scholars approach the role of metaphor in this limited way, finding a few images that are clearly metaphorically rich (such as “a soft tongue breaketh bone,” Prov. 25:15), but missing the total metaphor in many proverbs. Consider Proverbs 14:11:
The house of the wicked shall be overthrown:
but the tent [AR] of the upright shall flourish.
The words “house” and “tent” are metonyms that stand for the family or clan. As discrete words they are insipid. But the two phrases as a total poetic line paint a vivid verbal picture: the house of the wicked is torn down, whereas the tent of the upright flourishes. Some contemporary commentators and translators understand “tent” as an exact poetic parallel to “house” that does not change the meaning of a permanent, solidly structured dwelling place (see, for example, the New English Bible). But the second half of the proverb offers more than a contrast of the upright person and his prosperity with the wicked and his ill fortune; it also juxtaposes a temporary shelter to a house. The upright and his family fare better in a tent than do the wicked in a house!
Metaphor is better understood as a pattern that functions within the interplay of frames of reference. Hrushovski defines a frame of reference as “any continuum of two or more referents to which parts of a text or its interpretation may relate … Its ontological status is immaterial; it is anything we can talk about.” An important aspect of Hrushovski’s concept of frame of reference in indeterminacies, places in a text that are not covered by the detailed representation of language. Some of these indeterminacies become gaps which the reader has to fill in. Sensitivity to gaps is particularly important for interpreting aphoristic language, whose very “gappiness,” or dearth of connections and context, is generically inherent.
Let us consider as an illustration of metaphoric play 18:21, which we cited earlier as an expression of the importance accorded to language. The proverb begins with the grand abstractions “death and life,” but the combination of the two is a way of saying “everything important and real.” This pair is followed by very concrete referents from the everyday world, “in the hand of the tongue.” It is strange to put this combination together in English, but “in the hand of” was probably such a basic colloquialism that the Hebrew ear would have experienced no dissonance—at least in the first half of the proverb, for through the second half the initial expression takes a new life. The word “tongue,” moreover, suggests concrete acts of speaking as well as language generally. We see, then, in the first member, two frames of reference: fr1, the concrete world of bodily members (hand, tongue); fr2, the surrounding cultural world (life and death as everything important, language). The second member of the proverb offers a third frame of reference, that the mythical world of the garden where a woman offers fruit to her lovers. The upshot is that we reread fr2 in light of fr3. The tongue is no longer an organ or a dead metaphor for language, but something more and in between the two. Like a woman, it has lovers who seek its fruit; like the mythical woman in the garden, its fruit is a reality that involves human destiny.
Clearly, there is one word here that is the metaphoric key, lashon, “tongue,” but the metaphoric reality encompasses an interplay among the frames of reference. Fr1suggests fr2, which is reread in light of fr3. But once we reread through the window of fr3 we are led back to fr1 by virtue of the “sound-meaning interactions.” The semantics of the text saturate the sounds of the words with certain implications, which in turn reinforce a total pattern of meaning or meaning-tone.
To illustrate this it is necessary to transcribe the Hebrew words:
mawet wehayim beyad lashon
death and-life in-hand [of] tongue
we’ohaveha yokhal piryah
and-her-lovers will-eat her-fruit
Once we notice the lovers eat fruit and the predominance of labial sounds (consonants requiring lip articulation: m, w, b, v, and p) in the two members, we are brought back to the concrete world of hand and tongue in a new way. The use of language is as immediately real, as significantly consequential, as eating and holding something in the hand. Eating suggests speaking, and vice versa, and the intimation of sexual intercourse suggests that language is not only communication but also pleasurable connection and correspondence.
We are left, to be sure, with an indeterminacy that becomes a gap for the seeker of wisdom. What is this life and death that we are ingesting as language’s fruit? Knowing a proverb is not a substitute for the search. We could, of course, look to Proverbs 1-9, whose expansion of the proverb and use of narrative include the representation of Lady Wisdom’s appeal to humankind. She cries out in the streets (1:20), she is the very companion of God and delights in the sons of men (8:22-31). But Lady Wisdom’s is not a voice that the skeptical Ecclesiastes heard. For him the ambiguity of “death and life” was weighted in death’s favor.
Ecclesiastes is known as the “Preacher” in the English-speaking tradition, owing to the influence of the King James Version. In the Christian tradition ekklesiastes was understood as “one of the church” or “churchman” because the Greek word for church is ekklesia. The Greek title, however, is a translation of the Hebrew qohelet (Eccles. 1:1, 12; 7:27; 12:9-10), whose exact import eludes us. It comes from a Hebrew root meaning “to gather” or “to assemble,” and it is related to the noun qahal,“assembly” or “congregation.” Perhaps it refers to gathering people together, as a teacher would, or it may be an allusion to the function of composing words or assembling one’s teachings (see Eccles. 12:9: “and [he] set in order many proverbs”). But the title is a feminine particle, a form of this root that occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. The odd use of the feminine gender, together with the fact that the term is associated with Solomon (though without naming him; see 1:1, 12), suggests the author wanted his work to be recognized as part of Israel’s Wisdom tradition but not taken literally as the wisdom of Solomon.
However we translate the word, the speaker in the book is the skeptic par excellence of the Old Testament. Since the title Ecclesiastes has become misleading associated with the Church and the role of the preacher, I shall refer to the voice speaking in the book by the Hebrew Qohelet. Qohelet is a kind of “preacher,” but a preacher of skepticism who sets himself against the Wisdom of order.
Ecclesiastes is a collection of teachings. No analysis of its design has gained a scholarly consensus. It seems clear that development of thought does not occur after chapter 3. We must look for guiding metaphors and take note when these metaphors emerge as thematic patterns. The author’s style and outlook were probably influenced to some extent by the Hellenistic resembles the Greek idea of the immortality of the soul (see 3:21), and his writing may have been affected by Greek literary forms, such asparainesis (exhortation). But all in all, it is best to see Ecclesiastes as a work composed of ancient Hebrew literary forms, which the author employs in both conventional and unconventional ways.
For example, Qohelet often quotes proverbs:
That which is crooked cannot be made straight:
and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. (1:15)
For in much wisdom is much grief:
and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. (1:18)
It is possible, of course, that the writer, both in these verses and elsewhere, has composed his own proverbs and presented them in a deliberately archaizing manner.
In general, the writer uses poetic parallelism, even when he is writing rhythmic prose rather than verse. A reflection-fragment such as 4:1 is actually built up out of the kind of parallelism that both adds to and intensifies what has already been stated:
So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done
under the sun;
And behold, the tears of the oppressed,
and they had no comforter:
and on the side of their oppressors there was power,
but they had no comforter. [AT]
This same dynamic of incremental repetition is beautifully wrought in the introductory poem on the cosmos and human existence, 1:3-11. Consider verses 3-6:
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 forever.
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 its circuits.
Human labor (fr1) is placed within the context of societal and cosmic cycles (fr2). The latter could be a source of comfort, for they are enduring and perpetual. But they are not comforting to Qohelet, who asks what one can gain from them. In the thematic pronouncement just before this poem he has said, “Vanity of vanities … vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (1:2). This point of view clarifies the second frame of reference. The Hebrew word behind “vanity” is hevel, which means “vapor” or “breath.” “’Vapor of vapors,’ says Qohelet. If everything is vapor, then the round of generations and the turnings of sun and wind and waters are but the recycling of a mist or a breath whose reality is this: it disappears. The fiction of Qohelet as “the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (1:1; see also 1:12) establishes still another frame of reference, that of the royal patron of wisdom, who informs the reader by verse 11 that there is nothing profitable to know!
This voice of the royal patron of Wisdom is obviously a fiction. It is not to be identified with the writer’s own position any more than Moses in Deuteronomy is identical with the author(s) of the Torah, or Jonathan Swift with Gulliver, or Joel Chandler Harris with Uncle Remus. Indeed, if we think in terms of personas or roles in the literary work, there are three in Ecclesiastes:
1. The frame-narrator who presents Qohelet (1:1). His voice slips in, perhaps inadvertently, at 7:27, and he speaks in an epilogue which serves partially to mitigate the effects of Qohelet’s skepticism (12:8-14).
2. Qohelet the narrating voice who observes the world and recounts his experiences (for example, 1:3-6, 1:12, 2:1).
3. Qohelet the experiencing subject, whose experiences are narrated by the reviewing voice. The clearest example of this is 2:1-17, the experiment with three ways of life.
The appeal of this work of Wisdom is therefore not to the authority of an ancient tradition, but to the voice of individual experience. The focus on individual experience and the rhetoric of argumentation build up a massive case against the foundations of traditional Wisdom. One of the most common devices of this rhetoric is to use a proverb or a proverblike form to undercut conventional conclusions. When Qohelet the narrating voice says aphoristically,
The thing that hath been done, 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. (1:9)
He is really arguing against the thought of gain or comfort from the recurrence of all things (see 1:2-3, 11). When he reflects that living a long life is not necessarily satisfying (6:1-6), he adds:
All the labour of man is for his mouth,
and yet the appetite is not filled. (6:7)
The author was probably familiar with a proverb like the one in Proverbs 16:26. But whereas there the appetite works for the laborer to motivate him, Qohelet avers that the appetite (nefesh, or “soul”) is insatiable. Qohelet finds in human experience a craving for something more than is presently possessed, a desire for an excess, a profit. What would this profit be, and what is the lack that Qohelet cannot satisfy for himself?
A hint at the answer is given in 7:1, which is the most paradoxical use of the offsetting saying in Ecclesiastes (see also 4:5-6):
A good name is better than precious ointment;
and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
The first phrase reads like a traditional saying. A good name or reputation carries with it all the desirable connotations of virtue and wisdom: discipline, judicious use of language, industriousness, respect for the tradition. A name is a power in its own right that perpetuates the reality of the family. A very similar line is found in Proverbs 22:1, but in Ecclesiastes the thought has the clever simplicity of a folk saying. In Hebrew it is a chiasm:
tov shem mi-shemen tov
good a-name from-oil good
but the effect is as jarring as a Zen koan when it is joined to the second phrase. The day of death better than one’s day of birth? Yes, that is what the persona Qohelet says. Since fortune is fickle, one cannot count on preserving a good name. And even if one is able to hold on to this precious possession, a good name amounts to vapor if the bearer of the name must face a fleeting existence that hurries toward death.
Qohelet makes no bones about his agony at the prospect of death, which means for him that there is no profit of any sort, material, intellectual, or spiritual. One passage where he says this quite clearly also illustrates another aspect of his rhetoric, one which is more straightforward than the use of proverb against proverb. Here, as frequently, he present a conventional Wisdom idea in the form of a proverb and then contradicts it with his view of the truth of human experience that the proverb does not comprehend.
Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly,
as far as light excelleth darkness.
The wise man’s eyes are in his head;
but the fool walketh in darkness;
and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. (2:13-14)
Everything is in order about the wise person, who has eyes where they should be. He has the light of wisdom, which directs him. The context of the verses is the threefold experiment of the king. Pleasure and achievement have been tried and found wanting (2:1-11); and, given what we know from the still larger context (chap. 1), we suspect that wisdom will be found wanting too. This is exactly what happens when the Wisdom sayings are confronted by the “I” of the experiencer: “and I myself perceived that one event happeneth to them all.” The one “event” is death. Wise person and fool both share the same fate (2:15), as do humans and beasts (3:19-21).
For the voice that speaks and relates its experiences in Ecclesiastes, existence is like vapor, insubstantial; one cannot gain anything of lasting value from it. There may be right times for everything, as Qohelet enumerates in poetic lines (3:1-8). It was certainly common wisdom that there is a proper time for everything, and the sagacious person will know how to discern it and use it (see Deut. 11:14; Jer. 5:24; Ps. 1:3, 31:15, 104:27; Prov.15:23). But then comes the question that arrests the poetic repetition of 3:1-8: “What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?” (3:9). In fact, it is as though God has played a trick on humankind in making the human creature a divided being:
[God] hath made every thing beautiful in its time;
also he hath set the everlasting [ha’olam] in their heart,
so that no man can find out the work
that God maketh from the beginning to the end. (3:11[AR])
The Hebrew word I have translated as “the everlasting” should perhaps be rendered “world,” as in later Hebrew and in the King James Version. It is understood as “love of the world” in a rabbinic source, the Midrash Rabbah on Ecclesiastes. The word ‘olam means “world, age, distant time.” In context, it signifies something basic, something at the heart of things, “what God maketh from the beginning to the end.” In other words, man bears within his heart or mind the very secret of the ongoing life that surrounds him and in which he participates. (In fact some commentators render ‘olam as “secret” or “hidden thing.”) Yet a human being, certainly one like Qohelet, does not feel like a participant and lacks any satisfying control over his destiny (see 1:15, 7:13). The creature man is trapped between the secret of the divine work planted in his mind and the vaporous existence that is his lot. He cannot grasp the ‘olam, even though it is within him.
In this predicament of a vaporous existence pursued without profit there is one recourse that Qohelet advocates: to enjoy the portion (heleq) that one may find or receive. This portion is happiness or joy, the joy of the immediate experiences of eating and drinking, work, and conjugal love (2:10; 3:22; 5:17-18; 9:6,9). This happiness should be accepted, one may rejoice in it, but it may not be kept as “profit” for the future. The sage Qohelet thus sets immediate, pleasurable experience against the order of thought and discipline transmitted in Israel’s traditional Wisdom.
Behold that which I have seen:
it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink,
and to enjoy the good of all his labour
that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life,
which God giveth him: for it is his portion. (5:18)
In Proverbs 10-31 the tradition offers the power of language and a set of assumptions and metaphors which form the human world, providing a bridge between the self and the world. In the poems of Proverbs 1-9 Wisdom itself becomes a mediating symbol between God and the created order.
- For Sirach it is the priesthood, the custodians of the tradition, and Wisdom as Torah that offer direction and the good life.
- For the rabbinic tradition the Torah, as guarded and cherished by the covenant people, enables the Jew to find a passage to life through the chaos of evil and human divisions.
- For the Christian tradition it is the Christ, Jesus as the Anointed One, who opens the way form the human predicament to divine salvation.
But Qohelet can articulate no way, no bridge or mediating reality from the predicament of profitless vanity to the everlasting work of God. Wisdom with a capitalW is impossible for him. The world is simply too much to think and say (1:8). His one real affirmation—besides the counsel to be prudent, which does not involve a real yea-saying to life—is to enjoy one’s portion as it may be given.
Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing
it is for the eyes to behold the sun:
But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all:
yet let him remember the days of darkness;
for they shall be many.
All that cometh is vanity. (11:7-8)
