The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." Eccles. 1:1, 2

Ecclesiastes leaves no doubt as to its thesis, which it immediately (and repeatedly) sums up with the use of the Hebrew word hebel. The root of the word has to do with breath or wind, which by extension from the transitory nature of wind evolved to denote meaninglessness, futility, emptiness, or uselessness. Michael Fox in the Journal of Biblical Literature suggests that the English word that best catches the nuance of hebel as it is used here is "absurdity."1 The doubling of the word compounds its intensity: of all the many absurdities you will encounter in life, this is the most absurd of them (as reflected in the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version, "vanity of vanities").

A common—and probably not entirely successful—device is to read these statements through the eyes of King Solomon, he of wealth, security, wisdom, and wives. "Look at all that King Solomon had—and he wasn’t happy!" The implication is that since we’re not Solomons, we’re safe. This is a facile moral lesson, possibly propelled by envy, that disparages ambition and gives ephemeral comfort to those of us who may have privately rued our own stupidity, poverty, insecurity, and monogamy.

The New Interpreter’s Bible suggests that from the dating of the Hebrew, the book wasn’t written by Solomon at all. More importantly, using Solomon as our key figure evades the author’s purpose—which is not to say that rich people, secure people, smart people, or those with a harem will find their gains unsatisfying in the end. It is to say that in view of the shortness and frustrations of life, everyone will find his or her achievements unsatisfying in the end, whether that amounts to much or little. This is meant as a human lesson, not just a rich, accomplished person’s lesson.

There is little equivocation in Ecclesiastes, little mushiness of purpose. The author repeats his dark message for the greater part of the book, and illustrates it specifically. He does not, at least at this point in the soliloquy, appear to be setting up a case for the futility of life only so he can knock it down later for enhanced effect, for the book never comes through with a very deep store of hopefulness. His examples of life’s absurdity are weighty and insistent, compared to relatively brief and superficial prescriptions for living above it.

For this reason, be careful not to offer fellow members of your Sabbath School class a too-easy path out of the darkness of this book. We human beings resist facing life’s darkness and will rebel (particularly when our faith is in play) at remaining quiescent in this sort of existential gloom. Which is why we’ll tell a terminal cancer patient, with forced jocularity, "Oh, you’ll get better. You’ll be walking out of this hospital in no time." A lie, we know, but one that keeps us (and, we falsely suppose, the patient) from feeling bad.

Similarly, it is tempting to rush through the dark parts of Ecclesiastes and say, "Yes, but we can be happy, in spite of the absurdity of it all!" Just remember that Scripture keeps trying to tell us that the expectation for a fully satisfying life on this earth is in vain, which is why a heaven is promised, and why this author is so unrelenting in his dark assessment of life here.

Of course, we believe that there is hope at the end of the human story (even though this preacher seemed not to grasp its extent). But it is essential that we remain with the author of Ecclesiastes awhile, listen carefully to him, hear what he is saying, and believe him. He is feeling that life on this earth is vain, hopeless, empty, and absurd. Period. Though he eventually, almost reluctantly, catches glimpses of ways to make life bearable, you cannot gloss over his feelings—nor those of your class members who may feel the same way. Life is sometimes just not very good, and the most absurd thing of all is to try to force hopefulness into it when the need (as here) is to have someone hear how much you’re hurting.

Interestingly, the word hebel is the same Hebrew word as the name of Adam and Eve’s murdered son, Abel, whose death the author of Hebrews (12:24) implies is a prototype of Christ’s death. Although one would be reluctant to make too much of it, perhaps it might create a homiletical link to Paul’s statements about the apparent absurdity of the cross (1 Cor. 1:18), which in the end proves itself a paradoxical vehicle for God’s power.

Notes

1. "The Meaning of Hebel," Journal of Biblical Literature 105 (1986): 413.

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