In the enigmatic text we call "Ecclesiastes" (but would be more accurately called by its Hebrew title, "Qohelet," sometimes transliterated as "Qoheleth"), the part we know as chapter 3 exhibits significant characteristics of the text as a whole.

In the first place, the King James Version of chapter 3, as elsewhere in the text of Qohelet, makes reading Qohelet unnecessarily difficult and is sometimes nearly unintelligible. What is one to make of a translation that says God "hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end" (3:11)? As a result, a modern translation (preferably the New Revised Standard Version, the Revised English Bible, or the New International Version) is essential for a serious reading in English. Then one can hear Qoheleth say that God "has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end" (NRSV).

In the second place, Qohelet—the "Preacher" (KJV) or "Teacher" (NIV, NRSV) or "Speaker" (REB) or "Philosopher" (Good News Bible) or "Quester" (Message) or "Guru" (my own half-serious suggestion)—tends to speak in provocative generalizations that are hard to understand literally and universally. It sounds fine for Qohelet to introduce his seven pairs of polarities (twenty-eight items in all) by saying, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" (1:1). But is this good news or bad news? And what does it all mean? Why did he (whether or not the author was actually Solomon, Qohelet was clearly "he") say this?

• Is he telling us that we should not only do the right thing but also make sure that we do it at the right time? Paul Tillich made a semantic distinction between two meanings of "time," which he associated respectively with the Greek words chronos and kairos, with chronos referring to abstract, quantitative, clock or calendar time, and kairos referring to concrete, qualitative, existential or "right" time. Although this distinction is historically dubious, it is conceptually useful. But certainly there is never a "right time" for moral evil, for abuse or betrayal. Qohelet does not speak of "a time for compassion and a time for oppression."
• Or is Qohelet telling us that whatever happens, happens according to a divine timetable, so that the specific timing of the events in our lives is determined by an omniscient, omnipotent God? In saying that God "has made everything suitable for its time" (3:13), is he saying that every event occurs at its divinely appointed chronos
moment? Or is he talking about its kairos time?
• Or is Qohelet telling us simply that we ourselves are not in control of our existence: what happens, happens. Que sera, sera. Thus human existence often turns out to be "just one damned thing after another," so that the whole notion of a "right" kairos time is meaningless?
• Or is he telling us even more simply that human existence involves a series of oscillations, and that we should not be dismayed by life’s exigencies but should take account of each situation and act accordingly?

Or some combination of these?

In the third place, and even more problematically, Qohelet’s generalizations sometimes stand in tension with one another, so that we hardly know what to make of them. For example: "There is nothing better for [humans] than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live," for "it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil" (3:12-13; note the two instances of "all"). We might understand "happy" here in the Hebrew sense of shalom, as peace and security (or in the similar Greek sense of eudaemonia as flourishing and fulfillment). But how can this be actualized if "in the place of justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well" (3:16)?

Furthermore, how can people truly "take pleasure in their toil" if "the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other," with the result that all "all is vanity" (3:19)? The Hebrew word here is hebel, which connotes meaninglessness, instability, futility, absurdity. Don’t we human beings require some sense of meaning? Once upon a time (about half a century ago) someone imagined a conversation between a believing theist and a nonbelieving existentialist. The theist argued that there must finally be meaning to human existence, because all human beings seek meaning; indeed, seeking meaning is part of being human. To which the existentialist replied that although all human beings do indeed seek meaning, that is precisely the ultimate absurdity, because ultimately there is no meaning, only final absurdity.

In the fourth place, like the rest of Qohelet, chapter 3 can be understood in two quite different ways. On the one hand, maybe it is the reflection of an aging, experienced cynic who is weary of life and unsure about what, if anything, he believes. On the other hand, maybe it is the reflection of a serious but puzzled believer who struggles with unanswered questions, but wants to keep on believing. We are tempted to relativize the universal language, to regard "time for every matter under heaven" as hyperbole and interpret it as actually indicating "all sorts of different things." Perhaps this is a necessary strategy for "making sense" of Qohelet’s rhetoric. But perhaps it is also an unintentional subversion of his intention to provoke us into thinking beyond our usual (and hence comfortable) understandings of "sense."

It might be just like Qohelet to tantalize us with questions about his text that parallel the questions he had (and we may still have) about human existence in general—questions we cannot finally answer but cannot honestly avoid, either. We are fascinated and frustrated at the same time. Perhaps Qohelet’s message is that even though some of our fundamental theological and spiritual questions not only have no easy answers, but have no adequate answers at all, we can still choose a life of faith. In that case, the good news is that since Scripture has room for Qohelet, God probably has room for us in spite of our unanswered (and unanswerable) questions.

Visit Spectrum’s Message Board for an ongoing discussion of this quarter’s subject, "Ecclesiastes"

EMAIL THIS ARTICLE