Ecclesiastes (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching | INT)
Overview
Ecclesiastes is a collection of sayings traditionally attributed to Solomon and deemed by some the strangest book in the canon. It comprises an unusual blend of autobiographical references, theological reflections, philosophical musings, and proverbial instructions, all probing the seeming pointlessness of human striving. Brown explores the text as it engages our own culture's era of questioning and proverbial instructions, all probing the seeming pointlessness of human striving. Brown explores the text as it engages our own culture's era of questioning and search for self full-fulfillment.
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Top Highlights
“Human beings are endowed with the capacity to look beyond the immediacy of life, to suspend oneself, however delicately, above the fray to sense the eternal but are never quite able to grasp the meaning of it all.” (Page 44)
“Such suitability is glimpsed, however meagerly, only by the God-given capacity to sense the eternal: ‘[God] has put a sense of past and future (literally ‘eternity’) into their minds’ (v. 11). Human beings are endowed with the facility to step back from immediate situations and particular events that vie for their attention to catch a glimpse of the totality of existence, including their own. Such is the mark of self-consciousness. Yet they remain ignorant of any purposeful providence that underlies the totality, ‘from the beginning to the end.’ Human beings, in short, are caught between self-transcendence and stifling ignorance. They are both in time and out of time.” (Page 43)
“The radical nature of many of Qoheleth’s observations lies in his turning wisdom against itself. Saul Bellow humorously puts it, ‘Socrates said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ My revision is ‘But the examined life makes you wish you were dead’ ’ (Quoted from Gussow, New York Times, May 26, 1997).” (Page 14)
“Human beings can only glimpse, but never grasp, the course of human affairs, much less control them. It is within this state of betwixt and between that human beings must continue to toil to make some sense of life under the sun, subsisting only on traces of the eternal.” (Page 44)
“Dancing, for example, is not appropriate during mourning. Weeping is out of sync with celebrations. Silence is not golden when the rights of the oppressed are at stake (cf. 4:1). Even hatred has its time, as demonstrated in the psalms that imprecate unnamed enemies (e.g., Pss. 58:6–11; 137:7–9; 139:19–22; cf. Eccl. 2:18). Each activity has its relative worth and suitability, its ‘place’ in the grand providential scheme. But no one activity has universal sway any more than exhaling or inhaling dominates the rhythm of breathing. Permanence is not part of the chronological equation. The poetic arrangement of these moments suggests that such opposites are actually counterparts, all part and parcel of the temporal rhythm of life, which never progresses yet never stops.” (Page 41)
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- Title: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching Ecclesiastes
- Author: William P. Brown
- Publisher: John Knox Press
- Publication Date: 2000
- Pages: 143