What is the problem that man tries in vain to fix?
Read Ecclesiastes 1
Warm-up: What are your heroes of philosophy or of practical wisdom of life? Why is it not the author of Ecclesiastes?
[If Solomon were mentioned, use it to link to question #1]
1) How did the author of Ecclesiastes introduce himself?
- Who was his ancestor, v1? How does he describe his own wisdom, vv12-16?
- Since v16 refers to more than one wise king in Jerusalem before Kohelet, how (in what sense) could he be a son of David?
- If he was Solomon, how would you explain that he does not say so (like e.g. in Prov 1:1; 10:1; 25:1 and Song of Solomon 1:1
- After the author applied himself to wisdom and folly (v17), which of these did he exercise when he wrote this book, Ecc 2:13; 9:16; 10:10?
- By the time of writing, and only after trying in vain everything else before, he obviously had found faith and its joy, which put him on an upward trajectory. By comparison, what was the life trajectory of the actual Solomon, 1Ki 11?
- Does this or any other report about Solomon’s idolatry suggest that he ever repented and found saving faith, 1Ki 11:40?
- Or does this final (!) report state the opposite, unafraid of the bad name that his example gave religion?
- By the time of writing, and only after trying in vain everything else before, he obviously had found faith and its joy, which put him on an upward trajectory. By comparison, what was the life trajectory of the actual Solomon, 1Ki 11?
- The pseudonym Kohelet (‘the preacher’) literally means assembler: Was Solomon into collecting the wisdom of others? Or was he a source of inspired, previously unheard-of wisdom, 2Chr 9:23?
- Why would anyone write under the pseudonym of Solomon, under the hat of his proverbial wisdom (and despite the stain on Solomon’s reputation how his life ended)?
- Hint: If you write a book in your field under the name of the person who was its leader or the founder, what would be the effect, especially when everyone knows that this person has long been dead?
- Why might someone do that?
2) Commentators widely disagree what the book of Ecclesiastes is about: Does it have a coherent message at all? Or is it a collection of unrelated sayings, in a literary style akin to the book of Proverbs?
- Based on this “introductory” chapter alone, what would be your own guess what this book will be all about? [Study leader: Collect different opinions without questioning any].
- Could (our) work be an important topic, and whether it has any purpose at all, v3?
3) Observe: After Kohelet introduced himself, he lamented the futility of man’s toil (vv1-3). How does he explain in vv4-9 why he considers everything as futile?
- How does Kohelet sum up his reason(s) in v9?
- How many metaphors do you count that he adduced to substantiate this pessimistic conclusion, vv4-8?
- Should we seek unique meanings in each of these metaphors?
- Or did Kohelet repeat himself seven times to prove one singular point? [Note: The style of 7-fold repetition recurs in chapter 3 and explains what is the central point by putting it in the middle]
- What does v11 mention in particular as a source of frustration?
4) Interpret: After stressing the futility of man’s toil in general (vv3-11), Kohelet focused on his own frustration with ‘wisdom’ (vv12-18). Why?
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Did Kohelet have in mind the spiritual/practical wisdom of the Bible that gives ‘knowledge and discretion’, Prov 1:2-4? Or did he mean ‘natural’ wisdom of philosophy and education, cf Ecc 2:3? Or both?
- What motivates large expenses on education nowadays in the name of progress? Do you invest yourself in education and/or in being educated, intellectually and/or morally?
- What do you expect to be the reward of all that toil?
- Do vv13-14 mean that Kohelet considered the sum of all such efforts as a total waste? Why or why not, v15? =>
- v15: What else than ignorance is beyond fixing, be it by education or any other form of wisdom?
- How would you therefore sum up Kohelet’s first analysis of what is wrong with the world? [The English writer G.K. Chesterton is said to have answered: “Dear Sir, I am. Yours, G.K. Chesterton”]
5) Personal and application
- Compare your own interpretation of ‘all that happens under the sun’ to that of Kohelet: Is the world evolving with a purpose, moving linearly from A to Z, getting better and better?
- Or do you think it only moves in endless circles?
- Or what else? Why?
- What do you make of v11 which states that there is “no remembrance of former things”? In what ways does history repeat itself?
- If Kohelet is right, what does that mean for how we should interpret the narratives of our own history?
- In the narrative of your own history (your family, your company, politics…), who is responsible for what went wrong?
- As the root problem, Kohelet acknowledged his own sinfulness (crookedness, v15): Why did he stop trying to instead make himself look righteous (as defined by God’s law) by his own toil and labor (v3)?
- Do you think he set an example to follow? Why or why not?
- Did he give any clue whether he found a remedy of his frustration with life? Why not?
- What do you expect of the remainder of Ecclesiastes when already the very first chapter directly zooms on the central problem addressed by the New Testament?
- Since he begins by defining the problem, what will the rest of the book likely be about?
- If chapter 1 were already the final chapter, one might not expect Kohelet to offer any solution. But since there are 11 more chapters, what would be the point of only continuing to cry about ‘futility’? Don’t you think that would have bored even the author himself?
- As the root problem, Kohelet acknowledged his own sinfulness (crookedness, v15): Why did he stop trying to instead make himself look righteous (as defined by God’s law) by his own toil and labor (v3)?
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