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Writer of Fancy: The Playful Piety of Jane Austen
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
According to our translations, the OT describes idols as “vain” (eg, Isaiah 57:13), but the word used is the same as the word in Ecclesiastes - and is better translated as “vaporous.” The point is not simply that idols are worthless, but that they are ephemeral. Idols may provide all sorts of apparent goods - pleasure, social unity, occasions for festivity. But the goods they provide are not lasting because the idols are not lasting. Idols are mist also in that they veil men from reality and from God. They will melt away before the living God, in the Day of His coming.
This might be taken two ways: When the Sun rises in the incarnation, the vaporous gods of the nations begin to pass away. And, as the gospel of Jesus spreads, it disperses the fog. To call idols “vapors” is to say that one day they will disappear.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 9:42 am
INTRODUCTION
We often have a problem with time. We get used to things the way they are, and we want them to stay that way. We are nostalgic for what seems a happier time of our lives. Living in time means living in uncertainty about what the next year, or the next minute, will bring; and we crave certainty. How do we live well in a world where “there’s a time for this” and “a time for that”?
THE TEXT
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted. . . .” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, December 25, 2006 at 7:35 am
Brian Gault gave a carefully-argued paper on the meaning of “ha-olam” in Ecclesiastes 3:11 - normally translated as “eternity.” Gault ran through a number of possible interpretations of the verse, finally suggesting a repointing leads to a translation as “darkness” or “ignorance.” The point is that God makes the world obscure to man, a theme that runs throughout Ecclesiastes. This is the reason why man can never entirely know what God is up to. Instead of seeking comprehensive knowledge, which God makes impossible, we should simply trust him, and devote ourselves to the work He has put right in front of us.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Doug Ingram suggests in his 2004 Grove Book study of Ecclesiastes that the book has a peculiarly postmodern emphasis on the ambiguity of the world and human life. Pointing to the proliferation of studies of Ecclesiastes over the past decade and a half, he writes that while modern readers find Ecclesiastes’ apparent lack of structure and clarity frustrating, postmoderns revel in those same qualities. I don’t think Ecclesiastes is quite as ambiguous as Ingram suggests, and also think (as Ingram himself notes) that the book poses riddles to force the reader to wrestle with the texts. Ingram is, however, quite right to see analogies between the perspective of Ecclesiastes and some of the themes of postmodern writing - death, elusiveness, oppression, frustration of human control.
Beyond that, what’s intriguing is that Ingram also notes that Solomon uses the verb “give” with God as the subject (counting 12:11) 14 times in the book. Solomon already works with the “postmodern” categories of gift and gratitude against the background of a “postmodern” description of the world as vapor. Of course, there’s a world of difference between “es gibt” and “God gives”; but the pronounced emphasis on God as giver is striking.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 4:04 pm
What kind of guidance should we give our children? We often focus exclusively on all the things that they may not do. That is a perfectly sound approach, especially for younger children. After all, we worship and serve a God whose first words to newborn Israel were “Thou Shalt Not.”
At the end of Ecclesiastes, Solomon offers a different sort of guidance. Speaking specifically to young men, he urges them to rejoice, to let their hearts be pleasant, and to follow their desires during the vaporous days of youth.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, January 29, 2006 at 8:02 am
“Follow the ways of your heart and what your eyes see; and know that on account of all these, God will bring you into judgment.” The last part of this is often taken as a warning about the limits of joy and pleasure-taking. Seow thinks otherwise: “Human beings are supposed to enjoy life to the full because it is their divinely assigned portion, and God calls one into account for failure to enjoy. Or, as a passage in the Talmud has it: ‘Everyone must give an account before God of all good things one saw in life and did not enjoy.’ . . . For Qohelet, enjoyment is not only permitted, it is commanded; it is not only an opportunity, it is a divine imperative.”
Solemn faces of the world: Repent!
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Ecclesiastes 11:5 emphasizes the limitations of human knowledge by emphasizing that God works everything: “you do not know the works of God (ELOHIM) who does all (Y’SH ET-HAKOL).” There are two possible translations of the last relative clause:
1) “who does all.” If we go with this translation, we have a straightforward statement about the scope of God’s working. What does God do? “All.” What is the scope of the “deeds” of God? Everything. He is the one who works all things after the counsel of His will.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 1:18 pm
I saw a man hoarding his treaures, building bigger barns and stuffing his safety deposit boxes and worrying over his portfolio. Disaster struck, and he lost everything because he had everything to lose. He didn’t even have three comforters.
I saw a man throwing around his money with abandon, emptying his barns and turning his portfolio over to charities. Disaster struck, and he lost nothing because he had nothing to lose. And he was received into eternal dwellings.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 12:32 pm
I saw a man with a bag of seed. He looked at the sky to discern the weather, and decided tomorrow would be a better day to plant. The next day, he invented instruments to test the humidity and to predict the wind, and decided that tomorrow would be a better day to plant. And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow crept on its petty pace to the last syllable of time. This too is vapor and shepherding wind.
I saw a young man wondering what to do with his life. He looked to see if this was the time to apply to graduate school, and decided tomorrow was better. He looked to see if he should pursue a job, but circumstances were against it. He looked to see if he should love a woman, but it was not time. Then he was an old man. This too is vapor and shepherding wind.
I saw another man throw a loaf of bread in a river. He turned and walked away, and went to his house justified rather than the others.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 12:23 pm
INTRODUCTION
Solomon ends Ecclesiastes where he began, by emphasizing our lack of control (11:5) and the brevity of life (12:1-8). Wisdom means adjusting our actions and expectations to these realities.
THE TEXT
“Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. . . .” (Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:14).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, January 23, 2006 at 8:38 am
According to what has become the “traditional” interpretation of the Constitution, every American woman has the right to kill her unborn baby. Since the Roe v. Wade decision in January of 1973, over 45 million babies have been killed, and, though the abortion rate has slowed since 1990, more than a million babies are aborted each year. Nearly half the women in this country have an abortion before they are forty-five.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, January 22, 2006 at 8:21 am
One man sits and does nothing; and eats himself up. Another labors alone without end; and eats himself up.
One folds his hands and refuses to grab anything; and his hands are empty. Another grabs whatever comes near with both hands; and in the end his hands are empty too.
One nation has the lowest per capita productivity on the UN charts, and life is miserable. Another has the highest per capita productivity, and everyone is dissatisfied with his portion.
This too is vapor and shepherding wind. And there is nothing better than to grasp and work with one hand, while leaving the other hand free to hold a mug.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Surely Solomon believed there were absolute goods, or One Absolute Good, but he spends most of Ecclesiastes talking about relative goods. The Hebrew idiom tob . . . min (”good/better . . . than”) is used throughout chapters 4 and 7 to express the relative advantage of certain situations in life over others. This is wisdom: Not merely to discern right and wrong, good and evil, but better and worse.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Among all the books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes appears to come closest to the tragic wisdom of the ancients. But this is an illusion. Solomon warns that it is folly to say that the old days were better than the present (7:10), and encourages patience because “the end of the matter is better than its beginning” (7:8). According to Seow, this is the point of the obscure little parable at the end of chapter 4: “The young commoner (apparently a poor person) was in prison but went on to become king. By contrast, the king was born into the royal family but became impoverished. And the former situation is judged to be ‘better’ - that is, it is better to start poor but end up well, than to start well and end up poor.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 at 1:25 pm
INTRODUCTION
How are we to live in this world of vapor? Solomon tells us again and again to rejoice (e.g., 5:19-20), and implies that this joy comes in community with others. That theme of community is explicit in chapter 4, as Solomon reflects on the evils that destroy neighborliness and the benefits of friendship.
THE TEXT
“Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun: And look! The tears of the oppressed, but they have no comforter – on the side of their oppressors there is power, but they have no comforter. . . .” (Ecclesiastes 4:1-16).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, January 16, 2006 at 12:40 pm
God is the lead partner in the dance of life; we’re called to follow Him gracefully. But we don’t know whether it’s a waltz or the Charleston, and we don’t know what the next step will be. God is singing the melody that we are supposed to harmonize; but we don’t yet know whether it’s a military song or a dirge, and can’t where the melody is moving. We are learning the dance as we go, but are called to dance gracefully; we are learning the song as we sing, but are to harmonize beautifully.
This too is vapor and shepherding wind.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, January 8, 2006 at 9:51 am
Choon-Leong Seow has some helpful comments about the “time for this, time for that” poem in Ecclesiastes 3. He points out that the thrust of the section is about God’s control of times and portions. As evidence, he notes that the word “season” us normally used “of predetermined or appointed time.” More fundamentally, while the section recognizes the reality of human action (describing man as “the doer” in 3:9), the accent is on God’s action: “The word ’sh ‘to do, work, make, act’ is used repeatedly of God, who is also mentioned several times in vv. 10-15: it is God who has made . . . everything (v 11); people cannot discover the deed . . . that God has done . . . from the beginning to the end (v 11); what God does . . . is ‘eternal’ (v 14); and God has acted . . . that people might be reverent before God (v 14). The only thing that the human is able to do . . . is to find pleasure in life (v 12), but even that is a gift of God (v 13).” The “everything” that God does in v 11 echoes with the “everything’ of v 1, and v 11 also refers to “time” (cf. v 1): “God is the one responsible for bringing about everything in its time.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, January 7, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Thanks to my friend Alex Trochez for stimulating the following line of thought.
According to Jordan’s count (confirmed by my own), the phrase “shepherding wind” occurs twice in Ecclesiastes by itself (1:17; 4:6) and 7 times with the word “vapor” (1:14; 2:11, 17, 26; 4:4, 16; 6:9). In addition, the NASB has the word “wind” another seven times (1:6 [2x]; 5:16; 8:8 [2x]; 11:4-5). Each of these uses translates the Hebrew RUACH (wind, spirit), and the phrase “shepherding wind” is in Hebrew the breathy pun R’AH RUACH. The NASB translates RUACH as “spirit” three times (7:8 [2x]; 12:7), the last referring to the “spirit” that returns to God, as three times as “breath” (3:19, 21 [2x]). By my count, Solomon uses the word 22x in the whole book.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 4, 2006 at 10:15 am
Solomon pursued knowledge and wisdom, and concluded that the pursuit was no more than vapor and shepherding wind, and besides the more he knew the more pain and grief he suffered (1:17-18). There is so much in this wispy world that we cannot know:
Whether the result of our works will be universal love or universal hatred (9:1).
The time of our death (9:12).
Coming misfortunes (11:2).
The path of the wind, the knitting of bones in a woman’s womb, the deeds of God (11:5-6).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 4, 2006 at 9:41 am
Solomon captures the aporia of beginnings in Ecclesiastes 3:15: “That which is has been already, and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.” This not only restates “there is nothing new under the sun” but also suggests that the search for an origin “uncorrupted” by a surplus is elusive, shrouded in the mist.
A human life begins when sperm unites with egg. But this human life would not begun unless the man whose sperm it is met the woman who contributes the egg. So even the beginning of a human life is not the beginning. And when we push back and back, we come finally to an infinite regress, the decree of an infinite God.
This too is vapor and shepherding wind.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, January 2, 2006 at 1:25 pm
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