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PITTSBURG —
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
--Ecclesiastes 1:2-4
I’ve just finished re-reading the Book of Ecclesiastes in a new translation by Robert Alter. It is contained in his book The Wisdom Books which also includes translations of Job and Proverbs.
In the King James version, the author of Ecclesiastes refers to himself as the Preacher. This is an attempt to translate the Hebrew word Qoheleth, which means member of the assembly which in many contexts can be taken as church; hence, we get preacher. Alter dodges trying to translate the word and simply refers to the author as Qoheleth. As that word makes my spell check have heartburn, I will write Preacher and you can think Qoheleth if you want to.
The Preacher didn’t ever try to put a rosy glow on things. He laid it all out the way he saw it. It’s good to have one like that out there that says what he is thinking.
I remember when I was a lad watching Grace Slick (from Jefferson Airplane) on a talk show talking about her problem with alcohol. There was a time for questions from the audience and a sweet young thing popped up.
“Miss Slick, do you think the reason your generation had such a problem with alcohol is because there were fewer drugs?”
Without missing a beat, Grace replied:
“Honey, I’ve done it all.”
The Preacher had done it all. All and to excess, I should say. He’d found it to be chasing the wind. Having read that, you might think that the Preacher is going to say that living the standard middle-class life is a box of chocolates, but you’d be wrong. He’s watched the wise people who lived circumspect, disciplined lives and noted that they often met with disaster. Pursuing wisdom was like chasing the wind as well.
The Preacher said that the one advantage a wise man has over a fool is that the wise man could see the disaster coming. If you’ve been in a position where you’ve seen it coming and couldn’t do anything about it, then you’ve got to wonder — as did the Preacher — whether that was much of an advantage.
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
--Ecclesiastes 1:2-4
I’ve just finished re-reading the Book of Ecclesiastes in a new translation by Robert Alter. It is contained in his book The Wisdom Books which also includes translations of Job and Proverbs.
In the King James version, the author of Ecclesiastes refers to himself as the Preacher. This is an attempt to translate the Hebrew word Qoheleth, which means member of the assembly which in many contexts can be taken as church; hence, we get preacher. Alter dodges trying to translate the word and simply refers to the author as Qoheleth. As that word makes my spell check have heartburn, I will write Preacher and you can think Qoheleth if you want to.
The Preacher didn’t ever try to put a rosy glow on things. He laid it all out the way he saw it. It’s good to have one like that out there that says what he is thinking.
I remember when I was a lad watching Grace Slick (from Jefferson Airplane) on a talk show talking about her problem with alcohol. There was a time for questions from the audience and a sweet young thing popped up.
“Miss Slick, do you think the reason your generation had such a problem with alcohol is because there were fewer drugs?”
Without missing a beat, Grace replied:
“Honey, I’ve done it all.”
The Preacher had done it all. All and to excess, I should say. He’d found it to be chasing the wind. Having read that, you might think that the Preacher is going to say that living the standard middle-class life is a box of chocolates, but you’d be wrong. He’s watched the wise people who lived circumspect, disciplined lives and noted that they often met with disaster. Pursuing wisdom was like chasing the wind as well.
The Preacher said that the one advantage a wise man has over a fool is that the wise man could see the disaster coming. If you’ve been in a position where you’ve seen it coming and couldn’t do anything about it, then you’ve got to wonder — as did the Preacher — whether that was much of an advantage.
There aren’t just a lot of belly laughs in Ecclesiastes.
The Preacher stepped so far off the party-line that if you are righteous, then you will prosper, there are some who wonder why it was left in the Bible.
I have to think that it’s because those who know how the world really is know how much truth there is in the Preacher’s words.
There are no guarantees. Life is not fair. You can work hard all your life, build up something and hand it over to your kids only to have them make a mess of it. That’s just the way it is; some things will never change.
The Preacher seems upset with a lack of progress:
“The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down,/ and hasteth to his place where he arose./ The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually,/ and the wind returneth again according to his circuits./ All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”
I spend the day signing papers, but there are more papers to sign the next day. I spend a whole semester teaching students, but there are more students that turn up the next semester. It is rather like chasing the wind. This being the case, if I want to be happy, then I will learn to like chasing the wind. I’ll to the best I can, and take my pleasure from that.
And when my time comes, I’ll turn it all over to someone else, and they will just have to do the best they can with it too.
That’s pretty much the same conclusion the Preacher came to, too.
Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, is Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Mathematics at Pittsburg State University.
