Although Qoheleth denies any divinely guided system of just retribution that is perceptible to humans (Eccl. 7:15),251 the sage appears to desire a correspondence between deeds and welfare: “There is a vanity that occurs on earth, which is that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are
249 Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages,” 15. 250 Krüger, Qoheleth, 70.
251 See note above concerning passages that suggest that Qoheleth does envision a system of divine justice
wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity” (Eccl. 8:14). Qoheleth observes that no consistently appropriate correspondence exists between conduct and consequences, but he describes this situation as a heb⋲el, “vanity.”252 Qoheleth is fond of using the term heb⋲el, “vanity,” which can
literally mean “breath, vapor, puff,” to describe the illusory and ephemeral aspects of this world.253 So, while Qoheleth would like a system of retribution to exist, for reasons that elude the capacity of human wisdom, it does not. Such a concept is vanity because it is unreliable; the pattern of punishment corresponding to sin and of reward corresponding to good deeds is inconsistent and illusory. It may still be worthwhile to ask, however, if a retributive system did exist, would Qoheleth prefer that it be individual or collective? This question is especially pertinent in light of Eccl. 3:17, 11:9, and 12:14, which suggest that Qoheleth did entertain the notion of a world in which retributive justice was operative, even if its pattern is unrecognizable to humans.
Several verses before declaring the lack of correspondence between act and consequence to be heb⋲el, “vanity” (Eccl. 8:14), Qoheleth indicates not only a desire for retributive justice, even if only human-administered, but also familiarity with the concept of collective accountability. Qoheleth observes a pattern of human behavior: “As a sentence against a wicked deed is not executed quickly, therefore the mind of mortals is fully set to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11). Qoheleth would prefer a system of retribution in which
252 According to Krüger, this regrettable situation in which no act-consequence model is in operation may
be the result of human activity. Krüger, Qoheleth, 162.
253 For a review of the meaning of heb⋲el and the related terms w§raœ{aœ rabbaœ, literally “great evil,” and u®r§{u®t◊
ru®ahΩ, “chasing after wind,” see Michael V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999), 27–49.
justice does not delay but instead immediately confronts the wrongdoer.254 He criticizes justice systems, perhaps human, perhaps divine,255 in which the penalties are not administered swiftly. Job’s comforters frequently appeal to the explanation of delayed punishment to explain that the apparent prosperity of the wicked is temporary. They are responding to a complaint, like the one Qoheleth makes in v. 11, that retribution ought to be immediate. As discussed in the previous chapter, Job himself asks this question in a poignant way that seeks to modify the notion of collective accountability as he understands it, ““(You say),256 ‘God stores up his iniquity for his sons.’ Let it be paid back to him so that he may know it. Let his eyes see his cup,257 and let him drink from the wrath of Shaddai. For what is his delight in his house after him when the number of his months is cut off?” (Job 21:19-21). When collective punishment is understood as an act of divine mercy, the operative principle behind it is not that God expunges the sin completely, but rather that God delays punishment by spreading it out over several generations. Qoheleth, like Job, observes that a delay in the punishment does nothing to punish, and thus also to prevent further, misdeeds.
Qoheleth and Job are not the only wisdom authors to recognize the faults of a retributive system of justice in which punishment is not always immediate. As will be
254 W. Sibley Towner, “The Book of Ecclesiastes,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck, vol. 5
(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994), 337.
255 Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, 154.
256 Although the Hebrew text does not make explicit that Job is representing his comforter’s belief that God
exercised intergenerational punishment, I have followed many translators in supplying the words, “You say,” because the context makes clear that Job finds fault with this commonly held belief and is thus not promoting it himself. Consequently, it is preferable to understand this speech as a response to an argument put forth by his comforter(s). Pope, Job, 145.
257 “Cup” (
kˆîd⋲o®) is a hapax legomenon. Dahood proposes the meaning “cup, goblet” based on Aramaic,
discussed in the next chapter, Ben Sira deals with the problem created by delayed punishment by denying its existence (Sir. 7:16). Despite this denial, it is clear from other biblical texts that Qoheleth and Job are aware of explanations that use delayed punishment to account for why sinners do not experience immediate punishment for their wrongdoings. For example, in the murmuring scene found in Numbers 14 in which Moses intercedes on behalf of the Israelites who face total annihilation, Moses appeals to God by quoting, in part, the divine attribute formula that God had revealed to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7. In response to Moses’ prayer, God relents from his plan to kill the Israelites “as one man” (k§}ˆîsû }ehΩaœd⋲) (Numbers 14:15). God agrees to forgive the people
(v. 20), but divine forgiveness does not completely expunge the sin. Rather, God delays the deaths of these Israelites until they have reached the edge of the Promised Land. In delaying their punishment, God also subjects the children of these sinners to enduring the punishment of wandering in the wilderness for forty years (vv. 28-35). Although delayed punishment frequently appears intergenerationally, which is to say, as a form of collective accountability,258 it can also manifest itself as an individual punishment that
has been postponed during the course of that individual’s lifetime.259 For example, in Job 13:26, the righteous sufferer accuses God of afflicting him with suffering in his old age for sins committed as a youth.
As Crenshaw has noted, Qoheleth’s statement in 8:11 redirects the attention of the reader from the sinner who commits the crime to the authority that should punish sinners
258 Muffs, “Who Will Stand?,” 19–21. 259 Toorn, Sin and Sanction, 99.
but delays in such a way that it encourages more crime (v. 11b).260 Such a criticism would apply both to human justice systems261 and, on the basis of the prominence of divinely executed collective accountability in the Hebrew Bible, to divine justice. Additionally, Qoheleth’s observation may target the claims of sages, like Job’s comforters, who explain the ostensible prosperity of the wicked by arguing that God postpones punishment. Delayed punishment (and reward) cannot solve the problem of retributive justice that Qoheleth has observed.
Qoheleth also acknowledges that an individual’s offspring can benefit from the conduct of his parents. However, contrary to other fathers in the Hebrew Bible who aspire to leave an inheritance to their children, Qoheleth views the practice less favorably:
(18) I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, that I must leave it to the man who comes after me, (19) and who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? Yet he will have dominion over everything for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. (20) So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil for which I labored under the sun, (21) for there is the case of the man who toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill, yet to a man who did not labor for it he must give his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil. (Eccl. 2:18-21)
Qoheleth resents his toil, the produce of which will benefit his heirs,262 for several reasons. For the sage, pleasure commends itself, but his labor will produce pleasure for someone other than himself. In addition to this, Qoheleth also objects to the vanity and
260 Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, 155.
261 As Krüger has pointed out, a system in which justice is executed immediately would ultimately lead to
the end of humankind, which is by nature sinful and corrupt. Had God punished Adam and Eve with immediate death for disobedience in the Garden of Eden, humanity never would have reached its second generation. Krüger, Qoheleth, 159.
262 The text does not make clear whether those who inherit the produce of Qoheleth’s hard work are his
great evil of his heirs, regardless of their wisdom or foolishness, enjoying that for which they did not work.263 He perhaps also sees vanity in the possibility that, although both a wise heir and a foolish heir would be undeserving of the produce of another’s toil, his heirs may be foolish and so squander his toil, and he lacks any control over this situation. Qoheleth’s reasoning reflects beliefs that are relevant to the debate between individual and collective accountability. Although Qoheleth does not embrace the notion of divine retribution, he does nevertheless appear to express the desire for one’s behavior to correlate with one’s life circumstances, even if the divine plan (hamma{∞síe) that
determines this correlation is inscrutable to him (Eccl. 3:11).264 His concern that the individual who produced the pleasures be able to enjoy those pleasures himself suggests that he would prefer individual reward, but he does not ascribe to such a theology because this is not what he has witnessed in the course of his studies. Nevertheless, he would appear to object in principle to the notion of collective reward. Why should someone else enjoy the benefits of another individual’s good deeds? One expects that the converse of this sentiment, namely collective punishment, would also ring true for Qoheleth: Why should someone else suffer the consequences of another individual’s wicked deeds?
Like the case of the sage who leaves his riches to his heirs after him, the case of a toiling individual with no family is also a vanity. According to Qoheleth, “Again, I saw vanity under the sun: there is a solitary individual, with no one else, neither son nor brother; but there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches.
263 Fox, A Time to Tear Down, 187.
264 Peter Machinist, “Fate, Miqreh, and Reason: Some Reflections on Qohelet and Biblical Thought,” in
‘But for whom am I toiling,’ [he asks,] ‘and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is a vanity and an unhappy business” (Eccl. 4:7-8). Although 2:18-21 suggested that gathering riches to be enjoyed by another is vanity, this passage argues that gathering riches even though there is no one else with whom to share them is vanity. Qoheleth puts a poignant question into the mouth of the solitary individual that would presumably elicit a questioning of his activities. Rather than continue to work, the individual should enjoy his riches himself before he dies. Qoheleth suggests that greed compels this foolish toiling (“his eyes are never satisfied with riches”). So, the vanity derives not from the absence of heirs or family with whom to share this wealth, but rather from the failure to stop toiling long enough to enjoy the product of one’s toil.265 Ben Sira observes the same phenomenon: the miser who hoards wealth while denying himself enjoyment of that wealth will never enjoy the product of his hard toil (Sir. 14:3-5).266
Qoheleth also considers a case in which children do likely suffer because of the
conduct of their parents: “(12) There is a grievous ill that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owners to their hurt, (13) and those riches were lost in a bad venture; though he fathered a son, he has nothing in his hands” (Eccl. 5:12-13). The son’s suffering is not divinely inflicted267 but rather the natural consequence of his father’s bad investments. Nevertheless, Qoheleth focuses the tragedy of this situation not simply on the individual who lost his riches, but rather on the bankrupt man’s status as a father to a son, for whom his empty hands cannot provide. Although Israelites generally
265 Krüger, Qoheleth, 98.
266 Towner, “The Book of Ecclesiastes,” 312.
267 This statement is true in so much as humans are able to exercise some measure of free will, although it is
interpreted the birth of a son as a sign of divine favor,268 in this case the presence of a son signals the father’s negative state. The father has no means of supporting his family during his lifetime and no inheritance to leave to his son once he has passed.
The subject of the statement, “he has nothing in his hands” (v. 13) is ambiguous.
Both the father and the son are empty-handed. Similarly, the subject is ambiguous in v. 14, which asserts, “Just as he came forth from the womb of his mother naked, so shall he return again; he will not have anything to show for his toil that he can carry in his hand.” While the statement in v. 13 could refer to either the father or his son, Crenshaw has argued that the ambiguity functions deliberately to convey “the common lot of the once- rich father and the poor son.”269 Such an interpretation demonstrates well the reality of intergenerational suffering.
III. The Role of Wisdom Instruction for the Righteous and the Wicked in Qoheleth
Like the book of Job, Qoheleth presents an alternative understanding of wisdom. Although Qoheleth’s teachings often overturn the lessons of traditional wisdom sayings, the sage is not so pessimistic that he sees no value in the human endeavor to attain wisdom for oneself and to instill that quest in others, which Qoheleth himself does through his role as a teacher. The inescapable nature of death for all humans prompts Qoheleth to reject any notion of divine retribution that is intelligible to humans, but even without this, human reason remains for the philosopher an important standard of
268 Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, 122–123. 269 Ibid., 123. Krüger, Qoheleth, 121.
judgment (Eccl. 1:13, 21; 7:23).270 Thus it is worth investigating Qoheleth’s understanding of human nature and the ability of wisdom to benefit the pupil who studies it.
Qoheleth’s claim in 2:19 that he cannot know whether his heirs will be wise or foolish speaks to the possibility that wise parents can produce foolish children. The inadequacies of human wisdom would appear to be such that, in the mind of Qoheleth, providing wisdom instruction to one’s children cannot guarantee that all of one’s descendants will be wise like their progenitor. According to Qoheleth’s philosophical position, the successful student of wisdom understands wisdom’s limits. Even living a righteous life according to the traditional standards of wisdom cannot guarantee longevity and prosperity because humans cannot observe any pattern that correlates behavior to consequences.
Like Job’s comforters, Qoheleth views humanity as inherently incapable of perfect righteousness: “Surely there is no man on earth so righteous that he does good without ever sinning” (Eccl. 7:20). The human inability to escape sin entirely, according to Qoheleth, originates with human activity, not divine creation: “See, this alone I found, that God made humankind upright, but they have devised many schemes” (Eccl. 7:29). Humans, though sinful by nature, can control their level of righteousness; however, perfect righteousness and extreme wickedness should be avoided (7:16-18). Qoheleth provides examples of individuals who can change their status through wisdom or lack thereof (i.e., Eccl. 4:14). However, other statements take a more predetermined outlook: “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted” (Eccl.
1:15). Applied to human nature, such a worldview suggests that humans cannot change whether they are wise or foolish, righteous or wicked. It is unclear from these contradictory views whether or not it is fruitful to educate a foolish child to attain wisdom. It would appear, however, on the basis of passages like 4:14 and 2:18 that the sage recognized that parents do not necessarily produce children like themselves with respect to righteousness and wisdom. That Qoheleth cannot venture a guess as to whether his own descendants will be wise or foolish does not express much confidence in the ability of wisdom instructions to produce wise offspring.271 Wisdom can help the human to discern the limits of human wisdom to elucidate the divine plan, but nothing in this ephemeral world, not even wisdom, can guarantee success for oneself or one’s offspring.
According to 2:26, “For to the man who pleases him [God] gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.” The sage seems to observe that God bestows wisdom upon those who please him. Just how they please him is not clear to the human, but the contrast with the sinner whom God preoccupies with work may suggest that the wise are pleasing to God because, despite not yet having the wisdom that directs one to heed God’s laws, these pleasing people are righteous. However, the sage’s judgment that this situation is vanity complicates the issue. One possible interpretation of the passage is that wisdom originates with God, and
271 It should be noted that Eccl. 12:12, though likely a secondary addition, does address “my son,” which
suggests that the book was intended for the education of youth if not in the time of its original author, then by some community at another point.
humans do not choose whether to be “pleasing” or a “sinner.”272 The futility of the situation is that while a divine plan may underlie who pleases God and receives wisdom and who does not, the human cannot discern this plan or pattern.
Humans, according to Qoheleth, ultimately lack any control over an arbitrary world ruled by an inscrutable deity.273 Wisdom is no guarantee because despite its superiority over foolishness in most situations, it cannot produce success in every situation and it cannot prevent death, the ultimate fate of the wise and the fool alike.274 Human efforts to control this divinely appointed fate are, for Qoheleth, hebel, “vanity.”275