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claimed. There is no evidence that any cynical overall drift or non-pietist general outlook it reflected led it to be regarded as an odd-man-out within the canon. Although the book was not accepted as canonical without a fight, the fight in question was not about cynicism as opposed to piety, but rather was about its internal contradictions.

In fact, the Gemara on Shabbath 30b mentions Qoheleth'^ piety as its obvious redeeming feature. The implication here is that, however disquieted one might be by its contradictions, at least it has one universally unquestioned merit, namely, its piety. This is the real point of the book being said to

"begin and end with words of the Torah".

Therefore, although it remains to this day a cherished axiom of modern scholarship that Qoheleth is a highly cynical book, this idea seems very far-fetched in view of its acceptance in antiquity as primarily a pious book.

ii QOHELETH BUILDS ON THE ETHICS OF EARLIER BIBLICAL W ISDOM

Qoheleth, despite his individual rather than national-Covenantal perspective, displays considerable affinities with Prophetic and Deuteronomistic pietism. He also adds to them a new, apparently Greek-influenced emphasis on moderation and the essential limitations of Man. In this, he is moving wisdom away from humanistic cynicism and toward being a pietistic genre. In fact, if texts such as Prov. 1:7, 3:5-12, 9:10 and 15:33 represent earlier wisdom, he is moving the genre back toward pietism.

Indeed, Qoheleth seems to be in harmony with earlier wisdom to a significant degree. On one level, he is very much within the tradition of Biblical Wisdom writers, despite his relatively late date. He reflects certain key views common to all of them, and even relies on his reader’s familiarity with them to make his own meaning clear. On, e.g., G od’s ability to overrule the success of the wicked, compare

Qoh. 2:26b ” with Prov. 13:22b. This underlines the fact that, contrary to

'^Cf. Qoh. 12:13 and Deut. 4:6; Qoh. 3:14 and Deut. 4:2. S ee also below , Chapter 6, Sections i and iii, and Chapter 7, end o f Section ii and Section iv, for how Q oheleth stands in relation to the Deuteronom istic standpoint.

' * "But to the sinner ( " KU 1 FI 7 1") He gives the task o f gathering and storing up w ealth to hand it over to the one w ho pleases God.".

'^"But the wealth o f a sinner (" KU ID ") is stored up for the righteous.". Cf. Ibid. 28:8,

"He who increases his wealth by ex cessiv e interest..." (a " KU ID" by im plication, even though it is not directly stated)

"...amasses it for another, who w ill be kind to the poor".

See also Job 27:16 & 17 o f the w icked man (called in v 13 "V V ll O llC "): "Though he heaps up silver like dust

And clothes like piles o f clay,

What he lays up the righteous w ill wear. And the innocent will divide his silver."

(N .I.V .). Qoh. 2:26b, then, is evidently a variation on a w ell-know n m axim , and is not expressing an original sentiment for which the reader / hearer has no already-established frame o f reference to help him

Ginsberg’s view, the terms " KU Ifl" and

I] 1U" in Qoh. 2:26 do mean "righteous" and "wicked", not just "lucky" and "unlucky"; cf. also 7:26.

It seems likely, then, that 2:26 is deliberately echoing a common axiom already familiar to the author’s readers / students, at least from Prov. 13:22b and 28:8, if not also from common parlance and / or other writings; and if so, Qoheleth can not be using the terms "3 IG " and "hCU Ifl " in a non-moral sense here. For he knows that his readers will be led interpret them in a moral sense by the fact that this is the sense in which they are employed in these other already familiar and parallel sayings. These sayings appear to be the original inspiration behind his choice of words anyway; perhaps he is deliberately reminding us of them by allusion, in the same way as he reminds us of Genesis, Deuteronomy and Gilgamesh, by echoing either their wording or their themes. If so, it makes nonsense to suppose that his real meaning is non- moral, since he would then be deliberately misleading his readers by thus inviting them to take his meaning as moral, and thereby perversely mystifying them to no purpose. #

Qoheleth’s concluding remark in 2:26b, "This too is *7 21 n and chasing the wind".

interpret its term inology.

'^Op. cit. P. 139.

above, Chapter 2, Section v, Pp.85-6 on Q oheleth’s use o f "KU 111 ", etc., as a moral term, not an amoral one as is som etim es claimed.

is sometimes thought to argue against a moral interpretation of " 1 3 and "K”Ü ID " earlier in the verse. However, it could only do this if it were applied strictly to the very last point that has been made, and only to that very last point, namely that it is the righteous who gain from the endeavours of the wicked in the end, not the wicked who gain from them. The idea of exactly this final point being "‘PHn " does, of course, make moral nonsense; on the contrary, it is actually a victory for divine justice that the righteous should emerge as the victor and the wicked as the loser. But the term ""PZin" here should not be applied with rigorous exactitude to the immediately preceding statement; that is most unlikely to be the author’s intention here.

This is because Qoheleth’s oft-reiterated expression 'OZin and chasing the wind"

is not a pedantically exact philosophical description, but rather a loose refrain, with

Epic-poetic overtones from Gilgamesh, more like the chorus of a song. Even

at this early stage of the book, the same refrain has already appeared several times, and will re-appear many times later on. Since the kind of activity to which it regularly refers is the heavy or pseudo-heavy kind, 'O ü iT ' in 2:26 seems likeliest

*^See b elow . A ppendix One; cf. also below , Chapter 7, Section i.

'^It might be o f som e importance in interpreting Q oheleth’s work to know whether or not he intended it to be sung to a musical instrument. See, e.g., Ps. 4 9 :4 ’s reference to expounding w isdom to the accom panim ent o f the harp. The affinities o f this Psalm with Q oheleth have already been noted above. Chapter 1, Section i, P .25, inch Ftn. 37. Compare also the twentieth century usage o f Qoh. 3:1-8 as a popular song in English.

’’^1:14 & 17; 2:11b; 2:33, etc.

'^E.g., 4:16b; 6:9b.

'^I.e., feverish, sw eat-inducing and fruitless activity: the great ambitions and strenuous endeavours o f men which turn out not to benefit them in the end.

to refer to the feverish activity of the sinner in storing up all this wealth.

In the context of 2:26, therefore, the meaning of "This too is and chasing after the wind"

is that the sinner’s arduous endeavour to "gather and store up wealth" for himself is ""PJiTI": i.e., that it comes to nothing in the end. It does not mean that the fact the righteous man gets the benefit of the sinner’s labours is 'O n ri" ; this would not conform at all to the mental picture that Qoheleth has built up for his reader everywhere else throughout the book of the type of activity he means by ""PJH". Elsewhere, he uses this word, or the expression "chasing the wind", or both together (epitomizing lightness or ephemerality), as a shock-contrast term for what appears to be very heavy: the "heavy burden" of hard labour and of ceaseless, restless movement. From all this strenuous activity, one would expect some kind of gain, progress, or solid, lasting achievement, to measure up to the weightiness of the effort. Hence the effectiveness of the contrast between this expectation and the reality; the real outcome is nothing but "vapour" or "wind".

There is not the slightest hint of frenzied striving, however, about the righteous man simply waiting passively to become the recipient of the sinner’s prosperity; nor is there anything feverish about God’s cool agency in masterminding the transfer. The righteous calmly waits in patient faith; and God calmly and deliberately allots to the

sinner the "task" of, in effect, serving the righteous. It is not the patient faith of the righteous, then, nor the fact that he is the one who benefits from the sinner’s endeavours in the end, to which Qoheleth is here referring as ""PJiTI". Rather, it is the hard labour of the sinner which, as far as his own interests are concerned, is 'O U il": he himself will not gain from it. This conforms exactly to the usual nuance of the term ""PJH" in this book. Therefore, the conclusion

"This too is a chasing after the wind"

is not an argument against taking "3 1U" and "K\3 IF!" in a moral sense; there is no sense other than moral in which these terms can be taken, given the tradition of usage which Qoheleth is consciously echoing, and given the meaning he regularly attaches to the word 'O ülil".

Another conscious echo by Qoheleth of previous Biblical Wisdom can be seen in the many views Qoheleth shares in common with Ps. 49, such as the idea that

^'Since it is the righteous w ho w ill ultimately benefit from the sinner’s labours, it is the righteous for whom the sinner is unconsciously working in his "gathering and storing up wealth".

^^Unless Ps. 49 is itse lf borrowing from Qoheleth', but see below , this Chapter, Sections v and ix, for Q oh eleth 's apparent intertextuality with 7 Sam. 15:22 and with Job', see also below . Chapter 6, Section iii, for Qoh. 3 :14’s allusion to Deut. 13:1. Qoheleth seem s very late relative to other canonical writers (see below . Appendix Three); so whenever there is such a clo se similarity betw een his work and another B iblical book that one text seem s likely to be dependent on the other, Qoheleth never seem s any less likely to be the borrower than the other Biblical author. M oreover, allusion appears to be a regular feature o f his style, and has not been demonstrated to be such a regular stylistic feature o f the authors o f D eu teron om y, I Sam uel, Job, Ps. 4 9 , Prov. 13:22, or o f any other B iblical writer w hose text seem s to be displaying such affinities with his. This makes him seem m ore likely, in cases where it is not clear w hich o f the tw o writers is the earlier, to be the borrower rather than to be the writer w ho is being referred to or quoted by the other. In view o f this, it is interesting that later and non-canonical books like Ben Sira (see below . A ppendix Three) or W isdom o f Solom on (see, e.g.. Barton, op. cit., Pp.57-8) do seem to be alluding to Q oheleth, the former positively and the latter negatively. This m ay be, in both cases, at least partly due to the stylistic influence on the w isdom genre o f Q oheleth itself. Q oheleth’s ow n fondness for incorporating quotations o f and references to other works into the flow o f his own narrative m ay have made the technique far more popular in w isdom writing than it had been before him. H ow ever, see also what appears to be a parody o f Ps. 8:4,

the Wise Man has to die just like the fool, and leave his wealth to someone else; also the idea that riches, greatness, and magnificence can not redeem a man from death. Even though the mighty think highly o f themselves and their grandeur, and are lulled by it into thinking they will go on forever, the truth is that none of this wealth puts them above the level of the animals.

The close parallel between Ps. 49:12 & 20 and Qoh. 3:18-20 only serves to confirm the impression Qoheleth gives in its own right, by its ironic parallel with the

career of Solomon and its exhortation to minimize one’s ambitions. This

impression is that the book’s chief contention is against mankind’s illusions of grandeur. Even though Qoh. 3:18-20 is more general than Ps. 49:20’s

"A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish", the Psalmist is still not denying Qoheleth’s contention that Man in general is like the beasts that perish; in v 12 he admits this. But even here, his preoccupation is still with riches. Man dies like the beasts "despite his riches"; and it is obvious from the whole context, especially v 11, that he is in continual need of being reminded that

im plied in Job 7:17. I f Job is only slightly earlier than Q oheleth, it makes one wonder if this technique o f a writer embedding references or contentious allusions to other authors’ work w ithin his own text may have been already quite a popular stylistic feature in Q oheleth’s ow n day, even if Q oheleth h im self then made it even more popular.

49:10; Qoh. 2:16, 18 & 19.

49:7; Qoh. 8:8.

49:6 & 11.

^^See also below , this Chapter, Section iii, for view s on the relative status o f M an and o f animals com m on to Job and to Q oheleth, but not found in other B iblical books.

riches and present splendour can not buy him immortality. This is exactly Qoheleth’s viewpoint. This echo of Ps. 49 is no empty display of erudition, but a feeling allusion to a kindred work on the same theme.

The ‘no-limit’ attitude to piling up wealth is sometimes thought to be particularly characteristic of the entrepreneurial drive and colonialist greed of Qoheleth’s late Ptolemaic or early Seleucid age. In Bickerm an’s view, the attitude behind this new, the-sky’s-the-limit idea of ‘xpr||j,aTiaTiicfi’ is significantly different from that motivating the more traditional concept of ‘oiKOVO|iiicf]’ / ‘olKOVO|LiIa’. The latter, by contrast, has limits, prescribed by the limit to the

^^See above, Chapter 1, Section i, for a discussion o f the similar ideas in Ps. 73.

^^See also below , Chapter 7, Section v, especially ftn. 117.

^^See below . Chapter 7, Section v, incl. ftn. 109 on G ood’s and B ickerm an’s opinions; see also below . Appendix Three.

^'See below . Appendix Three, The Era o f Qoheleth.

^^‘B u sin ess’ or ‘m oney-m aking’.

‘D om estic m anagem ent’ (which Bickerman thinks amounts to, in effect, acquisition for consum ption), referred to in, e.g., A ristotle’s Politics, I.ii.3-4 and I.iii.2. A ristotle in his era, how ever, has a different perspective on the difference betw een the tw o. H e m entions (Ibid. I.ii.2) that som e people regard ‘X pruiaxiaxiicfi’ as the sam e as ‘ciK O V opia’ or as the most important part o f it; nevertheless he h im self considers the two as different, in that the function o f ‘xpT||iaTtGXtKf|’ is to acqu ire substance, whereas the function o f ‘olK OVopta’ is to use it (Ibid. I.iii.2). Aristotle, then, does not see ‘olK O V opta’ as acquisition at all, even for consum ption, but rather as the art o f correct use (or correct consum ption) o f what is acquired by ‘x p q iia x ia x iK fi’.

This need not invalidate Bickerm an’s point about the im plications o f the term ‘%pT|p,axioxiicq’ in the H ellenistic age being different from its original im plications. If it is no longer seen as acquisition primarily for the purpose o f ‘olK O V opla’, but rather as an end in itself w ith no lim its, then its meaning does indeed seem to have changed. N evertheless, even if Bickerman is right on this point, it is not that

‘XPTjpotxiaxiicfi’ has displaced an older, more sober concept o f acquisition called ‘olKOVOgla’, since the

latter was apparently not conceived o f as a type o f acquisition anyw ay, h ow ever sober. It is rather that a new concept o f ‘xpilpo(X ioxtKf|’ has displaced an older and more sober concept o f ‘xpT||xocxiaxiKq’: i.e., the overtones o f the term ‘xpT|p(XXioxiKf|’ have changed in such a w ay as to make it no longer the intimately inter-related com plem ent to ‘otTCOVOgta’ it used to be, but rather an end in itse lf independent o f ‘o lK O v o p ia ’.

practical requirements of a household; but in Hellenistic times, according to Bickerman,

"‘XpîlM-OtTiaxiKfi’ - is based on the notion that there is no limit to the acquisition of riches. This accumulative art of money-making became a determinant feature of the Hellenistic age.".

It is hardly surprising, then, that this feverish piling up of wealth is one of the main blind alleys which Qoheleth denounces. Nor is it surprising that he has such close fellow-feeling with Psalm 49, a wisdom-Psalm denouncing arrogant trust in wealth, whether this Psalm dates from his own age, or whether it is an older wisdom- work and part of the long tradition that influenced Qoheleth’s thinking overall.

iii QOHELETH AND JOB ON M AN’S SMALLNESS AND GOD’S GREATNESS

Where Qoheleth differs sharply from other, especially pre-ZoZ?, Wisdom writers, however, is on the issue of certainty of reward for righteousness. Qoh. 3:21 and 9:5 & 6 show that for him, part of the poignancy of death is that the dead

"Have no further reward".

He also tends to differ from other Biblical Wisdom writers on the certainty of reward in this life. Whereas Psalm 19:11 exhorts the reader to keep G od’s commandments because

"In keeping of them there is great reward", Qoheleth exhorts him to keep them because