Ecclesiastes Chapter 1

Ecclesiastes Chapter 1

Theme:

The cyclical nature of things seems to be a persistent emphasis, as evidenced by the repetition of all things: the sun approaches, engages, and then retreats only to begin approaching again; the wind blows alternatively in opposite directions; the rivers empty into the sea and the sea somehow returns its waters to the source of the river; labor is done only to be done again; nothing is new, everything is a repeat, has happened before. Within this cycle all is vanity (futile) and perhaps paradoxical (commentary on paradoxical: these are the things that make up life; we must perform them but in performing them we are achieving nothing; all will only repeat itself. Edit: on second thought, perhaps irony is a better term for this relationship between labour and result, expectation and disappointment.)

Stand out verses:

Since the majority of the verses are support for this cyclical theme mentioned above, a few verses that don’t appear to be direct support stand out. I will comment on the three that stand out most to me.

1:8 -- “All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.”

The most obvious meanings here are “all things are full of labour” and “the eye is not satisfied with seeing.” Yes, in living, labour is inescapable, whether it be physical or mental or mere survival. This isn’t particularly interesting. But following this up with “man cannot utter it” is interesting, and I don’t know what it means, though I assume consulting another translation or two would reveal a clearer insight. From this, the King James translation, perhaps it’s simply a form of expression, a sentiment that it’s not possible to put into words the extent to which labour is an integral reality of being alive.

I do love the observation that “the eye is not satisfied with seeing.” Obviously, this simply means that we are unable merely to appreciate what we see and be satisfied. We want to take the next step and possess what we see, an instinct to covet, perhaps. It could be assumed, given the tenor of the book, that the human assumption is that once we possess what we see we will be satisfied, but the preacher here is of course going to warn us that this is not true. Even in possessing, our assertiveness is futile.

What particularly interests me in this verse is its explanation of desire as demonstrated through sight paired with the observation, “nor is the ear filled with hearing.” As the second part of a pair, one would assume that the concept here would be equal or parallel to the first. But a literal interpretation (at least in the English wording of the King James) does not yield an equal metaphor. Yet even as I type I am realizing that my analysis will return me to where I began (it’s futile!). My analytical detour here was incited by my application of contemporary connotations to the words “satisfied” and “filled” in the English language. While being “satisfied” usually expresses basic contentment, being “filled” most often suggests the limits of capacity have been reached for a person or a thing. These are small nuances, but they are enough to mislead a novice like myself. Initially, partly because I unconsciously consider hearing to be a passive activity (as opposed to seeing or looking), I interpreted this second observation to suggest that there is more to hear beyond what we hear. Now, I am guessing that this apparent disparity is merely a literary strategy in the original language, a form of poetry, to make an observation and then repeat it with a parallel metaphor. And though I assume “satisfied” and “filled” are two distinct words in the original language, I also assume these two words were synonymous.  One doesn’t have to delve too far into the past of the English language either, I would wager, to find these words used almost interchangeably.

So with this rather circular analysis out of the way, I can now confidently interpret the second phrase of the pair, “nor is the ear filled with hearing”: The ear hears and it is not “filled,” i.e. “satisfied.” It wants more.

I have a couple more thoughts. One, it is interesting to note the level with which we are physically engaged in our world, how our relating to our surroundings depends on our senses. These senses bring us both pleasure and pain; we are unable to stop wanting more of these sensations, and interestingly, while it’s logical that we would desire more of these pleasures, it’s also true that at times we find ourselves wanting more of even the pain.

My second add-on thought (and hopefully the last) returns to an observation I stumbled upon earlier, that I perceive seeing as an active behavior while I think of hearing as a passive one. We have constant control over our eyes, moving them left and right, up and down, and in the process we seek out particular details within our range of vision. When we find something we like looking upon, we can fix our eyes upon that subject and perform what we call “staring.” Whether it be a bird snatching a worm with its beak from among blades of grass, the welcoming smile of a stranger, or a video of a plane flying into a building, we choose what we view with our eyes for the most part. There are un-willed visual inputs to our eyes nearly every moment of course, but we can almost always choose to look away.

On the other hand, we have less control over our ears. While our eyes have “lids” conveniently located just above them, allowing us to shutter our eyes in a split second, our ears have not such devices. Even if we choose not to shut our eyes, we can rotate them at will to take in a different picture of our surroundings. In contrast to these conveniences, our ears are perpetually “open,” filterless, receiving whatever sounds thrust themselves upon us. Our options when it comes to controlling what we hear are three: press our fingers to our ears to dampen the surrounding sounds; insert objects into our ears to accomplish the same purpose (or to drown out the surrounding sounds with other sounds through headphones); and to physically remove ourselves from the setting by walking away. I think my explanation here has well-established that our control over our hearing is significantly less than our control over our seeing, and thus I have demonstrated that Ecclesiastes has referenced an active use of our senses (sight) vs. a passive use of our senses (hearing). Nonetheless, the wisdom here is that even that which our senses take in passively does not preclude our wanting more, and the suggestion is that our senses, whatever their mode of operation, stir desire within us. We seek out opportunities for pleasurable hearing. A long-time friend of mine once commented, in response to someone saying, “You haven’t heard of [such and such a band]?!” that he had “seen more bands perform live than you have on your itunes” (liberties taken with quote, but the gist is there). We go to musical performances, literary readings, class lectures and discussions, and festivals and conferences of all kinds to experience the pleasure of hearing. Decades ago, families gathered around radio sets nightly to be enraptured by this same pleasure. We sit outside and stare with our active eyes and yet find ourselves entranced by the night sounds of chirping crickets, groaning cicadas, cat fights, the sound of the wind through the trees, and even sirens, horns, and tires humming on paved roads. Regardless of our will, we find ourselves engaged through our senses, and Ecclesiastes seems to suggest that this is a kind of addiction, one could even say a thirst for knowledge.

1:15 -- “That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.”

I suppose in some ways this verse could be considered further support for the inescapable cyclical nature of existence the Preacher has emphasized. Whatever is inside the circle which we experience over and over cannot be affected or changed. Things are as they are. If something is crooked, it will remain crooked. Applying the Preacher’s theory of futility, one could even temporarily straighten something, but once we release our hold on it, it will immediately return to its crooked state. Imagine two people holding opposite ends of a slinky and walking farther and farther apart. The slinky will stretch, and while it won’t become exactly straight, it will eventually begin to take on a quality resembling “straightness.” Now imagine those two people releasing their holds on the ends at the same time, and bam! The slinky rushes to resume its former shape, that tight, circular spiral that has brought joy to thousands of human beings in our younger days.

But while this verse does emphasize--as does the rest of the chapter--our inability to change a cycle despite our efforts, it stood out to me initially for two reasons: though it does suggest a static nature of existence, it doesn’t directly reference a cycle; and even more intriguing is that it directly contradicts content in the New Testament, which states that mountains will be made low, valleys will be raised, and the crooked will be made straight. If I were more of a Biblical scholar I would be able to identify where this appears, but I assume this statement is attributed to Jesus. I am actually most familiar with it from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

This verse doesn’t need much more comment, but the remaining comment is a big deal, life changing and world changing. I’ve thought about it before, but considering this observation in Ecclesiastes, it seems glaring why the New Testament is so named. It is, quite literally, a new testimony, a flipping of all understandings on their heads, or, as David Dark would identify it, the New Testament is “apocalyptic,” seeing things as they truly are, which, somewhat shockingly, is a hopeful thing. How could Jesus in the New Testament declare something contrary to the truly exceptional wisdom of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes? Honestly, the answer may be the crux of faith. The answer is that Jesus, as God and as Creator, has come into the cyclical world of futility from outside the circle. The crooked can be made straight because the rules of the cyclical, the purposelessness of labour, the very laws of nature, have been superseded by a greater, transcendent force. In fact, this transcendent force is the same force that set the cycle in motion; somehow the created cycle was an act of love, and that same love reaches into the cycle and makes adjustments. Any analogy is sure to have its faults, but imagine a child who spins his friend on a merry-go-round. As they play, the other entertainments on the playground go unused and unnoticed, the swings and the slides and the sandbox. Both participants experience delight, the pusher in the exhilaration he evokes for his friend, who spins round and round, overcome with the sensory delights of inertia and momentum. But as the spun body hangs on for dear life, the spinner, outside the circle, can grab a pole at any moment and stop the cycle, make the blurry clear, the crooked straight, and they can then walk away together and experience the playground outside the merry-go-round. Interestingly, he who was spun may even enjoy the dizziness that forces itself upon him as the cycle is brought to a halt and he stumbles out of the circle. A reorientation to a new reality is needed, as the motion and direction of everything has suddenly changed. Likewise, Jesus “invites” us to a new reality, a world outside the spinning, where the crooked is made straight and the mountains and valleys (the playing field) are leveled. I’m getting a bit ahead of the Biblical narrative, but this earthly wisdom of the Preacher anticipates the apocalyptic, “heavenly” wisdom of the Word, the Creator, the God-come-as-man declarations of Jesus.

1:18 -- “For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”

This final stand-out verse is notable because, as verse 15 discussed above, it also doesn’t directly reference a cycle. If it did, it might say something like “in much wisdom is much grief, and in much grief one finds wisdom. Likewise, increasing knowledge brings sorrow, and sorrow yields increased wisdom.”

While this hypothetical revision may be true, the verse doesn’t say this. Instead, this is one of the only uni-directional verses in the chapter. An action leads to a growth rather than a repetition. An inevitable relationship between concepts is still established, however (wisdom yields grief, knowledge yields sorrow), a connection which can be pushed a bit to fit the chapter’s theme. Futility remains a reality; one might expect wisdom and knowledge to be a way, a path, leading outside the circle, but instead these things are only reminders that in striving we are nonetheless powerless to escape the realities of disappointment and sorrow.  

It’s also interesting that the relationships expressed are directly proportional, like real estate values and my net worth if I happen to be a homeowner, for example. And yet the direct proportion for the preacher can be expressed by the formula, positive = negative. There is, behind the text, the assumption that wisdom and knowledge are good and that grief and sorrow are bad. As the positive good of wisdom and knowledge increase, so do the negatives of grief and sorrow, thus the positives and negatives increase together, remaining equal. Once again, this is an excellent illustration of futility.

It would be interesting to explore the question of whether grief and sorrow are true negatives (I don't believe they are and I suspect the Preacher didn't either), but that is a philosophical question outside the parameters of what the Preacher seems to be emphasizing here. It is clear that his primary theme is the vanity (futility) of the ways we engage with life, and thus the opposition of grief to wisdom and sorrow to knowledge appear to be intended as examples of this futility.