A Wiseman’s Longing for Newness
The book of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet in Hebrew) is part of the wisdom corpus of scripture and opens with the claim that the author is a son of David, king in Jerusalem.[i]
The focus of this piece is a theological contemplation on verses 1:15 and 7:13. These two verses are an example of thematic progression. Thematic progression as a literary device is to place a thought in the reader’s mind and later add more information to the initial thought. As an author Qohelet structures his book to effect his reader without the reader’s immediate awareness of how he / she has been impacted.[ii]
Contemplation on Verses 1:15 and 7:13
Qohelet 1:15
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.
It is reasonable to consider that 1:15 is a statement on the ongoing nature of human life, reflected in ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. Is Qohelet in search of newness, an interruption brought by wisdom?
The book of Qohelet reveals wisdom to be present in a poor wise man.[iii] Canonically, the book of Qohelet points to the presence of wisdom in the Lord Jesus who renounced power and lived without the trappings of wealth and power.[iv]
As a reader we are invited to consider the crookedness of human life. It is bound by temporality (Qohelet 1:2-11) and comprised of moments common to all of us (Qohelet 3:2-9).
We are unable to escape the crookedness that inhibits our pursuit of wisdom. We are bound to creation and creation is more enduring than human life. Qohelet desire is for us to long for more, the pursuit of wisdom in effect is the desire for newness that breaks the cycles of the natural world and death.
However, the pursuit is a mockery that drives the wiseman to the borders of despair where he offers the pursuit of simple joys as a balm for the weary one searching for wisdom.[v] Welcome to the world of human beings where we are certain to fail for reality itself is crooked and lacking a path that can correct our way.
All of our wisdom and ability to create our relational and experiential reality(ies) is unable to correct the crookedness and limitless lack that marks ourselves and our world.
Qohelet 7:13
Consider the work of God;
who can make straight
what he has made crooked?
When we arrive at Ecclesiastes 7:13 Qohelet offers a solution for healing the world, for correcting the inability of humanity to live in wisdom that brings newness into the world. All the newness of our science and technology has not cured our violence we remain self-destructive. Qohelet seeks a newness that heals the human heart and brings the salvation that provides rest to the weariness of our vain pursuit for power, for answers, for escaping the grips of our temporal lives.
The answer to the question of 7:13 is clear, God alone can correct the world, can correct the erring pursuits of humanity’s desire for an, as yet, unattainable world of joy. In this sense Qohelet makes God culpable for reality’s crookedness. Qohelet awaits the divine King.
Newness
The longing for newness exhibited in Qohelet is expressive of the pursuit of wisdom. A wise person seeking wisdom will envision a world unlike the present. In scripture, wisdom is a possession of God.[vi] The newness Qohelet seeks is in accord with the new covenant announced in Jeremiah 31:31-34. It is detectable in the hope pieces of the first testament e.g. Hosea 14.
Jesus is communicated in the NT as both word and wisdom. The newness of the Christ is first and foremost revealed in the incarnation.[vii] This is so for there is nothing more new, revelatory, phenomenal, or paradoxical than God becoming a human being without exception, bound to the limits of birth and death, held in the comprehensive powers of a human mind. Only from newness can newness enter the world.
As wisdom and word enfleshed, Jesus lives out the newness embodied by his presence in the world. His authority is derived from his own existence as the (only) one who descended from heaven and has made being human to be part of what it means to be God.
Understanding Jesus as not only a wiseman but as the embodiment of wisdom requires, we continually take the leaps of faith that are consistent with Jesus’ vision for humanity. Understanding Jesus as the word requires, we listen for the creative force in the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus that brings newness into the world, that we learn to articulate his wisdom and vision for humanity in the present while awaiting his return. I often say that hope for the resurrection is as important as hope for the present.
Salvation brings more than resurrection it enters the present to redeem and birth children of God who become lights in a world of darkness. In the economy of the Kingdom, when eternal life is present, when rest enters the world as a result of Jesus’ followers, then those in Christ envision the presence of newness by living out the love of God for all humanity.[viii]
There is no violence in the world to come, nor is violence present when wisdom and word enter the world. We cannot bring God into the world through any actions that require violence.
[i] The word Qohelet is a name not a title. Verse 12 makes it clear that it is Qohelet who is King in Jerusalem. However, his kingship is a fictive literary device and a thorough reading reveals Qohelet is King of Wisdom whereas the Solomonic personification in chapter two is to mock the trappings of power that led to Solomon’s failure to be the King of wisdom. The Solomonic personification in ch.2 is (aside from the introduction of the book’s author) bracketed by the poem of 2-11 which is a ‘complaint against temporality’ and the poem of 3:1-9 which is expressive of the ‘moments that form human life’.
[ii] The work of a narrator is evident in verses 1:2, 7:27, and 12:8. In 12:8 the reader is informed that the work of Qohelet underwent a rigorous effort of study, thought and arrangement.
Qohelet 12:8 Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs. The Teacher sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly.
[iii] This link is to a piece I wrote explaining how the author ‘Qohelet’ reveals his identity through his stories. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d0814d15d5dbcf5a37f86f/t/6328d6374570a3450cfbe617/1663620680459/Qohelet+PDF.pdf
[iv] Canonically and theologically the book of Ecclesiastes serves to identify wisdom as belonging to a poor man who reigns as king because the King of Jerusalem must embody wisdom, all others are lacking. Ecclesiastes longs for the embodiment of Wisdom in the King of Jerusalem. Similarly, the book of Job in its cry for the incarnation longs for that ‘newness’ that brings the one true King of Jerusalem and reveals how through suffering alone can such a King arise.
[v] Joy is the gift of God that comforts our lack, our inability to produce the newness of a reborn humanity.
1. “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God . . .” (2:24–26)
2. There is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man . . .” (3:12–15)
3. “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him . . .” (5:18–20)
4. “I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.” (8:15)
5. “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do . . .” (9:7–10)
6. “If a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. . . . Rejoice, O young man . . .” (11:8–12:7)
[vi] This link is to an essay I wrote on Proverbs 8. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d0814d15d5dbcf5a37f86f/t/6328d5511ab84863a363e500/1663620453823/An+Exegetical+Exploration+of+Proverbs+Chapter+Eight.pdf
[vii] This link is to an essay on the Philippian hymn and is helpful for contemplation on the incarnation.
[viii] This link is to an essay on the lifting up of the poor, the uneducated, those without power, as evidence of the Spirit’s newness present in the church. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d0814d15d5dbcf5a37f86f/t/6328d5d51ab84863a3640bc7/1663620588129/PDF+Wise+Mighty+Noble+with+copyright.pdf
