Summary: Bible - Book of Ecclesiastes

The GIST

Ecclesiastes is the Bible's skeptic. It is a short book of twelve chapters among the Writings of the Hebrew Bible and the wisdom books of the Christian Old Testament, and it says things no other biblical book quite dares to say: that hard work may come to nothing, that the wise die exactly as fools do, that justice often fails, and that nobody can work out what God is doing. Its speaker is called Kohelet in Hebrew, a word usually rendered the Preacher or the Teacher, and he is introduced as a son of David and king in Jerusalem. His verdict comes in the second verse and returns at the end: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

The word translated vanity is the Hebrew hevel, which literally means vapor or breath. Things are not so much worthless as insubstantial: here for a moment and impossible to grasp. Out of that hard look at life the book draws a conclusion that is surprisingly gentle. Since so little can be secured, eat, drink and take pleasure in your work while you can, because these are gifts from the hand of God.

What It Says

The question (chapter 1). After the title, the book opens with a poem. Generations come and go. The sun rises and sets and hurries back to where it rose. The wind circles, the rivers run to the sea and the sea is never full. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." Against this background the Preacher asks the question that governs everything after it: "What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?" The phrase under the sun will recur some twenty-nine times. It marks the limits of his inquiry: life as it can be observed from here.

The experiment (chapters 1 and 2). Kohelet speaks as a king who had the means to try everything. He set himself to seek wisdom and found that more knowledge brought more grief. He turned to pleasure, to laughter and to wine. He built on a grand scale: "I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards." He acquired gardens, pools, servants, herds, silver and gold, singers, and denied himself nothing his eyes desired. Then he looked at all of it and judged it vanity and vexation of spirit. Wisdom is better than folly, he grants, as light is better than darkness. But the same fate overtakes the wise man and the fool, and both are forgotten. Worst of all, everything he worked for must be left to someone who did not work for it and who may be a fool. His first conclusion already contains the book's refrain: there is nothing better for a person than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in labor, and this too is from the hand of God.

Time (chapter 3). The best-known passage in the book follows. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Then: "A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted." The poem runs through pair after pair, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, war and peace. It is often read as comfort, and it can be. In context it is also a statement of human limits. The times are set, and we do not set them. God "hath made every thing beautiful in his time," and has put a sense of something larger into the human heart, yet in such a way that no one can find out his work from beginning to end. Kohelet looks at the law courts and sees wickedness where justice should be. He looks at mortality and sees that humans and animals share one breath and one end: "All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."

Observations (chapters 4 to 6). The middle of the book is a series of things seen. The tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. Toil driven by envy of a neighbor. A man alone, with neither child nor brother, who never stops working and never asks for whom. Against that loneliness he sets a warmer thought: "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour." If one falls the other can lift him up, "and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." He warns against rash words and vows before God, who is in heaven while we are on earth. And he returns to money: "He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver." Wealth is easily lost, cannot be taken along, and robs its owner of sleep.

Sayings and limits (chapters 7 to 11). The second half gathers proverbs, many with a sting. "A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth." Sorrow teaches more than laughter, and the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. He has seen the righteous perish in their righteousness and the wicked live long. He has found that wisdom, however hard he pursued it, stayed far off. No one has power over the wind or over the day of death, and no one knows what will come after.

The counsel he keeps drawing from this is not despair. "Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart." Enjoy life with the one you love. And work wholeheartedly: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," because there is no working in the grave. Outcomes cannot be guaranteed. "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," he observes, but time and chance happen to all. So he recommends a kind of generous boldness in an uncertain world: "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days." Sow in the morning and in the evening too, since you cannot know which will prosper.

Old age and the end (chapters 11 and 12). Kohelet's last words are addressed to the young. Rejoice in your youth, he says, and know that God will call you to account. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not." What follows is a haunting poem about growing old, in which the failing body is pictured as a household winding down, its keepers trembling, its windows darkening, its doors shut, until "the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken," the dust returns to the earth and the spirit to God who gave it. Then the opening verdict is repeated one last time.

The epilogue (12:9 to 14). A second voice closes the book, speaking about Kohelet in the third person. He was wise, he taught the people, and he chose his words with care. The sayings of the wise are like goads. There is a wry warning for students, "of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh," and then the final word: "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."

Why It Matters

Ecclesiastes earns its place by refusing to pretend. Where Proverbs is confident that wisdom and virtue lead to good outcomes, this book is deeply skeptical even of wisdom, and scholars still cannot say with certainty how such a book came to be included in Scripture. The Talmud records that the rabbis considered suppressing it because of its contradictions. Readers argue over whether it is finally bleak or life-affirming, and whether Kohelet is a model to follow or a warning. One helpful suggestion is that the book records a search, so that its clashing statements are stages along the way and its sayings are meant to provoke thought, not to close it down.

What it offers in place of answers is a way of living with their absence: reverence toward a God whose ways cannot be mapped, and gratitude for ordinary good things, food, work, companionship, a day of sunlight. That combination has spoken to believers and unbelievers alike.

In Jewish tradition the book is ascribed to Solomon in his old age and is read at the festival of Sukkot, a sober note sounded in a season of joy. Christian writers from Jerome and Augustine to recent popes have drawn on it, and one modern theologian saw it as the last word of human wisdom, clearing the ground for something new. Scholars note that the author never actually names Solomon, and that the language, with its Persian loanwords and Aramaic turns, points to a date between about 450 and 180 BCE. Many regard the epilogue as the work of a later hand.

Its influence on literature is immense. Phrases such as nothing new under the sun and a time to be born and a time to die have entered the language. Hemingway, Edith Wharton and Henry James took titles from it, the song "Turn! Turn! Turn!" sets its third chapter almost word for word, and Thomas Wolfe called it the greatest single piece of writing he had ever known.

Who Should Read It

Read Ecclesiastes if you have achieved what you set out to achieve and found yourself asking what it was for, or if you distrust easy answers. It suits doubters, the middle-aged and anyone in a reflective season, and it is short enough to read in an evening. Do not expect consolation of the usual kind. Its gift is company in honest questions and permission to enjoy the day.