Outline of Ecclesiastes
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The book opens with an introduction or preface (ch. 1.1-11) in which Qoheleth sets forth his conviction that everything is vain. Life and the processes of nature are an endless and meaningless repetition. Men are unconscious of the repetition, because each generation is ignorant of the experiences of the generations which have gone before it.
As though to give a demonstration of the thesis of the preface Qoheleth, in the next section of the book (1.12-2.26), narrates his ex¬periments, under the assumed character of King Solomon, in seeking satisfaction first in wisdom (1.12-16), then, in material and sensual things (2.1-11), next, in the virtues of folly (2.12-17), and lastly, he states (2.18-26) the conclusions to which his various experiments have led. These conclusions are that there is no permanent satisfaction in any kind of earthly activity. All labor is alike vain. There is nothing better than to eat and drink and gain such animal satisfaction as one can while life lasts. This is, it is true, vain, i.e., fleeting, but it is the only ray of satisfaction in a world of vain toil and transient phenomena.
Qoheleth then proceeds (3.1-15) to exhibit man's helplessness in the grip of those laws which God has established. Human activities are limited to certain times and seasons in which man goes his little round doing only what other men have done before. His nature cries out for complete knowledge of the works of God, but God has doomed him to ignorance, so that the best he can do is to eat and drink and ignorantly get what little enjoyment he can within these limitations. The philosophy which is for the second time repeated here, bears a striking resemblance to that of the Gilgamesh fragment quoted above.
A section then follows (3.16-22) which is but loosely connected with the preceding, in which Qoheleth argues that the oppressions of human government and the injustices of human courts prove that men are like beasts, and the fact that both experience the same death, and return to the same dust, confirms this. Immortality is such a questionable thing, that another argument is found for the Semitic theory which the Babylonian poet had formulated long before Qoheleth, that the best one can do is to make the most of the present.
From the general reflections suggested by oppression and injustice, Qoheleth passes in the next section (4.1-12) to a closer examination of man's inhumanity to man, speaking first of the pathos of the oppression of the weak by the powerful, then, of the envy created by rivalry, and, lastly, of the lonely miser's inhumanity to himself. He contents himself here with a statement of facts; the conclusion to be drawn from them had been stated at the end of ch. 3. Ch. 4.13-16 sets forth the vanity or transient nature of popularity as exhibited in the history of two young unnamed kings. The statement suggests that the acme of human glory is even more vain than other forms of human activity. In ch. 5.1-7 Qoheleth offers us his most extended remarks upon religion. The two glosses (5.3 and 5.7a) on dreams do not seriously interrupt the flow of his thought. He had in ch. 3 revealed his conception of God as a powerful being, who keeps man in ignorance (3.11 emended text), and who has circumscribed man in the inexorable meshes of fate, so that man may fear him. Now Qoheleth goes on to counsel obedience, reverence, and a faithful performance of one's covenants with God. His conception of God is dark, but such religion as he has is sincere. Qoheleth has no tolerance for shams, nor sympathy with the glib worshipper who in a mo¬ment of fright will covenant with God for anything, if only he may escape the impending danger, and then go his way and forget it when the danger is past. What in his view the real function of religion was, he does not tell us, but he does insist that such religious practices as one engages in should be reverent and sincere.
In ch. 5.8-6.9 Qoheleth returns again to the subject of oppression, which in every Oriental country, as in every despotism, is so painful an element in life. He first observes that in a country ruled by a hierarchy of officers oppression is to be expected, though a king is on the whole an advantage, and then passes to the consideration of the various kinds of oppression which grow out of the love of money. In the course of this discussion he more than once (5.18,19 6.2,3) reiterates his theory, that the one ray of light on life is to eat and drink and gain what enjoyment one can, without wearing one's self out in useless labor. This is transient (vain, 6.9), but there is nothing better.
These thoughts lead Qoheleth in ch. 6.10-12 to revert to the theme of ch. 3, the contrast between puny man and fate. In ch. 7.1-14 Qoheleth introduced a few proverbs which enforced his point of view. These the Hokma glossator has considerably amplified with proverbs which have no bearing on the question in hand.
Then, as though the indictment against the order of the world were not sufficiently strong, Qoheleth in the next section (7.15 - 10.3) enters upon a second arraignment of life. He sets forth, excluding interpolations, in 7.15-22 the uselessness of going to extremes, in 7.23-29 his judgment of women, in 8.1-9 he reflects once more upon despotism, in 8.10-15 he reiterates his conviction that the results of righteousness and godlessness are the same, in 8.16-9.1 he describes an¬other fruitless experiment to fathom the world by wisdom, and in 9.2-6 the hopelessness of humanity's end; while in 9.7-16 he, in view of this argument, restates again more fully that Semitic philosophy of life, which he holds in common with the Babylonian poet, and at one point, as we have seen, almost quotes that poet's words. Ch. 9.17-10.3 are glosses added by the Hokma editor.
In the next section (10.4-20)—a section greatly interpolated by the Hokma editor—Qoheleth offers still further advice as to the proper conduct to be observed toward rulers.
Lastly, in the final section, ch. 11.1-12.8, Qoheleth utters his final counsels. He has probed life and the world relentlessly. He has stated his conclusions frankly, undeterred by any sentimental reasons. He has been compelled to find the older religious conceptions of his people inadequate, and the newer conceptions, which some about him were adopting, unproven. His outlook has forced him to pessimism, but, nevertheless, his concluding advice, in accordance with the Semitic philosophy, which more than once during his writing has come to the surface, is manly and healthy, if not inspiring. Enter into life heartily, be kindly, venture to sow and reap and fill the whole round of life's duties while you can. Let the young man, therefore, make the most of his youth, for the inevitable decay of bodily powers will come with advancing age, and the cheerlessness of Sheol will terminate all.
Such are Qoheleth's thoughts and such is his advice. His philosophy of life, though in a sense hopeless, is not immoral. He nowhere counsels debauchery or sensuality; he rather shows that in these there is no permanent enjoyment. Though a sceptic, he had not abandoned his belief in God. It is true that God is for him no longer a warm personality or a being intimately interested in human welfare. The ancestral faith of Israel in Yahweh has been outgrown; Qoheleth never uses the name. God is an inscrutable being. It is vain to seek to understand his works. All we can know is that he holds men in the iron vice of fate. Nevertheless Qoheleth preaches a gospel of healthy work and the full enjoyment of life's round of duties and opportunities. Let a man fulfil these while he bravely faces the real facts of life—this is the sum of Qoheleth's teaching.
It is a teaching which is to a Christian chilling and disappointing, but Qoheleth's negative work had, no doubt, a function to perform in clearing away outworn conceptions before a new, larger, truer, and more inspiring faith could have its birth.
His book probably owes its presence in the canon to the fact that he had impersonated Solomon in the early part of it. This was taken literally by the unimaginative. Orthodoxy afterward added, as we have seen, some sentences, to soften the teaching of the book for Pharisaical ears.
