Copyright © 2001 by
WOMAN AS THE OBJECT OF
QOHELET'S SEARCH
GEORGE M.
SCHWAB
Erskine Theological Seminary
Due West,
Qohelet 7:23-29 has elicited
numerous approaches to explain why there
is a negative estimation of womanhood found on the
lips of the wise. Below
it will be argued that the text picks up the
narrative of the first two chapters
of Ecclesiastes and briefly continues the
characterization of the life of
Solomon.
Part and parcel of that life was the pursuit of women. This pursuit
had a negative effect on the reputation of Solomon.
Some part of what it
means to be wise seemed to have eluded him;
therefore, the relation between
"woman" and "wisdom" becomes an important
hermeneutical approach to
the understanding of the text. Before turning to
this approach, however, a
brief review of recent scholarship will be presented.
Various Approaches to Qohelet 7:23-29
Various hypotheses have been advanced to explain
the passage in
question. Michael V. Fox reads the text as simple
misogyny.1 Frank
Zimmermann
envisions a sexually frustrated sage, who speaks of his own
embittered experience.2 Scholars such as Sinclair Ferguson see a male
perspective, that can easily be transposed into the
female.3 A feminine
perspective might have read:
I find more bitter than
death the man who is an iron fist and whose
heart is arrogant and whose
feet are steel boots. The woman who fears
God will escape him, but the sinner he will
crush. ...I have found one
woman among a thousand, but a
man among all these I have not found.4
Kathleen Farmer claims that
1Michael V. Fox states: "The passage
remains irreparably misogynistic," and 9:9 does
"not ameliorate
the sourness of the passage" (Qoheleth
and His Contradictions [
Almond Press, 1989],237-238).
2Frank Zimmermann, The
Inner World of Qoheleth (New York: KTAV, 1973),
152.
3Sinclair
4Duane A Garrett, "Ecclesiastes
Criswell Theological Review
(1988): 318.
74 SEMINARY
STUDIES 39 (SPRING 2001)
such as can be found in Prov
7; only the sinner is taken.5 This reading
leaves virtually all women morally flawed, since Qohelet did not find a
single (upright) woman among a
thousand.6
Further analyses border on the esoteric. Klaus Baltzer finds a military
commentary in the text, as if Qohelet
had written: "You have heard it was
said, 'More bitter than death is the woman,' but I
have searched the death-
dealing Jl,x, ("military
unit"), and I found no woman there." The tOnbow.;hi
of
and snares. The misogynistic meaning disappears and
becomes a
testimonial to the female gender. God made the male
upright, but he has
searched out machines of war.7
Thomas Kruger proposes that wisdom is
personified; that is, the "sinner"
comes under the inevitable snares and nets
(discipline) of the wisdom school,
but the good man escapes evil consequences.8 H. C. Leupold argued that the
woman symbolized heathen philosophy.9 Perhaps she is the proverbial Dame
Folly. Duane A. Garrett suggests that there is an echo
of Gen 3 in these verses,
with the curse of the woman, who "will try to
trap" her husband.10 It appears
that
men have gone in search of many schemes."
Ingrid Riesener proposes that
Qobelet's words are not his own, but are cited
from "traditionelle Weisheit
Aussagen," of the sort one
encounters in the book of Proverbs, where
warnings are given against the foreign woman.11 Chapter
traditional negative statement with a positive
judgment from Creation in this
reading.
5Kathleen
Farmer, Who Knows What Is Good? A Commentary on the
Books of Proverbs
and Ec'clesiastes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1991), 179. Her opinion is derived from the close
association she sees between Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
6Tremper
Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes,
NICOT (
1998), 204. Longman argues from the lack of a single woman in a
thousand that Qohelet had
all
womanhood in mind, not just a certain kind of woman.
7Klaus
Baltzer, "Women and War in Qohelet
7:23-8:1a," HTR 80 (1987): 127-132.
8Thomas
Kruger,"'Frau Weisheit'
in Koh 7,26?,"Biblica
73(1992): 394-403.Kruger argues
that the
discussion is about wisdom, but that the disciplinary aspect of traditional
wisdom,
erotically personified, had disillusioned Qoheleth,
who came to regard it as bitterer als der Tod.
9H. C. Leupold, Exposition of
Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1952), 173-177.
Leupold also argues that women "never
produce constructive wisdom works or
systems of thought that are truly
creative" (177). Commentators, perhaps, can also
be misogynists.
10Duane
A. Garrett, Proverbs Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs(Nashville: Broadman,1993), 325.
11Ingrid Riesener, "Frauenfeindschaft im Alten Testament? Zum Verstandnis
von Qoh
7 ,25-29,"
in Jedes Ding hat seine Zeit.
.., ed. A. Diesel (Berlin: Gruyter,
1996). See also
Norbe:t Lohfink, Kohelet (Wurzberg: Echter, 1980), 56.
WOMAN
AS THE OBJECT OF QOHELET 's SEARCH 75
Recently Dominic Rudman
has suggested that the woman of
not evil, but is used by God as a tool to prevent
the discovery of the sum
of human life. The woman per se is not the
archetype of wickedness,"
since Qohelet refers only
to her inevitable role as the thwarter of
discovery. Qohelet seeks
to understand human motivation and actions
rather than abstract truths. Therefore, as one embarks
on a search for
understanding, it would appear to be
impossible not to be ensnared by a
woman, thus ending the search.12
The above synopsis illustrates the hermeneutical
disparity among
interpreters. Below we will examine
another possible approach, in which
7:23-29
is read as a synopsis of Qohelet’s search of chapters
1 and 2, and
as a commentary on the life of Solomon. It will be
argued that Qohelet's
quest was, in part, for a female companion.
The Life Story of Qohelet
In Ecclesiastes, the "frame narrator"
records the reflections of
Qohelet: summary of Qohelet's
words (1:1-3), an evaluative epilogue
(12:8,14), and a third-person reference, "says Qohelet," (
narrator, rather than Qohelet,
is the final author of Ecclesiastes.13
Qohelet himself speaks the
first-person language, which is reminiscent
of King Solomon. He is the "son of David,
king over
dedicated to the pursuit of wisdom (
projects and the acquiring of a harem (2:4-10).
He is the greatest king of
more effectively make his point.
In the first two chapters Qohelet
records his story, thus setting the
stage for the argument presented in the subsequent
material: Qohelet
claims that he was king in
and to "explore" (rvt) everything that is done under the sun (
“test” (hsn) and “explore” (rvt) mirth and pleasure (2:1-3); to know
wisdom, madness, and folly. Qohelet
explored his world looking for that
which is good and profitable. To see what is good, he
tried wine and
pleasure. He also built vineyards, gardens,
ponds, and houses; he acquired
servants, concubines (2:8, the delights of the
heart of man), gold, and
12Dominic
Rudman, "Woman as Divine Agent in Ecclesiastes,"
JBL 116 (1997): 411-427.
13Since
this is the case, Ecclesiastes seems somewhat distant from the historical
Solomon.
Although
the points of argumentation in this paper do not require a postexilic date for
the
book,
such date is assumed below where pseudepigraphic and
Rabbinic sources are used to
define a postexilic understanding of Solomon.
14The
only instance of wrd in Ecclesiastes.
76
SEMINARY
STUDIES 39 (SPRING 2001)
silver. He became greater than "all who were
before" him and denied
himself nothing that he desired (
But Qohelet did not
find what he was searching for. He excelled in
wisdom only to find that it brings great sorrow. He
discovered that his
wisdom and his work would end existentially in his own
death, thereby
giving him no advantage over the fool. He concluded:
A man can do nothing
better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in
his
work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who
can
eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives
wisdom,
knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of
gathering
and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases
God.
This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind (Qoh
The pleasure of the moment is all a man can
expect from life. If God
is pleased he gives enjoyment; if not, he gives
hardship (
under the censure of "meaningless" (lbh). After this conclusion, Qohelet
examines other fields of knowledge and experience
and pronounces them
"meaningless" as well. But Qohelet's
"experiment" as an ongoing endeavor
in the persona of Solomon is not mentioned
again until
The Summation of 7:23-29
The first two chapters are recalled in
uses of the words "rvt" and "hsn” occur in
"wisdom" and "folly" evokes
evaluation and synopsis of the
"experiment" of the first two chapters.
Only
wisdom has ultimately eluded Qohelet: He
"found" (xcm) no
wisdom and no NOBw;H,. (It will be argued
below that NOBw;H, may be glossed
"intrigue.") But the exploration of wisdom and folly did
reveal three
salient facts. First, he "found" (xcm) an hw.Axi ("woman"),
who is a snare and
a trap. Second, he "found" (xcm) one man among a thousand, but no
woman. Third, he "found" (xcm) that God made man upright and that
they seek tOnbow.;Hi.
An Odd Thing to Find
While searching for wisdom, Qohelet
found a dangerous woman. His
statement about the "one man in a
thousand" serves to highlight his
inability to find any other woman than that which
he found.15 If 7:23-29
15The
section of 7:23-29 is tied together in part by a seek-and-find motif. This
being the
case,
even if
seek
after a satisfying intrigue with a woman is a dangerous undertaking with small
chance of
success.
WOMAN AS THE OBJECT OF QO T'S SEARCH 77
evaluates the "test" of chapters 1 and 2,
then why is this new element (his
encounter with a woman) introduced? Qohelet did not seem to be
searching for a woman in the earlier chapters.
In 9:9-10 there is some evidence that in Qohelet's mind the search for
a woman and the search for wisdom are equated.
The relevancy of these
verses will be presented below.
The Equation of the
Woman and Wisdom
Enjoy life with the
woman whom you love, all of the days of your
meaningless
life that he has given you under the sun, all your
meaningless
days. For this is your portion in life and in your laborious
toil
under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your
might,
for there is no doing nor intrigue nor knowledge nor wisdom in
the
grave, where you are going (9:9-10, author's translation).
Here the reader is not called upon to enjoy his
wife as a facilitator of
pleasure. The man is not told to "enjoy your
wife," but rather "enjoy life with
the wife whom you love." There seems to be an
element of companionship
and togetherness in the verse in the spirit of
they are warm; but how can one be warm alone?"
The woman is not lumped
together with white garments, oil, food, and
drink.16 The man and the
woman, whom he loves, should enjoy good things
together.
NOBw;H, and the hw.Axi
NOBw;H, (“intrigue") is
set parallel to tfada
("knowledge"), hmAk;HA("wisdom”),
and hW,fEma (“doing, activity”) in
9:10. Together these should be enjoyed in
life, since they do not exist in the grave. These
terms are set parallel to
enjoying good things with the woman one loves in
9:9. Qohelet did not
say: “Enjoy life with your wife, since there is no
enjoyment in the grave,"
or "Enjoy life with her, since there is no
marriage there." Rather, he says:
"Enjoy
life with your wife," because there is no NOBw;H,, wisdom, doing, or
knowledge in the grave. Qohelet
equates enjoyment with wisdom,
knowledge, and activity. Enjoy life with her now,
since there will be no
wisdom then. Therefore, Qohelet
equates enjoying the good things of life
with one's beloved with having knowledge and wisdom.
What was the object of Qohelet's
search as he presented wisdom and
knowledge in the first two chapters? Do
"wisdom" and "knowledge"
mean a philosophical understanding of how things add
up? When he asks,
"Where
is the profit?" is this a philosophical question?
He notes in 9:9-10
16Contra Kruger, who states: " ...nennt er doch
die Frau 'in einer Reihe mit guten
Speisc
und sii~em Wein, mit frischer Wasche
und duftendem Haaro1"'("Frau Weisheit," 394-
395).
78
SEMINARY
STUDIES 39 (SPRING 2001)
that enjoying life with one's beloved is synonymous
with wisdom,
knowledge, and activity. Perhaps this explains why
Qohelet searched for
the one, but found the other. Rudman
asserts that Qohelet sought to
discover what resides in the hearts of
individuals, and it is this kind of
knowledge that he labels NOBw;H,.17
There is an association between the hw.Axi ("wife") and the NOBw;H,
("intrigue") throughout Ecclesiastes. The words are found
in alternate
verses in
only in these passages in the book. If they are
intentionally linked, then
NOBw;H, may denote a particular
kind of knowledge, activity, or wisdom that
involves personal interaction.
NOBw;H, and Its Meaning in
Ecclesiastes
bwH is usually glossed
"devise" or "reckon." Often the verb deals with
court intrigue or politics (1 Sam
bwH also commonly indicates
an evaluation or scrutinizing of a person (1
Sam
me
a stranger" [Job
designing (2 Chron
"thoughts" or "devisings"
(Prov 16:3). The form NOBw;H, however, is found
in Ecclesiastes in the context of discussions of
wisdom and women. In
we find hOnbow.;Hi to be the plural form
of a "synonymous variant" NObw.AHo.18 It
occurs once elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures in the
plural form, where
it is glossed "siegeworks"
(2 Chron 26:15).19 If one would devise (bwH) a
political or amorous strategy, that devising would
be called an
17Rudman,
"Woman as Divine Agent," 425.
18T. A. Perry, Dialogues With Qohelet (Penn State Press, 1993), 132. Perry glosses
"strategy"
for NOBw;H, and
"stratagems" for the plural of NObwA.Hi.
He suggests that the terms do not
refer
to "totaling up his experiences," but to an aspect of wisdom that
plans for the future by
anticipating
danger. But if this were its meaning, then humans have no access to it (8:7),
and
Qohelet
would hardly imply that living persons might possess it (
plural
form indicating a shift from a positive to a negative nuance; the wise begin by
seeking
a
wise strategy, but end by devising mere trickery.
19Most commentators see little, if any,
difference in meaning between the two forms
distinguished
only by number and vocalization. The NObwA.Hi
of
NOBw;H,
of-previous verses along these lines: "The word points to the futility of
the attempt-of
which
[Qohelet's] own experiment recorded in these verses
is an example-to discover by
wisdom
the 'sum of things'" (R. N. Whybray, Ecclesiastes,
NCBC [
1989],128). "This
is clearly self-directed irony. ...Such cogitation, he says here, is contrary
to
the way man was created" (Fox, Qoheleth
and His Contradictions, Biblical and Literature
Series 18, ]SOT
Supplement Series 71 [
discernable
difference in the uses of the two variants by Qohelet.
WOMAN AS THE OBJECT OF QOHELET'S SEARCH 79
“intrigue.”20 Qohelet uses the term to
associate wisdom and hw.Axi. The
connection of wisdom with the devising of amorous
intrigue has examples
in Scripture. Jonadab
was “wise” (MkH) in devising a way for Ammon "to
do" (tOWfl) something to Tamar (2
Sam 13:2-3). The Queen of Sheba was
attracted by Solomon's wisdom, so she
"tested" (hsn) him (1 Kgs 10:1; 2
Chron 9:1). The word used to describe the queen's
testing of Solomon is
that used by Qohelet to
describe his own exploration of mirth and good
things (2:1). Her response in part was to proclaim:
"Happy are your
wives!' (1 Kgs 10:8)!21
1 Kings 11, then, delineates Solomon's many wives.
He
loved these women and they "turned his heart (vbbl-tx
UF.h) after other
gods" (1 Kgs 11:4).
In Proverbs, the youth who is enticed by the adulteress
lacks “sense” (bl, Prov
7:7). The wise youth knows that the end of all who
follow her is death, and that life is found in the
embrace of one's "loving doe,
graceful deer," whose breasts always satisfy
(Prov 5:1-23). In the first nine
chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon folly and
wisdom are represented as
women, who seek to engage the young man. In the end
of the book, to
possess the virtuous wife is also to possess
wlsdom.22
There does seem to be a
connection in sapiential tradition between
wisdom and the ability to handle the venereal
appetite. Since NOBw;H, occurs
only in close proximity to Qohelet's
discussions of women, it appears to
be a particularly nuanced term that refers to that
aspect of Qohelet's
exploration of wisdom. The NOBw;H,, then, seems to be a
term that involves
a fitting and appropriate amorous relationship
with a woman. It is a
dangerous, yet rewarding, facet of the path of
wisdom that the sage
enjoys. Assuming that wisdom and women are related in Qohelet's (and
Solomon's)
story, a fresh look at
Qohelet Tested One Woman after
Another
All this I tested with
wisdom. I said, “I will be wise!" --but it was far
from
me. Whatever wisdom may be, it is far off and very deep, who
can
find
it? I turned my heart to know and to explore and to seek wisdom
and
an intrigue, and to know wickedness and folly and the foolishness
of
madness. And I found more bitter than death the woman
whose heart
is
snares and nets and whose hands are chains. He who is pleasing to
God escapes her, but
she will capture the sinner. Look, this I have found
[says
Qohelet!], testing one woman after another to find an
intrigue,
20See Rudman, Woman
as Divine Agent, 426. "The tOnbow;..Hi of the MT has
the
general
idea of 'intrigues.'"
21Following the
Old Greek.
22See Thomas McCreesh,
"Wisdom as Wife: Proverbs 31:10-31," Revue Biblique
92
(1985): 25-46.
80 SEMINARY STUDIES 39 (SPRING
2001)
which my passion still pursues, but I have not found.
One man among
a thousand I have found, but a woman in all these
I have not found.
Except-Look,
this I have found: God made mankind upright, but they
have sought many an intrigue (
In Ecclesiastes, wp,n, always occurs with the
meaning "appetite."23 It is
very rare in the Hebrew Scriptures to have wp,n, as subject with wqb as
verb.24 The only examples of a wp,n, "seeking" (wqb) something are in Lam
11:19,
where the people seek food to fill their wp,n,, and in Cant 3:1-3 and
5:6, where the girl seeks him "whom my soul
loves."25 wp,n, can be
understood in
In 7:23-29 the same parallels are being drawn as
in 9:9-10. An
"intrigue" is again parallel with "wisdom"
(and in antithetical relation to
"folly" and "madness"). Again, one's relations
with a woman are
intertwined with wisdom: "I searched for wisdom
and an intrigue" (
but "I found a woman more bitter than
death" (
paraphrase it with the words of
found this [says Qohelet!]
one to one to find an intrigue" (
one man, but no woman" (
(
people, not facts. tHaxa is feminine and may indicate "one woman
after
another."26 Qohelet
tested one woman after another to find an intrigue,
but could find only a woman worse than death.
In 9:9-10 Qohelet
claims that there is no intrigue in the grave, so one
should enjoy pleasures with one's beloved now; he
commends intrigue,
wisdom, knowledge, and activity, which may be found in
a companion,
especially a woman. But in
the opposite; the women he explored made his life
more bitter than death.
Women
in Ecclesiastes
If Qohelet's search
was for a companion, why does he elsewhere
show little interest in love? He does acknowledge
that there is a time for
it (3:8). In 4:8-12 he claims that the horror of
life is mitigated somewhat
if one is not alone (4:8-12). But the word hw.Axi is found nowhere in his
search, except in his account of how women (hDwi, “woman,” probably
23 See
24 A soul "seeks" (wrd) in Deut
25 See Riesener, “Frauenfeindschaft im Alten Testament?,” 201.
26 The language of "one" to depict "one person"
is found also in each verse of
4:8-12.
See also Isa 27:12, dHAx, dHaxal; “one by one.” For instance, In 1 Kings
3:25,
Solomon
says, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to one [tHxal;] and half to
one
[tHAx,l;].”
WOMAN AS THE OBJECT OF QOHELET'S SEARCH 81
related to dwa, "breast")
were to him objects of pleasure (2:8). Although
chapters 1 and 2 do not seem to allude to a
search for companionship,
7:23-29
reads into it the aspect of a NOBw;H,. Later in his positive
statement
about a wife (9:9), Qohelet
claims the grave and meaninglessness" Is the
end of any NOBw;H,. He comments on love,
hate, and jealousy (a word closely
associated with marriage) immediately before he
comments about this
wife (9:6, 9). Love, hate, and Jealousy27
seem to be related to "madness"
(9:3)-a
rare word in Ecclesiastes that seems to be a synonym for "folly,"
and an antonym for "wisdom" (
have relational connotations. If all along his
search was for a companion,
why has he not been more specific about It? The
following is a
speculative attempt to answer this question.
Woman as the Instrument
of lb,h,
Qohelet speaks as Solomon. In
7:23-29 his "test" of aspects of life
recalls the first chapters; in the middle verse
of this sequence the editor
interjected "says Qohelet,"
reminding the reader that the text recounts
Qohelet's experiences the statements concerning
the woman and the
intrigue are Qohelet's
(i.e., Solomon's) idiosyncratic judgments.
A
B 7:2 I found a woman more bitter than death
C
B 7:2 I found no woman
A
Although Qohelet (in
the guise of Solomon) enjoyed pleasurable
women in great numbers, there is no hint in chapters
1 and 2 of a
particular woman who was a companion in the sense
of 9:9-10 or 4:8-12.
1
Kings 3 records the first and noteworthy marriage of Solomon with the
daughter of Pharaoh. Solomon also loved other
"foreign" women (1 Kings
11:1-12),
who seduced him to idolatry. 2 Chronicles ignores this part of
Solomon's history, regarding king as faultless. The Chronicler seems
to have influenced later Rabbinic evaluations of
Solomon. R. Joseph
suggested that the daughter of Pharaoh was
converted by Solomon. R.
Papa
argued that Solomon did not actually marry foreign women (Yeb.
76); Solomon failed only
to control his wives (Shab. 56).
However, the 1
Kings
record did mar the king's reputation. Even in the Rabbinic
justifications, the women are censored
as having been a poor influence.
The
Targum to Ecclesiastes relates how his marriages to
these women.
27 The use of the
word xnq
in 4:3 and 9:6 (and nowhere else) demonstrates the
affinity
between these sections. 4: 1-12 is the most extensive section on the subject
of
companionship.
82 SEMINARY STUDIES
39 (SPRING 2001)
angered God, who drove the king from his throne.28
The Testament of
Solomon (first-to-third century
A.D.) portrays Solomon as out of his
senses with love for the "Shummanite,"
finally serving Jebusite gods for
her.29 R. Hiyya
b. Ammi used Solomon's marriage with Pharaoh's
daughter to illustrate the loss of restraint (Ber. 8). Therefore, from before
the postexilic period a very stable tradition can
be demonstrated of
Solomon
the wise king, who was seduced to idolatry by his passion for
women. It is reasonable to anticipate that this
regard for Solomon also
characterizes the book of
Ecclesiastes.
Qohelet's perennial complaint is
that all of life is "meaningless" or
"absurd" (lbh). Isaiah and Jeremiah
dismissed idols as lb,h, (Isa
57:13; Jer
10:3,15; 51:18). It is not hard to imagine the Jewish mind
connecting
Solomon's
idolatry with Qohelet's ascription of his own works
and
wisdom as lb,h,. The idol-worshiping daughter
of Pharaoh was the
instrument of Solomon's lb,h,, of his life cursed
with meaninglessness.
Companionship and Wisdom
Companionship is an important theme in
Ecclesiastes. Chapter 4
emphasizes leaving an inheritance to one's sons,
having a brother to help one,
and so forth. But love for a woman in marriage is
not made explicit (e.g.,
4:11.).
It seems to be consciously avoided. Perhaps what is not explicit earlier
in tile book is made explicit in the summation of Qohelet's quest in
and in 9:9-10, where Qohelet
speaks of something elusive to himself (9:9-10),
yet important to understand his search (
finding a beloved woman is an
"intrigue" and "wisdom," the opposite of
"madness" and "folly," the best summation of
life under the sun.
In the first nine chapters of Proverbs, folly
and wisdom are
represented as women, who seek to engage the young
man; and in the end
of
the book, to possess the virtuous wife (Prov. 31) is also to possess
wisdom. In Ecclesiastes, to enjoy life with one's
beloved is to test and
explore wisdom, the very thing Qohelet sought but did not find.
Solomon
was a lover of women, but his women became snares into a life
of meaninglessness and idolatry for him.30
28 P.S. Knobel, “Targum Qoheleth: A Linguistic and Exegetical Inquiry” (Ph.D.
dissertation,
Yale, 1976),28.
29 D.C. Duling, “Testament of Solomon,” in The
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,
ed.
John H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1983),
986-987.
30 In Prov 31:30, the book ends with a tension between the woman who ”fears
Yahweh,” and qualities which are lb,h,.
WOMAN AS THE OBJECT OF QOHLET'S SEARCH 83
As the laborer has some benefit that the rich
does not have (
as riches do not satisfy (
advantage over the man with a palace filled with
"breasts." Qohelet
claimed that his “reward” was to enjoy his labor
of building and searching
while he was doing it (
enjoyed his work with a companion? Given the
known history of
Solomon,
it would have been inappropriate to include the aspect of how
"Solomon"
also gained satisfaction with his own beloved (which is
perhaps celebrated m the Song of Songs), since
she was to him an
instrument of meaninglessness. She instead became
an obstacle to the fear
of God-the very thing the epilogue presents as the
sum of human life.31
Knowing
how Pharaoh's daughter reduced Solomon to idolatry, Qohelet
could not have said: "I found pleasure and
delight with my beloved as I
searched for what is good.” This would have
undermined his thesis. In
other words, Solomon s search in chaps. 1 and 2 for
something which
profits might have explicitly included his
search for a woman to be a
companion; the "second" to Solomon's
"being alone" (
that in his case the very thing that is the essence
of a wise life reduced him
to lb,h,.
Conclusion
The frame narrator introduces Qohelet's words as a commentary
upon, or as a notable companion piece for, the known
life history of King
Solomon.
The king was certainly wise, but his amatory fascinations led
him to worship vain idols. Traditional sagacity
renders a wise life as that
which is able to control the venereal appetite. In fact,
the blessed life of a
sage with a virtuous woman is the culmination of a
life of wisdom (Prov
31).
The desire to know this aspect of wisdom led Solomon
to futility and
folly. His downfall, however, is not explored in
chapters 1 and 2, but is
reserved for later in the book.
Qohelet is presented in the
persona of Solomon to argue that no
human endeavor yields satisfaction. The only
enjoyment one may
reasonably expect out of life is to enjoy the
actual doing of the creative
labor. Although the contented life of a sage with his
wife is touched upon
in Ecclesiastes, it does not seem to be a factor
in the portrayal of
Solomon's
experiences until 7:23-29. A dimension of his story is explored
that was all but absent in the first two
chapters-Solomon's desire for
such a relationship. The component of wisdom that
Solomon
pursued-the amorous intrigue-is given its own
terminology, the NOBw;H,.
31To indicate the sum of
the matter, the editor did not use NOBw;H,, but MrAxAhA-lKA hz,-yKi.
84 SEMINARY STUDIES 39 (SPRING
2001)
The
word depicts a judicious relation with a woman. While Solomon
continued his landscaping and construction
activities of
know from
case, however, the intrigues that his passion
pursued led quickly to his
own reduction to lb,h,. Traditional wisdom
argues that the pursuit of a
woman can be dangerous. However, this is not at issue
in
futility of trying to find lasting significance
in any human interest is
highlighted. The dangerous and ensnaring aspect of
this is postponed until
Solomon's
story is revisited in
In
this time the pursuit takes the form not of architectural
projects, but of
seeking after an intrigue. A sage can
successfully embrace a wife in love
and find blessing and honor; the historic Solomon
failed at this test of
wisdom. His failure was worse than any disappointment
of
since it reduced him to futile idolatry. In 7:23-29
we see Qohelet, speaking
as Solomon, lamenting over the fact that he had
become so ensnared.
The frame narrator called the reader's attention
to the fact that
29
reflects Qohelet's
(Solomon's) particular experience. Love is an
important part of sagacity and thus is mentioned
elsewhere (9:9-10). The
composition is designed such that Solomon's personal
failure does not
discredit the astute observations of human life
(cf.
the pursuit of love is an extremely important
aspect of wisdom, worthy
of its own separate treatment. For these reasons
the recounting of the
downfall of the king is reserved until
as a recounting of how Qohelet
(Solomon) was ensnared by a dangerous
aspect of wisdom. This is told in a way so as not to
denigrate or
discourage the wise man from seeking his own
intrigue. To enjoy good
things with one's wife is part of the enjoyable aspect
of life that Qohelet
commends. But 7:23-29 also warns the reader to
take care when pursuing
such an intrigue, so that the temptations that
ensnared Solomon may be
avoided. In combination with
paraphrased: "Do not seek to find with the wife
that you love more than
the moment-by-moment enjoyment of loving. To try to
get more than
this out of your intrigue can lead to the worst lb,h, of all."
This material is cited with gracious
permission from:
SDA Theological
Berrien Springs
http://www.andrews.edu/SEM/
Please report any errors to