# 490 Ecclesiastes – In search of meaning in life – “meaningless” or not? – Introduction (3)

When I worked in Pakistan, I was very aware of my weaknesses and misunderstandings when it came to living effectively in an eastern culture as compared to all that was so ingrained in me having being born into and brought up in my western culture. I discovered that there are many different ways of seeing and doing things, and my way was not necessarily wrong, but I had to accept that, generally, neither was their way.  

I sense a similar problem when it comes to commenting on the book of Ecclesiastes. There are a number of different ways of looking at this book, and I certainly am not particularly qualified to argue one way or the other, neither do I consider that this would be helpful anyway. So, what I will do is adopt what I consider is one good way of looking at the writings of Qoheleth and go from there, hopefully, remaining faithful to the message of this great book.

So that way, is to consider our friend Qoheleth as being one on a journey or a “quest” as he seeks to try and understand the meaning of life from what he has seen, felt, heard, touched, done and generally experienced in his short life that he has lived so far “under the sun”. Along the way he comes to some disturbing conclusions, endeavours to find answers to things that seem almost unanswerable using our limited understanding of life and God. He faces up to some hard facts, such as the reality of death, and appears to be frustrated that life isn’t particularly “ideal’ or even fair.

The interesting thing is that he does not appear to be doing this from the point of view of an atheist or even an agnostic. If he was then maybe some of the conclusions would be more acceptable to him. As an atheist, to discover there is no real meaning in life may not be too shocking, or would it?

No, his frustration is that he is a believer! He has faith in Yahweh. God (Heb: ‘Elohim’) is mentioned 37 times in this book.  He even desires to live a life, as best as he can, faithful to God and the teachings of the Torah. In this way, he is not alone in his frustration. In fact, he joins an ‘elite’ group of people who are honest enough to express what they believe should be reality as a follower of Yahweh and yet isn’t often the reality in everyday experience.

People like Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Job and some of the psalmists, etc.   Consider the following:

Jeremiah:

You are always righteous, Lord,
    when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
    Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all the faithless live at ease?    (Jeremiah 12:1)

Habakkuk:

² How long, Lord, must I call for help,
    but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
    but you do not save?
³ Why do you make me look at injustice?
    Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
… The wicked hem in the righteous,
    so that justice is perverted.  (Habakkuk 1:2-4)

Job:

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ² He said:

³ “May the day of my birth perish,
    and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’
⁴ That day—may it turn to darkness;
    may God above not care about it;
    may no light shine on it.
⁵ May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more;
    may a cloud settle over it;
    may blackness overwhelm it. (Job 3:1-5)

Asaph (a psalmist):

¹ Surely God is good to Israel,
    to those who are pure in heart.

² But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
    I had nearly lost my foothold.
³ For I envied the arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (Psalm 73:1-3)

The good news is that all these people eventually work their way through their doubts and suffering to a place of trust in the goodness, justice and mercy of God. See Lamentations 3:19-27; Habakkuk 3:17-19; Job 1:21, 13:15, 42:2 and Psalm 73:23-26.

So, Qoheleth begins his quest to see if anything in life can really satisfy outside a relationship with Yahweh. Thankfully, he does come to a positive conclusion and that is what we will work our way towards over the next months. As Christopher Wright says:

“The book reaches a conclusion that, however incomplete in itself, I find broadly positive when placed in the light of the whole scriptural narrative.” (# 60)