Ecclesiates

This is a book that you love or hate.  Fresh Read happens to like dark coffee, dark chocolate, brown mustard, sour kraut and marzipan. (No, not not all at once.)  So of course we like this book as well.  It is not sweet.  It is a slap up side the head.  It says, “Death changes everything…it erases all that matters ‘under the sun’, so we better find out what does matter.”

Don’t try to outline it in a linear fashion.  Don’t obsess over seeming contradictions – a skilled author uses “contradictions” to get our attention.

Our favorite commentator is Jacques Ellul’s out of print Reason for Being, where he advocates a literary reading of the book, and sees not an outline so much as a tapestry of themes.  It is worth searching Powells, Amazon or your favorite source of used books to find this gem.

Our favorite short quote from the book:

Eccles. 2:24-26   ESV
    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, [25] for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? [26] For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

    Wisdom, as a gift of the Creator, is Qoheleth’s (“the preacher”) other option for the Rat Race.

FR is a preacher bc of this book, and some other personal narrative for another time. 

FR