An Innovative view of the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet)
Ancient Eastern Philosophy and King Solomon
Excerpt from “The Retroactive Universe”
3,000 years ago, King Solomon's book Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) rejected
the two major competing contemporary philosophies of deterministic
cycles of history, and of fundamental chaos and randomness, and instead
embraced the Jewish philosophy of free willed choice and adherence to
moral and spiritual law. To support this innovative interpetation of
Kohelet, we will show that the book's key word ‘hevel’
('vanity') is synonymous with ‘randomness’, that
‘nothing new under the sun’ is synonymous with
cyclical determinism, and tha tthe phrase ‘fear of God’
means the exercise of free will.
Introduction
Hundreds of years prior to the earliest known Greek philosophers, King Solomon wrote and philosophized in Jerusalem.
The contemporary civilization to the far east of Israel believed in a
cyclical preordained pattern of history and in multiple deities, while
other civilizations felt that there was no pattern at all to events,
and no creator. The Jewish view on the other hand was - and is - that
of a God creating the universe for a purpose, of a progression of
history from a beginning to a specific end, of the moral responsibility
of humanity and the connection between human moral choice and the
unfolding of universal history.
King Solomon grappled with the competing philosophies, with the wisdoms
of the other contemporary civilizations, but firmly espoused the Jewish
philosophy - as can be seen in the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes).
Determinism and Randomness, and Free Will
There are two major themes which are repeated over and over in
Kohelet: the lack of novelty in events, expressed in the repeating
refrain "there is nothing new under the sun", together with the
cyclical nature of history "that which was is that which shall be"; and
furthermore, the meaninglessness of all, expressed in Solomon's
terms - usually translated as "vanity of vanities, all is vanity"
- which we interpret for reasons shown below to mean "emptiness and
chaos, all is emptiness and chaos."
However, at the end of the long tirade of despair, and of deterministic
and nihilistic philosophising, Solomon's conclusion is a bolt from the
blue, a reaffirmation of the Jewsih belief in meaning and purpose, in
the centrality of free-willed moral choice.
Solomon's Terminology
The word employed in Ecclesiastes for "vanity" or "emptiness"
is, in the original Hebrew", Hevel". One can relate this word to the
word 'tohu' in the Bible, the word translated as 'emptiness/chaos/void'
in the creation account: "In the beginning, God created...and the earth
was empty and void...", since after the original introduction of the
word 'tohu' in the creation account, the words 'tohu' and 'hevel' are
always employed jointly in the same context, as we shall now show:
Deuteronomy Chapter 32:1:
Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the
words of my mouth. ...... For the portion of the LORD is His people...
32:10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste, a howling
wilderness (Tohu yelel yeshimon) ; ....thou didst wax fat, thou
didst grow thick, thou didst become gross - and he forsook God who made
him .....They have roused Me to jealousy with a no-god; they have
provoked Me with their vanities (hevlehem = their hevels)[ = their
belief in randomness].
Note the interesting expression "no-god". We see this as a reference to
a belief that at the fundamental level there is no cosmic order, ie
that all is random. Thus God refers to their belief as 'hevelehem', ie
using the term meaning 'chaos' or 'randomness', though again this is
generally translated as 'vanities'.
Isaiah Chapter 49:1:
Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken, ye peoples, from far: the LORD
hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother hath He made
mention of my name; 2 And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in
the shadow of His hand hath He hid me; and He hath made me a polished
shaft, in His quiver hath He concealed me; 3 And He said unto me: 'Thou
art My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.' 49:4 But I said:
'I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and
vanity (Tohu vaHevel) [= chaos and randomness]; yet surely my right is
with the LORD, and my recompense with my
God.'
- Determinism: the LORD hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother He made mention of my name;
- Randomness: I have spent my strength for nought and vanity [= chaos and randomness];
- FW choice and Torah: yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God. [Note A]
Furthermore, one can relate the word 'hevel' as well as to one from
ancient Greek cosmology, the 'hyuli' or primal chaotic matter from
which Ramban says God fashioned the world.
One can therefore interpret Solomon's statements to the effect that
"there is nothing new under the sun", and "that which was is that which
shall be" as referring to the tenets of determinism, and his statements
"emptiness and chaos, all is emptiness and chaos" as referring to the
idea of the inherent randomness of the universe. That is, Solomon's
treatise deals with the basic philosophies of meaning in life, as based
on underlying metaphysical and cosmological understandings,
philosophies which were later explored by the Greek philosophers as
well as by the civilizations in the far East.
Biblical Philosophy and Free Will
According to Jewish tradition, although all is determined
according to the Will of God, humanity possesses the ability to freely
choose between good and evil. If we assume that this is the meaning of
the Talmudic saying "all is in the hands of Heaven except for the fear
of heaven", then the expresion "the fear of heaven" must be the
Talmudic equivalent of 'free will'. That is, the expression "all is in
the hands of Heaven except for the fear of heaven" means "all is
determined by God, except for the operation of human free-willed
choice".
According to Jewish philosophy, the Torah is the unique guideline for
human action, and provides the model for the correct application of
free-willed choice.
The spiritual essence of humanity is the soul, the breath of God which
is in them, and the physical essence of humanity is its unique ability
to transcend the causal structure of the physical universe in using
free will.
At the conclusion of his long excursus into the competing philosophies
of the day - that of determinism and of randomness - after exhausting
the arguments for determinism under the category "there is nothing new
under the sun" and those for random chaos and meaninglessness under the
category of "vanity of vanities, all is vanity", King Solomon
concludes with words which present a succinct expression of Torah
philosophy in exhortatory form:
"And in conclusion, after all has been
said and done, fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the
essence of Mankind" - or, in our paraphrase, "After considering the
philosophies propounding a meaningless existence, those of preordained
and cyclical determinism and those of randomness, chaos, nihilism,
after all the evidence and arguments have been heard, the conclusion
is: use your free will to choose the good, that which is outlined in
the Torah - for free willed choice is the essence of what humanity is
about, and it is this (using free will to choose the good) which is
humanity's purpose."
...........
[A] Note the similar manner in
the way the two sources open: "Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak"
and " Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken".
Also: "For the portion of the LORD is His people" ; AND: "Thou art My
servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified....my right is with the
LORD, and my recompense with my God."
[1] Note: See SECTION on WORD RELATIONS ETC
....
Note: see also usage in Job (Iyov) 34:21. And see Ralbag's comments in introduction.
Note expressions: "tohu va'vohu" and "hevel vetohu". See Radak on relation between Tohu and Hevel.
................
HEBREW TEXT GARBLED IN TRANSITION OF FORMATS
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דוד חיים חשב שיש קשר בין "יולי"
והבל בהקדמת הרלב" לאיוב.
איוב: כא:לד ג
"הבל הבלים".
"הבל" "בלי תוכן" "בלי צורה" "אקראי"
לפי הרדק (ישיעהו מט א) "הבל" הוא מלה נרדפת למלה "תהו" ו"תהו והבל" :כפל לשון .
"הבל" הוא ו"היולי" ן " החומר שלפי
הרמב"(בראשית א"א) שברא ה' מאפס מוחלט ושממנו ה' יצר את העולם.
היולי אין לו צורה והעולם נוצר ע"י כך שנתן ה' צורה להיולי. ז"א היולי
הינו חומר בלי צורה כלשהיא.
המלה הבל מופיעה רק פעם אחת בחומש. המלה תהו מופיעה בחומש רק בבראשית
ובדברים: ובאותו פסוק בדברים מופיעה המילה הבל הפעם היחידי בחומש¡
קשר לעניננו "האזינו השמים ואדברה...ימצאהו בארץ מדבר ובתיהו ילל ישימן... (כא)הם קנאוני בלא אל כיעסוני בהבליהם".
יש רק פסוק אחד בתנ"ך שבו מופיעים שני המילים "הבל" ו"תהו" גם יחד
בישעיהו. אפשר גם לראות בישעיהו אותו דיון: קודם אומר הנביא: (מט"א) "ה
מבטן קראני ממעי אמי..." ז"א הכל היה צפוי מראש ונקבע בלי רצונו שלו.
ואח"כ הוא אומר:
(מט"ד) "ואני אמרתי לריק יגעתי לתהו והבל כחי כליתי"
ז"א הכל בלי תוכן הכל אקראי.
אבל המסקנא: "אכן משפטי את ה' ופעלתי את אלה.