Thomas Bolin, «Rivalry and Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth on the Divine-Human Relationship», Vol. 86 (2005) 245-259
This article looks at the repeated gnomic phrase in the Book
of Qoheleth, "All is vanity and a chasing after wind" (NRSV) and reads it as a
disjunctive parallelism in which the terms lbh
and xwr denote mortality and the divine spirit,
respectively, thus showing the sense of the phrase to be, "All is mortal, but
strives for immortality". Using René Girard’s concept of mimetic rivalry
clarifies this reading of the proverb, and shows it to be a concise expression
of a major theme in the Book of Qoheleth, viz., the author’s thoughts on the
difference between humanity and God, understood as paradoxical relationship
based on both similarity and difference between humans and the divine. More
importantly, Girard helps to understand more deeply how and why Qoheleth views
human proximity with the divine as the cause of conflict and pain in human life.
Because this tension is also evident in numerous other biblical and
extra-biblical texts, caution must be exercised, in referring to the Book of
Ecclesiastes as a "radical" or "heterodox" writing.
246 Thomas Bolin
standpoint, I will argue that: 1) The meaning of lbh in the first colon
is a figurative extension of the term’s concrete meaning of “vaporâ€,
and refers to the transient nature of human life; 2) The meaning of jwr
in the second colon does not refer to the wind, but rather to the spirit,
specifically understood as the source of life that comes from God.
Consequently, the second colon, jwr tw[r, expresses the futility of
human effort, not by creating an image of trying to catch something
insubstantial, but rather by portraying human desire to possess
something that is proper only to God.
a) lbh as Human Transience
Much research has been done on the meaning of lbh in Qoheleth,
with a wide variety of proposed translations (4). Yet whether translated
by a single term (5) or by a variety of terms that seek to be sensitive to
the context of each occurrence of lbh (6), there is a wide consensus
that the term can be expressed by concepts such as, “fleetingâ€,
“temporaryâ€, and “insubtantialâ€, that are used to convey the idea of
transience (7), a figurative extension of the term’s root meaning,
“vaporâ€. More specifically, lbh describes the insubstantiality of human
(4) FOX, A Time to Tear Down, 27-42 and C.L. SEOW, “Beyond Mortal Grasp:
the Usage of hebel in Ecclesiastesâ€, AusBR 48 (2000) 1-2.
(5) A practice dating back to the consistent use of mataiovth" for lbh in the
LXX (J. JARICK, A Comprehensive Bilingual Concordance of the Hebrew and
Greek Texts of Ecclesiastes [SBLSCS 36; Atlanta 1993]), and followed by
Jerome’s use of vanitas, which is still to be found in many modern translations,
e.g., C.L. SEOW, Ecclesiastes (AB 18C; New York 1997). Still other translations
render lbh by its root meaning of “vapor, breathâ€, e.g., N. LOHFINK, Qoheleth
(Minneapolis 2003) or, most recently, “absurdâ€, e.g., FOX, A Time to Tear Down,
8-14, 27-49; D. MICHEL Untersuchungen zur Eigenart des Buches Qohelet
(BZAW 183; Berlin 1989) 40-51; and B. BERGER, “Qohelet and the Exigencies
of the Absurdâ€, Biblical Interpretation 9 (2001) 141-179.
(6) D. MILLER, Symbol and Rhetoric in Ecclesiastes. The Place of Hebel in
Qoheleth’s Work (SBL Academia Biblica 2; Atlanta 2002) 2-14, 89-90, 153, 181-
194; W. ANDERSON, “The Semantic Implications of lbh and jwr tw[r in the
Hebrew Bible and for Qohelethâ€, JNSL 25 (1999) 59-73; A. CERESKO “The
Function of Antanaclasis (ms≥) ‘to find’ // ms≥) ‘to reach, overtake, grasp’) in
Hebrew Poetry, Especially in the Book of Qohelethâ€, CBQ 44 (1982) 551-569;
and, M. SNEED, “(Dis)closure in Qohelet: Qohelet Deconstructedâ€, JSOT 27
(2002) 115-126.
(7) D. MILLER, “Qohelet’s Symbolic Use of lbhâ€, JBL 117 (1998) 437-454;
R.B.Y. SCOTT Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (AB 18; New York 1965) 209; and
SEOW, “Beyond Mortal Graspâ€, 4-7.
FOLLOW US