NOTES for Ecc 12:1-3

Of course, everything Qoheleth says about the meaning of life, human activity, and possible joys is devalued by the fact that life is passing and ends in Sheol (vv. 1-7). In essence, Qoheleth never finds an answer to the question of meaning. The conclusion is simple: everything is vanity (v. 8). But for a person of faith, that conclusion could not be final. Vanity is not merely empty and meaningless work and worry. The corresponding Hebrew word denotes something that does not belong to God's plan and purpose for the world and for humanity. Vanity is outside God's world; strictly speaking, it is outside being altogether. It is only a phantom, a shadow, a mist. If all human life and all human works are like that, then there is little difference between life on earth and existence in Sheol.

Such a conclusion completely devalued the human person and made a relationship with God something utterly impossible. But, as we can see, "everything is vanity!" is not Qoheleth's last word. His last word was the affirmation of the absolute value of God's commandments and complete confidence in the reality of the Judgment, which will put everything in its proper place (vv. 13-14). This conclusion seemed so unexpected that many biblical scholars considered it part of an epilogue added later, not by Qoheleth himself but by one of his followers.

But in substance, as also in language and style, this epilogue does not look foreign. It may indeed have been written by one of Qoheleth's disciples, who speaks of his teacher in the third person (vv. 9-10), but he most likely quotes his teacher's words, if not word for word, then extremely close to the original source. One could hardly expect anything else in the East, where the words of teachers and mentors were always treated with great respect and were often memorized. In that case, the final words of the book clearly belong to Qoheleth himself, even though they were handed down to us by one of his disciples.

But then what we have before us, as we can see, is Qoheleth after a spiritual crisis, having come to a faith that refutes all the doubts heard so clearly in the main part of the book. In essence, this must be a new conversion, one that evidently helped Qoheleth understand and experience in a new way concepts that had already seemed quite familiar to him, such as Torah, commandment, wisdom, and righteousness. And the reality of the Judgment became for him, as we can see, precisely a reality, a genuine and unquestionable reality that determines all of human life. This is possible only when God powerfully enters a person's life and completely changes it. Apparently this intervention became the completion of Qoheleth's spiritual path, and perhaps also of his life path, so that the testimony to the teacher's final turning to God had to be borne by one of his disciples.