NOTES for Ecc 3:1-22

In what can a person find consolation after realizing the meaninglessness of human life and human efforts? The first thing that would come to anyone's mind is to try to find meaning in the eternal cycle of opposites that make up human life (vv. 1-8). If meaning lies in that cycle, then, of course, there can be no meaning in human activity (vv. 9-10). It would be more natural to see it in the ability to enjoy the gifts that God gives a person, gifts in which a person can rejoice quietly and peacefully, without hurrying events and while enjoying inner peace and calm (vv. 11-13). But trying to change the world, to improve it, is meaningless: God Himself has arranged everything in the best way, and He requires of a person only a reverent attitude toward Him. He does not expect the person to change anything in the world He has ordered. After all, the world does not change over time and should not change (vv. 14-15).

Of course, with such an approach there is no room to speak about improving social institutions either. Everyone will stand before God's judgment in due time, and trying to change social foundations is just as meaningless as trying to change the laws of nature (vv. 16-17). This approach is, of course, very far from the passion of the prophets, who denounced violators of God's commandments whether the matter involved the sins of individuals or of the whole society. But for the prophets the day of the Messiah's coming and the arrival of the messianic Kingdom was an unquestionable reality, and one had to be ready for it, just as for the day of Judgment, at every minute.

For Ecclesiastes, however, the Judgment was a matter of the distant future, a future he himself did not expect to live to see. All that remained to him was to live by the passing, often fleeting joy that was still left to him (v. 22). All this is very reminiscent of the attitude toward the world of a pagan disillusioned with everything; although the call "seize the moment!" sounded somewhat later, in essence it was close to many people in every age. But nothing else could be expected. Now, as we can see, Ecclesiastes not only fails to see a difference in the fate of the wise person and the fool; he even stops noticing the difference between a human being and an animal (vv. 18-21). Indeed, if wisdom, creativity, morality, and in general everything that distinguishes a human being from an animal is lost with death, which makes everyone equal, so that it is not even known whether the spirit each person receives from God when coming into the world returns to God, then in what way is a human being better before God than an animal?