Follow Your Heart
For what does a man have from all his toil and from his heart’s care that he toils under the sun? For all his days are pain, and worry is his business. Ecclesiastes 2:23 Robert Alter
Heart’s care – Let’s cover the technical issues first. One of the reasons scholars believe Ecclesiastes was written after the Babylonian exile (and not by Solomon) is its vocabulary. Here is the term ra’yon. Alter notes that this word “does not occur in earlier biblical Hebrew. It is probably cognate with re’ut, the word used in ‘herding the wind,’ and hence is rendered in this translation as ‘care’ because it may also derive from the activity in which a shepherd looks after or cares for this flock.”[1] But no matter how it is translated, the fact remains that it isn’t found anywhere in earlier biblical documents. The word is found only in Ecclesiastes. Do you remember Michael Fox’s comment? “The language is unlike the Hebrew of the rest of the Bible, with syntax that is often strange and vocabulary that is frequently idiosyncratic.”[2] Now you have an example.
But I’m not interested in Ecclesiastes’ oddities today. Today I am feeling like a warmed-over gnostic. Let me explain. Ecclesiastes views life from a strictly empirical point of view. It’s WYSIWYG everywhere. And everywhere we look we see toil and pain. The Gnostics saw the same thing. According to gnostic writings, “life has been cast (thrown) into the world and into the body.”[3]
“ . . . ‘to have been thrown’ is not merely a description of the past but an attribute qualifying the given existential situation as determined by the past. It is from this gnostic experience of the present situation of life that this dramatic image of its genesis has been projected into the past, and it is part of the mythological expression of this experience. ‘Who has cast me into the affliction of the worlds, who transported me into the evil darkness?’ (G 457) asks the Life; and it implores, ‘Save us out of the darkness of this world into which we are thrown’ (G 254).”[4]
“the plight of the Soul in the labyrinth of the hostile world.”[5]
Can we answer the Gnostic’s question, “Who has cast me into the affliction?” With trepidation, we whisper, “God has cast me into this.” The Gnostic and Koheleth agree. But for the Gnostic, this implies the God of creation, the God we “know,” isn’t so good after all. I’m not ready to take that step, but I have to admit that behind all our trials and tribulations lies the inscrutable divine will. Perhaps you’ve asked the same thing. Perhaps your emotions resonate with the Gnostic who dares to question the will of the divine. There are times (far too many, it seems) when all my days are pain and worry is my full-time occupation. There are times when the Gnostic and I see eye-to-eye, and even that’s scary. The psalms of contrition and struggle are more real than the lyrics of joy and celebration. I’m right there with Rebekah. “Why is that?” My WYSIWYG world seems as “thrown” as I feel. What should we do about it? Got suggestions? Let’s see what we find tomorrow.
Topical Index: Gnosticism, Rebekah, thrown, pain, toil, Ecclesiastes 2:23
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: Volume 3 The Writings, pp. 683-684, fn. 22.
[2] Michael V. Fox, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes (JPS, 2004), p. xxii.
[3] Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, p. 63.
[4] Ibid., p. 64.
[5] Ibid., p. 67.
