You’ll Never Know

He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.  Ecclesiastes 3:11  NASB

Without the possibility – The highlighted phrase in this verse is a translator’s addition.  Robert Alter’s translation reads: “Everything He has done aptly in its time.  Eternity, too, He has put in their heart, without man’s grasping at all what it is God has done from beginning to end.”  Alter comments:

“ . . . the intended meaning is: man is conscious of the idea of eternity (Qohelet as philosopher certainly is), but that is the source of further frustration, for he is incapable of grasping ‘what it is God has done from beginning to end.’”[1]

Alter’s translation treats our incapacity to understand God’s working as a failure to grasp the whole picture.  The NASB treats it as a noetic flaw.  I’m not sure which is more demeaning, but this much I do know; not knowing is depressing.

What is the real source of Qohelet’s concern?  It’s very simple.  We really have no idea what God is doing.  We think we know how justice and mercy work, and then life comes apart and we’re left with no explanation about what happened.  It might be something horrific like the Holocaust, or it might be something personally inexplicable like a car accident that injures my child.  There just doesn’t seem to be rhyme or reason to a lot of life’s experiences, especially when we believe in a benevolent and caring God.  It would be much easier if we just had animal brains.  Instinct operates without reflection.  Once we add the question, “Why?” life gets more complicated—and discouraging.  We want God to explain Himself.  He doesn’t.  Perhaps Oswald is right.  After I’m dead all these things will make sense.  Living pushes me toward exasperation.  That’s why someone added the epilogue to the end of Qohelet’s work (12:9-14).

While showing respect for Koheleth, the epilogue keeps a certain distance from his teaching—and from other recorded Wisdom as well: the words of the wise are fine and good, but they also must be handled gingerly (12:11-12).  The epilogist by no means repudiates Koheleth, yet he cautions that wisdom holds certain dangers.  The postscript in 12:13-14 reminds us that wisdom, originating in human intellect and tradition, takes second rank to piety and obedience to God’s law.  The words of the wise are not always comfortable, pious, and traditional, as the books of Ecclesiastes and Job prove.  They can sting, and they must be approached with care.[2]

I see the point.  I’m not sure it helps.  I’ve often said that the way to learn anything begins with  a willingness to give up your desire to be right.  Now I wonder if I also must give up my desire to be omniscient.

Topical Index: knowing, explanation, epilogue, Ecclesiastes 3:11

[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: Volume 3: The Writings (W. W. Norton & Company, 2019), p. 686, fn. 11.

[2] Michael V. Fox, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes (JPS, 2004), p. 83