Pointless! Pointless! says Kohelet. Utterly meaningless! Nothing matters!  

(Ecclesiastes 1:2; Complete Jewish Bible)

Ecclesiastes stands with Job as wisdom literature within the sacred Hebrew Scripture which aims is to examine the human condition; however, they differ in that while Job remains committed to his faith in God, the author of Ecclesiastes ‘Kohelet’ is almost atheistic in his scepticism, beginning with the famous nihilistic declaration that all is pointless.

‘Pointless’ translates הֶבֶל hebel, which is ‘vapour’, literally the breath that condenses in cold air; figuratively it stands for something ephemeral, insubstantial and meaningless.  

The author is assumed to be Solomon although unlike the Song of Songs and Proverbs, he does not name himself, rather he introduces the book like so:

The words of Kohelet the son of David, king in Yerushalayim (Ibid 1:1 CJB)

Kohelet is a name, a trade-name if you will, in that is identity for one who would convene an assembly for the purpose of preaching or teaching.  The Greek transliteration of קֹהֶלֶת (Kohelet or Qoheleth) gives the book its name in English deriving from Ekklesia, a gathering – the word that is translated ‘church’.

The alter-ego Kohelet is more than a cypher, it is a person playing the role of agent provocateur, like the revolutionary poet or polemicist disguising his identity.  Free to express anathema, his message is to take an utterly candid look at mortal life and confront his audience with deliberately shocking, startling even offensive commentary.  Riven by measured internal inconsistency and contradiction, Kohelet’s argument determines to unseat the comfortable and complacent, especially those who think they have ‘God in their pocket’.

Kohelet sets his stall with a prologue.  Having said that mortal life is pointless, he then takes aim at God with a withering rhetorical question:

What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun? (1:3)

This is an indirect accusation, for it is God who declared to Adam that ‘by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread’ (Genesis 3:19) conveniently overlooking that this was a consequence of listening to his wife, not God in his disobedience.

In the following verses there is an absence of gratitude to the Creator for the reliability of the earth and the progressions of season.  

The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
    and hastens to the place where it rises. (1:5)

Can Kohelet really expect his immediate audience, Israelites all, to forget how Creation was ordered and for what reason?

And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years…’ (Genesis 1:14)

For six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places.  (Leviticus 23:3)

Portions of the week and the year were demarcated and set aside for worship.  And at least one festival, Pesach (Passover) was celebrated annually in order to remember God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian servitude – and yet Kohelet would have that…

There is no remembrance of former things, 
    nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
    among those who come after.  (1:11)

Solomon asked for and was granted wisdom, and yet that very gift turns to ashes:

For in much wisdom is much vexation,
    and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. (1:18)

He was also given unasked for wealth and prosperity, but that too gave Solomon nothing substantive and satisfactory:

So, I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. (2:9)

This leads Solomon/Kohelet to engage in a thought experiment.  He considers every facet of the human experience and finds it wanting, mostly because everything is beyond his control, even the appreciation of what he has.

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honour, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil.  (6:1-2)

‘Evil’ translates רַע ra’, but is misleading because even Kohelet does lay evil at God’s door, this is better understood as bad, malignant, the bringer of misery and pain; however, he does dare to question indirectly whether God blesses and rewards for obedience to Law of Moses:

In my pointless life, I’ve seen everything —
from the righteous person perishing in his uprightness
to the wicked one who lives a long life
and keeps on doing wrong.
So don’t be overly righteous or overly wise;
why should you disappoint yourself?  (7:15-16 CJB)

And yet, having weighed everything, Kohelet reaches his conclusion:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (12:13-14)

In this recognition of judgment beyond the grave, where the whole duty and every deed of life is counted, is an insight that death is not simply the end of mortal life, but beginning of something else.

In giving Solomon what he wanted, wisdom, and what he did not request, unmatched wealth and status, God facilitated one man to experience luxury and surfeit, satiating his every desire, and have the wisdom to reflect upon it.  While the canonicity of Ecclesiastes was controversial, Solomon’s meditations, like Job’s, are universal and seem to stand outside of time itself, beyond dispensation, irrespective of ethnicity, geography and history, for all humanity to take note and benefit.

No doubt, Paul had many philosophers in mind when he wrote:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (1 Corinthians 1:20-21)

Yet, Kohelet’s devastating deconstruction of the human condition makes it clear that human life is indeed pointless if we disregard God and His purpose for His creatures.  

Solomon’s father, David wrote this:

O Lord, what is man that you regard him,
    or the son of man that you think of him?
Man is like a breath (hebel)
    his days are like a passing shadow. (Psalm 144:3-4)

While Solomon speaks to the futile desires of humankind, it would fall to another prophet to express not only what God desires of his creatures, but with another rhetorical question, what God would do for humanity:

‘Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, 
    and to walk humbly with your God?  (Micah 6:7-8)

Like Solomon, Job came to realise that without divine intervention, life amounts to nothing, and that God must take mortal form to redeem humanity from the mortal curse:

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.  (Job 19:25-27)

And as with the conclusion of Ecclesiastes, this comes with the sure knowledge of judgement, as Job continues and warns:

If you say, ‘How we will pursue him!’
    and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him’,
be afraid of the sword,
    for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
    that you may know there is a judgement. (Ibid 19:28-29)

Therefore, mortal life is only pointless if one believes there is no hereafter; however, if there is eternal life, then it is the wisdom of God that will provide meaning and purpose, not the wisdom of men and women.  And that wisdom is found in and through God’s beloved Son who was made mortal, Jesus Christ. By one man, then, mortal life is no longer pointless.