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- [00:00]
Marty Solomon
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Brent Billings
This is the Bama podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today I'm joined by Josh Boss to watch Kohelet cast her gaze on injustice and oppression.
- [00:16]
Marty Solomon
Indeed, here we are, chapter four of Ecclesiastes. Just to remind all of us, we'll do. Let's just right off the bat, go into our opening warning and you know, all that jazz. Kohelet is a radical philosopher in her time.
- [00:35]
Brent Billings
I like your jazz comment, actually, because it does kind of feel like jazz. It's a little bit all over the place.
- [00:41]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [00:42]
Brent Billings
Like, are you improving right now? What's going on here?
- [00:45]
Marty Solomon
I am improving. I'm trying to keep it loose. I'm trying not to create my own lullaby effect here. Got to keep it fresh and lively. But just to remind all of us, you know, Qohelet is not here to give us simple answers, abstract, overarching principles. That is not her game. She is very concrete, very human in the lens that she is applying to the world. Human in the sense that while she of course acknowledges the existence of God and even more so, like in the last chapter, really started to bring in a sense of like the. A kind of relationship with God even, but not in the way we usually see in the text. There's not partnership, there's not this narrative trust, the story thing. It is locked into, you know, just what is our experience, our direct experience as human beings. This is the place from which she is reasoning and that experiential reasoning, the metaphors she's going to be using. It's the. The actions, the. The concreteness of those images that does the heavy lifting in giving us her thought process, what she's actually saying. Otherwise, this book is very confusing and we'll actually see a good bit of that today. What I'm also excited about today is that we're going to start getting into some of the really fun Remus Zim. But before we do any of that, of course we have to have the text to talk about it. So, Brenton, let's kick it off with the first few verses there of Ecclesiastes chapter 4.
- [02:22]
Brent Billings
Again, I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed and they have no comforter. Power was on the side of their oppressors, and they have no comforter. And I declared that the dead who had already died are happier than the living who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the Evil that is done under the sun.
- [02:49]
Marty Solomon
Well, honestly, pretty in line with the tone that we left off with the very bleak.
- [02:56]
Brent Billings
Sure.
- [02:56]
Marty Solomon
What do you make of this, Brent?
- [02:59]
Brent Billings
So, as we're recording this, the Pope has just passed away. And so I was thinking about this as I was opening up this passage, and I'm like, wow, is he happier now? I don't.
- [03:14]
Marty Solomon
Who can say?
- [03:15]
Brent Billings
Yeah. I wish I could have some insight into what it's been like for the last few months and what this moment is like now. I'm sure it's a wild time one way or the other, but would he actually say that?
- [03:31]
Marty Solomon
Yeah.
- [03:32]
Brent Billings
Would he actually come back and be like, you know what? Living was fine. Dying. Yeah, pretty cool. I'm seeing all this new stuff, but, man, I just wish I'd never been born. Like, would somebody in that position say what we read here in Kohelet?
- [03:49]
Marty Solomon
Yeah. And this is very remarkable because in the previous chapter, you know, for putting on our little Western debate hats, we might go, excuse me, Kohelet, like you just told us that no one knows whether our souls go up or down. So if we. We can't know whether our souls go up or down, how do you know that the dead would rather be dead? And you know that that's. I love that you pulled that out because that is, you know, the, the statement, the declaration that Kohelet is making is. Is very funny. But crucially, she isn't saying that they would wish that. In fact, I'm not sure if this is the best translation, like literarily, but in the NASB that I'm looking at says that she congratulates the dead because they have it better off, in her opinion. So this is her opinion, but it's still like, again, an interesting question of why is she arriving at this? If we think about it, there's kind of two chunks here, and we're talking about the second one, about this statement about the dead have it better than the living and those who haven't even had. Haven't existed yet, haven't even been born. They have it better off than both. That is kind of the, the. The headline catching part. But it also follows from a statement that kind of feels, at least to us. Maybe again, if we're thinking syllogistically or in kind of a Western logical tradition, we're going to say, wait, how do we get here from you turning and looking and seeing all the oppression around you? I would propose that Kohelet is. Is maybe not literally saying this again as a over generalized statement of you know, it's better to not be born than to live. I don't think that's Kohelet's proposition. Otherwise, you know, why is she still writing the book? You know, why keep going if you really think that?
- [05:47]
Brent Billings
Right.
- [05:47]
Marty Solomon
And also, I. I want to point out one other thing, which is that this whole chapter begins by saying not just that she looked, but that she turned and looked. Use the word shu, which, as we know, is the same as, you know, the word for repentance. So this is very much, you know, we're being told that K is now stepping into a new perspective with this tension of injustice and, you know, evil in the place where there should be righteousness, evil in the place where there should be justice. And she's looking directly at that. She's turned all of her inward faculties toward that end. And what does she see? She sees oppression. She sees the oppressed, and we have this doubling of the line that she sees their tears and that there's no one to comfort them. And then she sees that, you know, the powers with their oppressors, and they have no one to comfort them. Like, not just that they're in an awful state, and not just that there's not a lot of hope of them getting out of that state or that oppression changing anytime soon, but also that they're alone. They don't have anyone to comfort them, to even give them that, like, you know, the insubstantial but still meaningful, you know, the thoughts and prayers, the hug, you know, like, not even that. And it's from that observation where she says, I. I would rather not have ever had to experience this, because I think that's the. The logical connection between these. Like, it's. It's not saying it's better to not have been born, but the person who haven't. Hasn't been born, has never seen this oppression, has never had to watch that kind of suffering. The living who are still alive have to keep seeing that. The dead don't have to see it anymore, but they still saw it at some point. So if you never had to see this, you're better off. And, you know, I think that within that context, that sentiment makes a lot more sense, especially, you know, in the world, especially today with multiple wars and so much violence and slaughter that is being perpetrated on. On innocent people. Like, that is horrifying to watch. And now, you know, in the age of the Internet, oh, boy, do we get to see that up close and personal and in ways that would be unimaginable back Then years ago, I read an article about, you know, the. The poor people who have to do Facebook's.
- [08:27]
Brent Billings
Oh, their content moderation stuff.
- [08:29]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, yeah. Where anything that gets flagged, they have to look at and say, oh, is this tool too terrible to go on the Internet? Which. Yeah, like that. The. The amount of stuff that they see, like, it's. It's. Oh, I don't even. I don't even know what to say. But, yeah, that. That is something that is. Is truly overwhelming for us as human beings. And this is what Kohelet is saying. They. The. Those who have not been born, they did not have to exist. They have not had to see what Kohelet is seeing. And so this is the place from which she makes this observation. And, you know, I think once we lay it out like that, like, it. It's pretty simple, right? Like, it's not. It's not. It's not all that crazy. It's crazy when you, you know, hear it at first. It has that prophetic kind of kick in the pants, but. Yeah.
- [09:19]
Brent Billings
I wonder about the comforter aspect.
- [09:23]
Marty Solomon
Yes.
- [09:23]
Brent Billings
In today's world, because in the one sense, Qohelet says, I looked and I saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed powers on the side of their oppressors. We kind of have that same ability to see so much that wasn't so common back then.
- [09:43]
Marty Solomon
Yes.
- [09:45]
Brent Billings
So in the one sense, we're overwhelmed by it in the same way that Qohelet was in many cases. But then we're also aware of it and able to be a comfort. But is there too much? And we just. The overwhelmingness takes over, and we are paralyzed by how much there is. So does it. Do we kind of end up in the same place? Do they still have no comforter?
- [10:09]
Marty Solomon
You know, that's a great point, and I think it goes to that. The other thing, you know, we see the tears, we see the oppression. But then what's the other thing that Kohelet points out? That power was on the side of the oppressors. And I think that's where a lot of times, you know, we get sucked in, whether it's, you know, the culture war or other venues, it seems like culturally at least, our instinct is to say, well, what if we took that power away? What if we stopped the bad guys? Maybe that's just the. The American, like, you know, kind of cowboy, policeman of the world sort of instinct. Too many superhero movies, I guess. And I think. I love that you've kind of slowed us down here. I didn't plan on this, but I, I love this because I think this is a call to say that when there is oppression that we can't do a lot about, it is easy to. To discount everything we can do because we can't change their material circumstances. And that's part of what Kohelet is decrying here is. Is mourning, in a sense. But I love that there, this emphasis is there's no one there to comfort them. And, and that's, you know, when you're in a place of oppression, you know, at least from the. The little bit of that that I've experienced, which isn't a whole lot, but nevertheless, you know, it's still nice to get a hug. It's still nice for someone to say, I see you're going through it and you don't deserve this. Like, that is really good to hear. It's much better even than someone, you know, decrying how awful the things happening to you are. It's, you know, it's nicer to just have someone comfort you and try and cheer you up because you have enough things bringing you down. And I think, yeah, that's a really great thing to focus on. And while we're talking about this, that. That idea of there's no one there, this is an image that's going to come back a little bit later, as is the word that's used when they say when after Qohelet, then talks about like, oh, the dead have it better than the living, and the unborn have it better than both. That word for both is in Hebrew. It's the same as the word for two or shneh. And in this chapter, numbers are going to feature heavily, heavily, heavily ones and twos and threes. And as we see here in the very beginning, zeros, no one to comfort them. Zero people there on their side. And this is a little bit, though, getting ahead of myself, but, you know, just. Just keep your ear open for it.
- [12:52]
Brent Billings
So this is.
- [12:52]
Marty Solomon
This is one branch of, you know, Kohelet digging into this tension of us seeing unrighteousness and oppression and injustice. And this is a pretty strong opening image. And we're going to see a move into a slightly different image that, you know, explores this tension at a slightly. At a slightly lower emotional threshold. So let's get into that and maybe, maybe take this down a couple notches, get ourselves to a slightly less emotionally fraught place.
- [13:24]
Brent Billings
And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy of another. This, too, is meaningless. A chasing after the wind. Fools fold their hands and ruin themselves. Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.
- [13:43]
Marty Solomon
So it's not quite as evident in your translation. Brent, I'm going to go ahead and read those last two verses here in the nasb because I think these are intended to be heard as, like, proverbs, not as just, like statements.
- [13:58]
Brent Billings
Yeah. They are set off kind of in that way that a proverb would be.
- [14:02]
Marty Solomon
Yes. Oh, okay. Yes. So we have. And these are two separate ones, and we're going to look a little closer at them, but just. We have. The fool folds his hands and consumes his flesh, whereas you said ruins himself more. More literally accurate. Less imagery accurate. And then we have one handful of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after the wind or shepherding the wind. But all of this stemming from another observation by Kohele. I. I looked and I saw that what Everything. All. All of our labor, our skill, or everything that we do is just coming from our envy of our neighbor and uses the specific word for neighbor there. So, first of all, what do we think of that? Like, this is kind of. Kind of makes things a little more domestic, a little more humdrum. Like, is this just keeping up with the Joneses? Like, you think about, you know, improving your house because your neighbor improves their house.
- [15:07]
Brent Billings
Yeah. I mean, I recently had some gutters put on my house. Not in a. Like, hey, I need to make my house better, but. But in a practical. Like, I have too much water coming onto my house, and some of it is coming up under the floor of my basement. So I need to stop this situation. But it's amazing to me how many of my neighbors have commented on the fact that I have new gutters and how good they look, and ask me who did the gutters so that they can contact them, and I'm like, gee, guys, I'm not. Like, if you. If you already have what you need, like, don't feel like you have to do something just because I, Like, I had a problem. I was just trying to fix a problem. It's an. It's been an interesting dynamic in the neighborhood that. That reality is so true for people. Like, when. When one person does something, everybody feels like they have to, you know, not necessarily match it, but do something to compensate for whatever.
- [16:08]
Marty Solomon
Yeah. And, you know, the other thing that strikes me is, like, you know, is that really such a bad thing? Like, that the way Kohele reads it, it seems more like, you know, the kind of like the, the souped up car scenario of like, oh, I need to buy more expensive things to look better than my neighbor. Like, it's a. A competitive thing. But there's also a lot of contexts where it just seems kind of like, I don't know, pretty. Pretty benign.
- [16:36]
Brent Billings
Well, and in a lot of ways, we're supposed to steward the earth and, like, bring it under control. Like, if I weed my garden and that motivates my neighbors to weed their gardens, like, that seems like that's an overall positive thing.
- [16:52]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, now you both have a better garden. Like, cool. Yeah, exactly. What's really the problem there? Again, like, going back to, like, you know, evil in the place of justice and righteousness. Like, this doesn't seem to really get up to that point. Like, we can think of examples where it might be really destructive and damaging, but it doesn't seem to be inherently that way. And this is where I think. This, I think, follows the line of, you know, where Kohelet is looking, where we have gone to, like, this extreme end of, like, the most oppression possible, just the most depraved, horrific circumstances, and then jumps to, like, the most average circumstances where there's kind of this, this social friction, this tension of jealousy, of kind of wanting homogeneity with your neighbor, not wanting to be lesser than. And I think that that is a really, like. Yeah, a deft set of images. Again, like, Qohelet has a very literary hand and there's a lot of flourishes, and sometimes it seems redundant. Like earlier when she was talking about the dead who are already dead, of course, and the living who are still alive, which is like, okay, yeah, like, we get it. They're still alive, so they're seeing this. They're dead, so they aren't seeing this. But yeah, a very, very deft shift from extremity to the dead middle. And now with that in mind, let's hear these two parables again. We have two of them. And just on a pashat level, don't these two proverbs kind of say opposite things? Like, the first one says, if you're lazy, you're. You're going to go to ruin. But then after it, it says, hey, one. One handful of rest. And. And the, the words used here are different. It says, one handful of rest better than two full fistfuls of labor and shepherding the wind. Like, it's. It's the first one saying, hey, you know, get off your butt. And then the Second one's like, yeah, but, you know, don't work too hard. Like, isn't that. Isn't that kind of funny? Like, I feel like this is very. To me, this feels like Kohelet kind of maybe having a little joke at proverbs and making two proverbs that kind of pull you in different directions. What are your thoughts on this?
- [19:24]
Brent Billings
Is it a little mini chiasm, maybe? Like, we have fools fold their hands, which is kind of like having a handful of another hand, which ultimately is nothing.
- [19:35]
Marty Solomon
Oh, yeah.
- [19:36]
Brent Billings
And then you end with two handfuls of toil. But then in the middle, you have the one handful with tranquility, leaving the other hand currently unoccupied.
- [19:46]
Marty Solomon
Yeah.
- [19:46]
Brent Billings
Which seems like could be a good posture.
- [19:49]
Marty Solomon
Oh, man.
- [19:50]
Brent Billings
Okay. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna busy myself to some extent with one thing, but I'm gonna leave one hand open to do whatever the Lord might bring into my life. I don't know that. I mean, that doesn't necessarily feel like that's what's happening here, but.
- [20:04]
Marty Solomon
Yeah. You know, I'll tell you, though, there might be something to that, because in the opening image, we. It doesn't come through in the translation, but when it says power was on the side of their oppressors, the word for power there is actually literally the word for hand, which is often symbolically associated with power in the biblical text. You know, a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
- [20:30]
Brent Billings
Right, right.
- [20:31]
Marty Solomon
So, yeah, there. There really could be there. And there's definitely, you know, a play on. Yeah. Hands as well as the. The word for. I think your translation had. It comes to ruin. The literal phrase there is to eat his own flesh.
- [20:48]
Brent Billings
Yeah.
- [20:48]
Marty Solomon
And so maybe that is being contrasted with the idea of being full. You know, you're. You're consuming something, you're full. And then the. The image. The difference between having a handful of something and two fistfuls of something, you know, like, there's. Yeah, there's a lot there. I'm not sure exactly what that. Like, if there was a deeper construction here, I don't know exactly what it would be pointing to, but I will say, like, the tension between those two proverbs seems to kind of line up with the other tension of, you know, trying to. To keep up with your neighbor and, you know, to not be the one on the block who has the most rundown house or whatever. Like, oh, you know, don't. Don't just. I don't want to sit around. Look at. Look over there at Brent. He's putting new gutters on his house. Man, I haven't even thought about my gutters and gosh, I don't even know how long, man. Maybe I should do that. I bet it'd be easy just to call someone, you know, it'll only take five minutes. Maybe I should go ask Brent. On the other hand, it seems that Kohelet is kind of doing that. The thing that she's already touched on about, like, you know, the balance take of like, enjoy what you have. Kind of very down to earth, not super radical. It doesn't sound like kind of a weird follow up to starting by talking about, you know, people who are really oppressed. But then again, going back to our conversation, isn't it the same tension? Do I do something or do I do nothing? Do I do nothing and just let myself be consumed, or do I work and work and work and fight the power and, you know, try and fix all the problems and raise all the money and spread all the awareness and then not have any time left for rest? On the one hand, all this tension kind of makes it obvious that Kohelet is maybe guiding us towards some sort of. Some sort of perfect middle. I also don't feel like Kohelet is. Is making that sound like just some easy, like, hey, just. Just be balanced about everything, you know, moderation and all things. It kind of leaves me with the question of like, well, what. What should. What do you actually think people should do? Because this seems to be a lot of you looking at the edges and, you know, the most average human life versus the most oppressed human life, seeing almost kind of the same tension. And what are we supposed to do with that? How are we supposed to do that? So we aren't just hurting wind and. And leaving lives of mere breath of heavel. We all know that trying to keep up with the Joneses doesn't go anywhere. Like that feels like kind of a trite thing to say. So what are we actually supposed to do? Let's get into the meat of this. Let's keep pushing forward. Brent.
- [23:49]
Brent Billings
Yeah, and the way, like, as I was initially reading through these, it's like, man, so many, like, disconnected ideas. But as we're like slowing down and mulling them over, I'm like, okay, I see how this kind of like, follows what came before. So here's verse seven again. I saw something meaningless under the sun. There was a man all alone. He had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth for whom am I toiling? He asked. And why am I depriving myself of enjoyment? This, too, is meaningless, a miserable business. Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up, but pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
- [24:51]
Marty Solomon
Okay. And there are all the numbers. I told you there would be numbers. Hoo, boy. Numbers galore. And there's even numbers you can't even see in the text because it gets lost in translation.
- [25:01]
Brent Billings
It's interesting that three comes in at the end because there are. Oh, I mean, maybe there are other hiding threes, but it seems like. I mean. Yeah, I don't know.
- [25:11]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, it's mostly 1 and 2. Supposedly 3 is the odd number out, but we'll. Oh, man, it's gonna be juicy when we get there. Okay, so let's. Let's start because we have. We have one primary image or the. The opening image of someone who is all alone. Now, this is interesting because this reminds us of who this opening image, this opening person, I guess.
- [25:34]
Brent Billings
Adam.
- [25:35]
Marty Solomon
Oh, yes, yes. I was meaning more with the two images of people that we have already talked about.
- [25:41]
Brent Billings
Oh, I see.
- [25:42]
Marty Solomon
Who was alone?
- [25:43]
Brent Billings
Well, I feel like I could look at any of them and see how they're alone in some way.
- [25:47]
Marty Solomon
Sure. I mean, which group that we've talked about so far? Did Qohelet remind us twice, perhaps, that they were alone with no one to.
- [25:57]
Brent Billings
Comfort them or the oppressed? I suppose.
- [25:59]
Marty Solomon
Yes. But also, this is a guy who's working, and he's working and he's working, and he's, you know, doing his little thing. It doesn't make him seem, you know, super rich or super poor. He's just kind of seems like an average guy, but he's alone. So I feel like on one hand, Kohelet has kind of merged together these two. These two images. And we're also told right off the bat that what Kohelet saw in this guy is just hevel, but just mere breath under the sun. Like, in other words, this is the most pointless thing in existence. And the literal word here. Here's one of the hidden numbers, says there was a man without a second having neither a son nor a brother. He's a one without a two. There is no son, meaning he doesn't have an heir. And no brother, no one to like, co labor with him. He has no end to his labor. He doesn't have a family. Then you know, who's he supporting? So this is like a guy who's trying to keep up with the Joneses, but for who he's not trying to impress. His wife isn't connected to anyone. He is just working for the sake of work. His eyes can't be satisfied. Now, part of this gets translated a little strangely, but there's this question posed in the middle from the perspective of this guy. For whom do I struggle and deprive myself of goodness? And the word there is actually nefesh. Deprive my nephesh, my life of goodness. Why do I put in 80 hour weeks? I'm not saving up for a vacation. I don't really want anything. I got nothing else. Just endless toil.
- [27:45]
Brent Billings
And we're set up with his eyes not being content with his wealth, but he also has the self awareness to ask why he's doing it.
- [27:56]
Marty Solomon
Yes.
- [27:56]
Brent Billings
And yet apparently that's not enough to make him stop.
- [27:59]
Marty Solomon
So. Yes. So in, in the nasb, they actually insert the phrase, and yet he never asked, for whom do I toil? They saw that they were like, well, maybe they meant, you know, this is what he should have asked. But he didn't. But then, let's see, where. How did they translate it here in jps.
- [28:19]
Brent Billings
Yeah. Net says, you know, they, they say he laments, but it says that's not in the Hebrew text. So I don't think there is actually.
- [28:26]
Marty Solomon
Right.
- [28:27]
Brent Billings
I don't think there's actually anything there. It's just the question.
- [28:30]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, it just, it just unceremoniously says, who am I? Who am I depriving myself for? You know, who am I doing this for? Perhaps this is. Maybe he comes to himself at some point. Maybe this is the moment of his realization. And he says, why am I doing this? And then Colette closes it by referencing again, hevel. This is hevel. And it is an unhappy task or an evil affliction.
- [28:59]
Brent Billings
Yeah. The NASB one is a King James holdover. Yet he never asks himself.
- [29:04]
Marty Solomon
Well, there you go. Brilliant.
- [29:06]
Brent Billings
Which, which is a really interesting interpretation.
- [29:09]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [29:10]
Brent Billings
I mean, my initial idea of like self awareness is like they're saying, like, he doesn't even have the self awareness task.
- [29:18]
Marty Solomon
Yeah. Which, you know, does fit with the tenor of the parable, but I think it is right. Funnier as like a little, A little vignette. If the guy just looks up and he's like, Wait, why am I working so hard? Yeah, is very funny and kind of iron. And it kind of underlines the pointlessness that is felt in both of those situations. The pointlessness of, you know, you're oppressed, you're not, you don't have power, nothing's gonna, nothing you can do will change your life circumstances in any meaningful way. And then the, you know, one upsmanship of, you know, domestic life, keeping up with the Joneses, trying to, to, you know, the rat race, all that stuff. Two very different images of pointlessness kind of over superimposed over each other in this man. And, and to almost comedic effect. There's a deep irony here. One thing. So you, I, I, I asked the question earlier and you gave a great answer. Who does this sound like? And you said Adam, which is perfect, right? He doesn't have a second. But I also, you know, the, it doesn't just say there was a one which they also use that term. There was one echad and then it specifies no son or brother. Now who does this sound like? Or let's take them separately. Who is someone who notoriously doesn't have a son and it's a problem.
- [30:44]
Brent Billings
Abraham.
- [30:45]
Marty Solomon
Abraham. There we go. And you know, Abraham kind, I mean he has, he does have brothers but you know, one of his brothers dies, the other brother stays home and then Avraham ends up taking his, his nephew with him. Also it doesn't seem like Lot has any brothers either. So maybe there's, maybe there's something there that we're supposed to be, our mind is supposed to be drawn to. I mean we, we can certainly, in fact, oftentimes with Abraham, we kind of comment on his faithfulness because he was willing to do all this stuff with no air in sight, with no sun in sight, and that he continued to toil as God asked him to toil.
- [31:35]
Brent Billings
Plunder the Egyptians, whatever.
- [31:37]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, yeah. All in a day's work, you know, doing a heist. There's those could be images. I didn't find anything so solid that I'm going to put my weight down on it. And it could be Adam too. Like, I mean, but he does, he does have sons. And when we think about Adam doing his work, you know, tending to the earth, that that's maybe not as good of a connection. But that, that initial thing of like, oh, I don't, I don't have anyone that, that's kind of Adams. But I don't know, maybe there's another, maybe there's a biblical character neither of us is thinking of that Fits this bill perfectly and would bring so much depth here. I would not be surprised. And it may not even be a biblical character. You know, Kohelet could actually. We'll see later in this chapter. She references, very likely references Gilgamesh. So perhaps this is fits a character from some well known folk tale of the time. Maybe something even lost to history. Who knows?
- [32:38]
Brent Billings
I mean, I could see Joseph in this sort of situation when he's taken down to Egypt, he's all alone, doesn't have any sons yet, doesn't really have any brothers at that point.
- [32:49]
Marty Solomon
Yeah. Oh, man. Okay, audience. Brent gets a gold star because little does Brent know, Joseph is actually going to become one of the main remuses for this passage. And in fact, Joseph is a character that Kohelet returns to many times. So your antenna is on the right wavelength. So let's push into this and capitalize on this momentum. I love that. Yeah. And.
- [33:18]
Brent Billings
Or we just recently rebooted episodes involving Joseph. And so I have Joseph on the mind. I don't know if I can take too much credit for it.
- [33:26]
Marty Solomon
All right, fine. The Holy Spirit gets credit. You happy now?
- [33:29]
Brent Billings
There you go. Yes, thank you.
- [33:32]
Marty Solomon
All right, so then we get these two layered proverbs that focus on what it means to have a partner. And this is really kind of the. The natural conclusion of this opening image where it underlines that his life is pointless, not because he's dumb and doesn't have any self awareness, although that is, you know, what makes it funny and ironic. But it's really that he is alone. He doesn't have people. He doesn't have a partner. He doesn't have someone to take care of. And this is what's going to start to resolve the tension of oppression and the kind of, we might say, the kind of banal warfare with our neighbors wanting to have the newest phone or all that stuff. In blending those two ends of the spectrum of. Of pointlessness, we're actually going to get to something really neat about community. And that's the first thing that Kohelet kind of brings here, is that this is a guy who functionally has no community. He's alone. And when we get into these proverbs, they seem to say exactly that very clearly. Two are better than one, two are better than one. That's kind of the thesis statement of these layered proverbs. And what's the reasoning for this? There is a good return on their labor. Literally. That's the word Amal, which, as we talked about with L in chapter one, is probably Best thought of as struggle. And the word there for a good return. If anyone playing at home has really gotten these Hebrew terms into their head, this is not yetron. This is not the ever elusive, extra transcendent, something more to life. This is the word sakar, which is, I believe, just means like. Like payment, like your. Your wages. So the first thing that Kohelet is saying is that they. They will actually get a good wage when they struggle. And, you know, we've probably all been there where we've worked really hard and maybe not gotten paid for it, maybe not gotten paid what we deserve to be paid. So two are better than one because of this. And then we get a couple examples. So first we get if. Now my translation says if either of them falls.
- [36:04]
Brent Billings
Right.
- [36:04]
Marty Solomon
And does yours say that as well?
- [36:06]
Brent Billings
Yeah, Net says for if they fall.
- [36:09]
Marty Solomon
Yes, the verb is in the plural. If they fall, the one will lift up his companion. Now, this is kind of confusing, or at least to. To what we think of. We think of one guy trips and falls. The other guy's there, you know, puts his hand down, picks him up. But this is. They both fall down, and then one lifts the other up. But if we just think about two guys, like, tripping and falling on the ground, that's kind of an awkward image. Like, you can stand up if you fall on the ground. Right. Like, you don't actually need one of you to, like, push the other one up. Like, it sounds kind of like a comedy skit. It's. It seems kind of pointless. But what might be a situation maybe that you've already kind of caught the threat of where you fall, and you need someone to lift you up. You really need someone to lift you up. What if you fall into a pit?
- [37:00]
Brent Billings
Yeah, I was going to say, are we back to Joseph?
- [37:02]
Marty Solomon
We're back to Joseph. If Joseph was in there with someone else, you know, you could boost someone out of there. You can. I mean, they pull him out. It's not like so deep of a hole that they can't get him back.
- [37:13]
Brent Billings
Out, but it's tall enough. He can't get out on his own.
- [37:16]
Marty Solomon
Exactly. But if he just had someone else in the pit with him. If he. If he just had another guy in the pit with him, two are better than one, because if you both get thrown in a pit, you could get out of it. But, you know, the image of, like, him being set upon by his brothers, in one sense, oppressed. Right. He doesn't have anyone there. He is being very actively alienated from his community. They are no longer really his community. And then we have another image of the them lying down to stay warm. Did you have any thoughts on this one?
- [37:59]
Brent Billings
Nothing's really coming to mind on this one.
- [38:01]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, you know, I was having the same. The same thought. Unfortunately, there's no, like, super rare words in here or anything. The word for warmth is just the normal word for warm might be a reference to David. David is also referenced in this passage, but it's a little bit of a stretch anyway. I kind of just take this one as pushant level. Like it's saying what it's saying you have warmth. If you lay down with someone else, how can you be warm alone? Great. All right, let's move on to this last image. Because this is the one where things really pop off. If one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. And a cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. Now this, I'll just lay it down right here. The cord of three strands, that is the Gilgamesh reference. Apparently, when they're going to fight Humbaba, I believe Gilgamesh explains to his companion that, you know, oh, we'll use the. The triple cord to. To lash this monster, and the triple cord will never break. Speaking of, like, you know, new rope technology, back when new ropes were dropping, I was gonna say.
- [39:27]
Brent Billings
Yeah.
- [39:28]
Marty Solomon
Oh, because I mean, and I get it. Like, I'm sure compared to making a normal rope, like making a triple corded rope is just so much more work. Like, it's is a very premium product, I'm sure at that time.
- [39:41]
Brent Billings
Sure.
- [39:41]
Marty Solomon
Now, what's interesting here is that in my translation here, it says, and if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. Is that what yours says as well?
- [39:51]
Brent Billings
It's kind of backwards. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.
- [39:56]
Marty Solomon
Okay. What's interesting here is that the way that these parables and layered images are constructed, you would assume, or you would look for there to be another use of one here. If one can overpower the one who's alone, two can resist him. But the word here is he. If he can overpower one who's alone, two can resist him. So that's a little bit different because it gets us to ask, what question?
- [40:23]
Brent Billings
Who is the assailant?
- [40:25]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, who's the he they're talking about? And this is where we get a very, very cool reference. This is a reference to Samson. Let's go over to Judges 16, verse 12.
- [40:45]
Brent Billings
So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then with men Hidden in the room, she called to him. Samson, the Philistines are upon you. But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads.
- [40:59]
Marty Solomon
Yes. Now, the connections here are the word for them being torn or snapped, which is a very rare word. And at the same time, it's the same word when it says, like, thread. That. That word for thread is actually what's used in Kohelet when it says the. The triple chord, which I'm not sure if Kohelet intended to use a. A, like a very weak word for rope. Like, this is usually translated as thread in the Bible. It's. It's what When Rahab hangs the red cord from her window and they tie the red cord around the baby's ankle with Paretz and Zarath.
- [41:44]
Brent Billings
Well, with the baby, I could see that being like a very tiny thread, but. Yeah, but in the other case, it's like, well, if it's just a thread, then how are they even going to notice it?
- [41:56]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, yeah, but.
- [41:57]
Brent Billings
So I don't know.
- [41:58]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, so this is where. It's more of a funny word for Qohelet to use. And that's where maybe Qohelet used it to intentionally bring this reference to Samson here. But the other context here is. Let's think about, you know, what does it mean for Samson to be referenced here? Like, this isn't just a fun fact. This actually tells us a lot about Qohelet's teaching here. So let's go back to the image. If he can overpower one who is alone, two will stand against him. And saying that three cannot be quickly torn. And then that bring us back to Samson. The other thing to mention is that shortly after this, in Judges, if you read a couple verses down, you'll say. You'll see Delilah saying, you have toyed with me. These three. Three times being the three times where he told her something that would SAP his strength, that was not true, and she felt betrayed by that. You know? So let's think about Samson's circumstance here. Samson's a pretty strong guy. If we're thinking about Samson being the one who is overpowered, then that kind of changes how we think about this whole image that's being woven for us. Like, let's think about it this way. In this story with Samson and Delilah, who is Samson's partner in this group, where we have the Samson, Delilah and the Philistines that come to overpower him.
- [43:28]
Brent Billings
I mean, supposedly Delilah.
- [43:30]
Marty Solomon
Supposedly Delilah. Right. He thinks he's got a partner that is supporting him. And in Reality, he does not. And in fact, he is overcome right after she says, you know, you've. You've deceived me these three times. He relents, tells her what happened, and then guess what? Samson's overpowered. If one group, the Philistines, couldn't overpower him directly, then two can overpower him. So the image here kind of reflects both sides of community and solidarity, that even if you are strong as an individual, that doesn't mean that you can overcome anything. You can be undermined if there is, you know, a group against you. But I think it works even better when we flip it around and kind of lay it in the same stream as everything else where the Kohelet is exhorting people like to. To have to find, you know, safety in numbers. You know, the buddy system. It's like he's reminding them, like, hey, even the strongest dude ever was overpowered because people formed an alliance against him. Delilah worked with the Philistines. Right. And even though Delilah was not stronger than him and the Philistines weren't stronger than him, they overpowered him. Two against one. I mean, you can quibble with the numbers there, but, you know, that's the image that Qohelet's laying out.
- [44:59]
Brent Billings
Yeah. And it's interesting because of the trickery going on in the Samson story versus the kind of, like, plain situation that Qohelet seems to be presenting.
- [45:09]
Marty Solomon
Right. And this is where I feel like it kind of circles back to the main theme of being on the wrong side of injustice, being oppressed. Like, that is what this is looking at. And so the idea of, like, hey, if you were Joseph and you got thrown into a pit, all your problems could have been solved if there was a person, even if they are in the same pit with you. Right. Even if they're in the same oppressive circumstance, two are better than one, which.
- [45:37]
Brent Billings
I do think we kind of see later on with the. With Joseph and the cup bear.
- [45:43]
Marty Solomon
Exactly, exactly. He doesn't go anywhere without someone to lift him up.
- [45:48]
Brent Billings
And maybe this is a commentary on the Samson story, where the Samson story is like, you know, all of these huge numbers of soldiers or Philistines or whatever, and, like, it doesn't matter because Samson overpowers them, but then when they know the trick, they overpower Samson. And Kohelet's commenting on that and saying, no, it's not. It's not all about the trickery. It's not the huge numbers one way or the other.
- [46:15]
Marty Solomon
Right.
- [46:15]
Brent Billings
It's just simple. Are you alone or do you have a partner.
- [46:19]
Marty Solomon
Exactly. And that works so well with Yosef too, because we can look at Yosef and say, oh my gosh, this dude is skilled. He. Anything he tries to do, he's super good at. And guess what? That's not what got him out of jail. It was a person that knew him. It was a relationship. It was that solidarity in that moment where this guy remembered him and said, oh, hey, we can, we could solve this. We talked to my good friend Joseph. Community solidarity is the key. This is, this is the contention of Kohelet. And I think we can also see how this also cuts against the grain of the kind of petty, jealousy infused community that was painted earlier. And I feel like if we revisit that kind of. With this lens of coelut saying, oh, I just see people all day long just trying to one up their neighbor, looking at each other as competition rather than as a source of. Of real strength. And with this, let's just jump into the last little bit here of the chapter.
- [47:26]
Brent Billings
Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to heed a warning. The youth may have come from prison to the kingship, or he may have been born in poverty within his kingdom. I saw that all who lived and walked under the sun followed the youth, the king's successor. There was no end to all the people who were before them. But those who came later were not pleased with this successor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
- [47:53]
Marty Solomon
Yes, now I'm sure all the listeners are chomping at the bit because what we just read, I mean, one phrase in particular. Oh, who knows? Someone might go from being in prison to being the king that might have tripped some wires.
- [48:09]
Brent Billings
I read that the first time and I'm like, what in the world is going on? I don't even understand what it's talking about. But now that I have Joseph in my head, it's like, oh my gosh, Everything clicks into place.
- [48:18]
Marty Solomon
Yes. And in fact, the word there for prison is the exact same word used in the Yosef story.
- [48:25]
Brent Billings
Perfect.
- [48:25]
Marty Solomon
This is also. I said before there was a reference to David. Well, we're out of text. Here it is. The phrase being born poor in the kingdom is almost word for word, or at least the poor part. Being born poor, that is literally from the David story. And what's interesting is that we have the. Again, all this numerical language, 1 versus 2, 1 versus 2, 2 versus 1, then 3. Here we get a repetition of that. We get the word for seconds, but it's being used in a very different sense. Not seconds as in an additional person by their side, but seconds as in successors to the current rulers. And in these two images of Yosef kind of rising up and. And gaining control over the Egyptian empire and David coming in and following Saul, and, you know, obviously not being from Saul's line, he took that over and that Kohelet is seeming to say that, like, hey, when. When there is oppression and a new person steps in and. And changes things, sets some wrongs right, people are willing to follow that person. So there's this kind of resolution in one sense to the problem of oppression that you really can make change. But. And like we said, you know, in both of these characters cases, Kohelet is very, very shrewdly kind of planted in our head the images of, like, oh, yeah, Yosef would have had an easier time if he had had more people by his side. And in fact, when he does succeed, it's because there's someone who helps lift him up. And we could say the same thing about David. You know, there's a lot of people in the background in David's story, Even though he kind of is a little. He casts a very large figure in the spotlight, I'll put it that way. But what's interesting is that this use of the word seconds changes it from being about the number of, like, people you have, this. This kind of number of solidarity to a number of what comes next. So, again, brilliantly, Kohelet has also somehow found a way to connect us back to time. And I think this does a couple things. First of all, it reminds us that, you know, oppression is not forever. Like, there are things that change the world. And the solidarity image that's been painted kind of widens out to, like, not just having one person on your side, but having literally, I think the phrase in the Hebrew is all the living walking with those. Those seconds, those people that have come after and said, hey, we need to change how this is run. And this is kind of. You know, it might at first strike us as a little. I don't know if naive is the right word, but it's a little bit like, man. Like, yeah, you pick two guys who definitely change the world. And I feel like we could slightly misunderstand or over apply what Kohelet is saying here by saying, like, oh, yeah, once. Once you get that once in a generation talent that David, that Yosef, then things will finally change. But I think, you know, Coilet is making the opposite argument that it is the solidarity. It's having someone there with you in the midst of that suffering, in the midst of the oppression, so that you can help each other. That is what actually makes this stuff work. You can have all the talent in the world and be that one guy without a second, without a son or brother, and you could be doing, you know, all the most perfect stock trades in the world and have, you know, $18 trillion. But guess what, like, you can't eat 18 trillion hamburgers at, at some point, like, you're just like, why am I, why am I working 120 hour weeks? So that, why am I being miserable? So that I can just, you know, have something that I could also have if I didn't work this hard and to bring it back to like, you know, what we do with this. I think it's important, first of all to, to putting aside the world changing vision that Kohelet steps into here. The core message of solidarity, of like, the problem of being oppressed is that they're alone. There's no one there to comfort them. There's no one there to lift them out of the pit or to help them keep warm at night. Those are the things that community means. And it's, you know, as we talk so much about community in this podcast, in our organization, impact community is huge. And I don't think, you know, we're the only ones talking about that. Plenty of people in the world in church, out of church communities, a huge, I mean, it's, it's probably at the point now where it's a buzzword and who knows how much, how much capital it has left in it, how much power it has left in it. But we all know that that is important. But I think it's also like crucial to remember that it's most important when we are at our lowest point and that our solidarity is also, you know, one of the most important things we can offer to other people. Now to step back into the end of this chapter and this kind of utopian vision that Qohelet has, Kohelet also very quickly lets the air out of the tires on this because she says, oh yeah, but after these world changers do their thing and everyone follows them, then the next generation is like, hey, Yosef, why'd you do this? Hey, you know, like, like, I mean, and David and Yosef are both perfect examples of this because David obviously, you know, sets things up in such a way that his legacy is very short lived. And with Yosef, you know, I think it's in Genesis, chapter 41 of the forties at least. But it talks about how in him, you know, maximizing, doing the best at his job, he ends up managing things so well that all the people of Egypt have to sell themselves into slavery to Pharaoh, right? And you can't help but then think like, well, that kind of ends up being, in a roundabout way, his legacy. As soon as Yosef and his influence is gone, it's almost as if on a certain level, Yosef's actions helped create the conditions for slavery for the Israelites. So we can say with both of them, you know, in hindsight, we can be very critical of them. And I love this, because what Qohelet is doing, in talking about what should we do about all the suffering that we see, okay, we band together and we can even change the world. But even that won't be perfect. Even that will still come under critique. Even that will be something that needs to be fixed and will probably create some level of oppression all on its own. And to put it back in the context of Qohelet's larger exploration and the theme of time, you know, we have this. This pointing back to their. Their. These stories from their past and about how past oppression has been overcome by these individuals and that the. The bright future that we move to, it's not that that's bad like Kohelet. I don't think Coel is pulling the rug out and saying, therefore, you know, Yosef and David shouldn't be, you know, they aren't real heroes or anything like that. I don't think Kohelet is trying to warn us that, you know, it really amounts to nothing. Only that the utopia that we move to is just really not quite as utopian as we think. Or. Or at least it's. It's only utopian relative to how bad things were before, you know, like by, I don't know, medieval black plague standards. I don't know. We probably live in an absolute utopia, you know, not. Not having black plague, like, but that doesn't mean, you know, all of us here just, you know, dust off our hands and say, okay, then. Don't need to change anything. It's all good, right? But there is a loss of joy. And I think that the glow of, like, oh, yeah, we changed the world. We made this happen. And let's see, the ones who come labor. Ah, yes. So in verse 16, if you look closely, when it talks about the future generations, the ones who come after, it's literally their title. The afterward people, they will not rejoice in him. They won't have the same joy. Why? Because he's not the one who saved them. You know, they have new problems like Will. It says, you know, everything's the same. Things happen. Next generation has problems, they have oppression. The same heroes won't have the same ability to. To invigorate us. And so really what that means to me is that this process of solidarity and building community is something that is ongoing. There's. There's really no point where we just, you know, hang up our capes and say, okay, everyone, world has been saved. Let's all go back to our fig tree. But I also want to kind of throw this out there. This is kind of notable, this chapter as a whole, because it is really Qohelet's first real analysis of community. You know, again with this radical individualist lens. This is kind of the first one where I think we really see one that Kohelet, you know, definitely didn't grow up in an individualistic society like we did. It still makes sense to her that community and solidarity are like very primary values. But I love that it kind of throws us in the right direction, but it doesn't really tell us what we need to do. There is no blueprint for what to do, only that we'll need each other to do that. Whether we get thrown into a pit or a den alliance or something else, like you. You. You just. You're gonna need someone there to. To help you. We cannot succeed in this way. We cannot overcome oppression on our own. And to go all the way back to the, you know, answering the tension of what do we do when we see all the oppression, all the injustice that's in places that should be righteous, should be. Just this, to me, is really important because a lot of times, especially in our culture, we have a strong narrative that is very close to these David and Joseph narratives. You know, the. The rags to riches sort of a thing, and what we would call empire, like, in a spiritual sense, very easily slips back in and just, you know, works with the new narrative, works with the narrative of, you know, David and everything that he. He stood for. And now all of a sudden, it's like, well, now he wants to build a temple. Okay, great. He has good intentions. Then Solomon enslaves the people to build the temple, and then we have a really crummy ruler in his son, and the country immediately snaps in half. Like, going back, like, it's. It's easy to see Kohelet kind of tracing that. The. The injustice, the lack of righteousness is something that doesn't Just happen because, you know, individuals are particularly evil. It's. And this is something we'll get into much more next week. But I love the way this focuses us on. On the people who actually need help and on simply, you know, being present with them, comfort them. And, you know, along with that will come, oh, hey, shoot, I'm in a pit. Can you help me out? What are your thoughts, Brent?
- [60:57]
Brent Billings
I've been looking at this idea of, like, youth that it comes to at the end and how there's just this endless cycle of people. It doesn't matter how good somebody is. The people who come later are not going to be pleased with that person. There's even some textual question as to whether the successor is a separate person other than the first youth who's mentioned.
- [61:25]
Marty Solomon
Sure, yeah.
- [61:26]
Brent Billings
Or if that youth is becoming the successor. But at the end, it doesn't even really matter because nobody's going to be pleased with anybody in the next generation.
- [61:35]
Marty Solomon
Exactly.
- [61:36]
Brent Billings
So it's all meaningless.
- [61:39]
Marty Solomon
It is, yeah. And this is what I love about it, is that, you know, in sharp contrast to how we like to tell this story in our culture, what Kohelet is specifically breaking apart here is the hero. Character. Character, Right. Like the solidarity piece that Kohella actually built up logically, brick by brick, that is not really affected by this part of the critique. This part of the critique is just the person who actually is the head. Whether it's a movement, you know, like. Like Martin Luther King was not the only person out marching, and there were people before him and after him. And, you know, there are certainly people who never got a second of spotlight that may have even done more than him, but he was the guy. And it's a little bit more personal when we look at the stories of Yosef and David. But in the same way, it's the people who are identified as the world changer that, you know, like you said, it ends up amounting to nothing. Being the hero is not the point. Having the solidarity is the point. That is the. The crucial matter when it comes to actually creating justice. And. And this is why I love the way this brings us full circle back to the beginning of the chapter, because like I said in verse 16, that language about the unhappiness of the future generations, the word there is. It's a lack of joy, which, if we'll remember, the whole exploration of joy in chapter two, ultimately was about the future and about legacy. And if we want to think about it practically, it's, do you have a vision of a better future? That fills us with joy. And that reminds me so much of verse one in here. Do you have someone to come for you? And, you know, like. Like John writing to, you know, the church oppressed by Rome, painting them a picture of what it would look like for Rome to be destroyed piece by piece, like, that is so crucial. But what's crucial about it is not like, you know, do you have the perfect answer or solution? It's that you are there to comfort the people, that you are there to. To give that joy. And. And it's so. Especially with how cynical Kohelet is to. To end and. And kind of bracket this whole teaching with. With joy and comfort and the need for that as, like, the kind of lifeblood of solidarity and all the other stuff, The. The grand narratives of heroes rising and falling, one regime after another, like that's going to come and go. Don't pay attention to that. Pay attention to the people who are in the pit with you. And don't be afraid to walk with someone else because, you know, you might fall in the same pit as them, but then you can actually do something about it. I love that a lot.
- [64:43]
Brent Billings
Yeah. Now. Now I'm wondering, like, how. How this chapter might be a chasm in and of itself.
- [64:49]
Marty Solomon
Yeah. I would not be surprised.
- [64:52]
Brent Billings
But, yeah, the. It's like at the beginning, you have everybody who's oppressed, and then at the end, it's like, well, when you zoom out to a nation level, everybody's drawn to this successor. Nobody's pleased with the. The one before.
- [65:06]
Marty Solomon
Yep.
- [65:07]
Brent Billings
But in the middle of all that, if you just have a partner, you're going to be doing okay.
- [65:13]
Marty Solomon
Yeah. And, you know, it's funny when we go to that pit image, you know, if Yosef did have someone in the pit with him and he got out, then he never. You know, he never would have gone down to Egypt. Never. None of that stuff would have happened. Would his life been better? Maybe. Maybe the story would have genuinely turned out better. We. We can never know, as Kohelet has already shown us. We can't. We can never know what was lacking. We can't make straight what was bent. We can't help Yosef out of the pit, but there might very well be a Yosef near you. And they might not be as talented or, you know, dream interprety or any of that, but they still need someone to comfort them. And the cool thing about this is that you can always jump in a pit with someone. So go out there, find someone who's alone and. And be buds with them. I guess that's the lesson today. Go find a bud.
- [66:13]
Brent Billings
Oh, amen. Okay, well, listeners can find more details about our show at BAM on a cellship.com if you want to get in touch with us. Maybe you see something in Ecclesiastes 4 that we missed. Maybe there's a character that you feel like fits the conversation here that illuminates in a new way. Please let us know. Use the contact page to get in touch with us. But everything we do is made possible by listeners like you who contributed to our work. Thank you for joining us in that. And thank you for joining us today on the podcast, wrestling through these things with us. We'll talk to you again soon.