Thomas Bolin, «Rivalry and Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth on the Divine-Human Relationship», Vol. 86 (2005) 245-259
This article looks at the repeated gnomic phrase in the Book
of Qoheleth, "All is vanity and a chasing after wind" (NRSV) and reads it as a
disjunctive parallelism in which the terms lbh
and xwrdenote mortality and the divine spirit,
respectively, thus showing the sense of the phrase to be, "All is mortal, but
strives for immortality". Using Ren Girards concept of mimetic rivalry
clarifies this reading of the proverb, and shows it to be a concise expression
of a major theme in the Book of Qoheleth, viz., the authors thoughts on the
difference between humanity and God, understood as paradoxical relationship
based on both similarity and difference between humans and the divine. More
importantly, Girard helps to understand more deeply how and why Qoheleth views
human proximity with the divine as the cause of conflict and pain in human life.
Because this tension is also evident in numerous other biblical and
extra-biblical texts, caution must be exercised, in referring to the Book of
Ecclesiastes as a "radical" or "heterodox" writing.
Rivalry and Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth
on the Divine-Human Relationship (1)
This article examines the repeated proverb in Qoheleth, lbh lkh
jwr tw[rw (“All is vanity and a chasing after wind” [NRSV]) and
interprets it as a prime example of what René Girard calls mimetic
rivalry, expressed in Qoheleth as the conflict present between
humanity and the gods that is fueled by the frustration at the gulf
between mortal human existence and the immortal divine life. The
proverb can thus be paraphrased as, “All is mortal, but strives for
immortality”, or “All is fleeting, yet desires permanence”, or even,
“All is human, but strives for divinity”. Qoheleth uses the proverb to
express the hopelessness of this desire for what humanity cannot have,
and this supports the sage’s admonition that people focus on what they
can realistically achieve. It may thus be seen that Qoheleth’s
understanding of the divine-human relationship is part of a centuries
old religious vision in the ancient Near East, rather than any radical
departure from some perceived orthodoxy.
1. Philological and Grammatical Considerations
From a formal standpoint, the phrase, jwr tw[rw lbh lkh in
Qoheleth (2) is a bicolon consisting of two nominative clauses. The
repetition of he and lamed in the first colon, and of resh, shureq, and
the glottal stop of the gutturals, ayin and het in the second colon, along
with the linking of the two cola by waw, denote gnomic or proverbial
speech (3). Looking at the phrase from a philological and grammatical
(1) This article is a revision of a paper read at the 2004 joint meeting of the
SBL and the European Association of Biblical Studies at the University of
Groningen. I am grateful for the helpful suggestions and criticisms offered by
those who attended the meeting. Additionally, M. FOX was kind enough to read an
earlier draft.
(2) It occurs seven times in the book (1,14; 2,11, 17, 26; 4,4 16; 6,9).
Although 4,16 uses the noun ˆwy[r instead of tw[r, the difference in meaning is
negligible (M. FOX, A Time to Tear Down and A Time to Build Up. A Rereading
of Ecclesiastes [Winona Lake 1999] 42, 45).
(3) J. JARICK, “The Hebrew Book of Changes: Reflections on hakkol hebel
and lakkol zeman in Ecclesiastes”, JSOT 90 (2000) 79-86; and D. FREDERICKS,
Coping With Transience: Ecclesiastes on Brevity in Life (Biblical Seminar 18;
Sheffield 1993) 12.
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