All Is Hebel: Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Sorry, I know the word hebel is absolutely meaningless to you.  But I am raising the question of just what it is Ecclesiastes is about.  Hebel (pronounced hevel) is the Hebrew word variously translated vanity, meaningless, or futile.  How we translate this word is critical to how we understand this odd addition to our Old Testament.

Listen to the opening lines:

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after. (Ecclesiastes 1:1–11, ESV)

We can gain some interesting clues from this as to what hebel must mean.  I would suggest that “vanity” and “futile” are in the same frame of meaning, but “meaningless” is quite different in meaning.  And I want to eliminate that translation as valid immediately on three grounds:

1. If our author is saying all is meaningless, then what is the point of writing something?  That is inconsistent with the premise.  If all is meaningless then so is writing or teaching anything.
2. The author’s immediate remarks highlight three observations he has made: (a) there seems to be nothing accomplished from our labors, (b) there is a weariness to life, and (c) what has been learned in the past will be forgotten in the future.  This does not highlight “meaninglessness” but “futility” and that makes a great deal of sense with what the “preacher” is going to communicate in this book.
3. The Greek translation of this Old Testament book uses the word mataiotes to translate hebel and that word is never used to mean meaningless, but rather emptiness, frustration or futility.  Paul says in Romans 8:20 that God subjected the world to mataiotes, to futility or frustration purposely, and I believe he is referencing Ecclesiastes when he makes this remark.

This raises the question:  futile or frustrating for what?  In what way is labor frustrating, in what way is life wearying, in what way does what is learned now fail to keep teaching us in the future?  Why is life so frustrating?  What are we seeking that cannot seem to be found?  What are we trying to accomplish that cannot be accomplished?  What is all our energy expended towards that doesn’t yet secure for us what we need?

What we’re told about the Preacher (the Hebrew word here is qoheleth and the Greek translation of the Old Testament uses the word ecclesiastes, both terms referring to someone who gathers others together in assembly, presumably to teach or preach to them) is that he is a son of David who served as king in Jerusalem.  There were other sons of David who did not rule as king, but he did.  We’ll notice that this is written in the third person, as are the final words of this book, 12:8-14.  Everything in between is in the first person.  So someone is introducing and concluding a first person account of what this Preacher taught, quoting him at length as he writes in the first person.

We’re told this about the Preacher to give us a reason to believe what he is going to show us about his great learning expedition.  He was seeking some answers and the answers he got were not what he wanted.  He was frustrated and realized that there is a futility to life that he could not penetrate and make sense of.  

He is like Morpheus in the movie The Matrix who has come awake to a gnawing sense that all is not right with the world, and then has set out to discover the truth.  Only, the truth he discovers does not end up being the truth he wanted.  It is, however, the truth he needed to see.  And so do we.  Do you want to see it?  Do you want to take the blue pill or the red pill from the Preacher’s hand?