51
6.3 The Ecology of Ecclesiastes
The interpretive sphere of such ruminations arrives on the shores of paradox that is
at once paralyzing, but potentially liberating. The choice is there, and it is ours to
enact. In “Ecclesiastes” (unlike the subsequent “Song of Solomon”) liberation connotes a myriad of contradictions. Chapter 1.4: … “the earth abideth for ever.”
Chapter 2.16: …“And how dieth the wise man as the fool.” Chapter 3.19: “For that
which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts:”…Chapter 9.12: “For man also
knoweth not his time; as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that
are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth
suddenly upon them.” Chapter 11.3: “Whether a tree falls north or south, it stays
where it falls.” Chapter 11.4: “He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that
regardeth the clouds shall not reap”.
11
Such pronouncements by the alleged “Son of David,” a king of Jerusalem,
Ketuvim = writings, one of 24 books of the Hebrew Old Testament or Tanakh, harbor a sprawling psychological allegory that is the same history of the “City of
Peace,” in which, according to Eric H. Cline, there have been at least “118 separate
conflicts during the past four millennia” (massacres, divisions, uprisings of every
persuasion, total chaos, utter destruction repeated and re-invented) (Fig. 6.3).
12
One
must surmise that the author or authors of “Ecclesiastes” had endured much of that
tumult. Perhaps this poignant burgeoning of timeless despair came in the wake of
the brutal suppression of a revolt in Jerusalem by the Persian king Artaxerxes III
(identified as the ruthless Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther). He had much of
Jerusalem burnt to the ground, killing and/or exiling all of the resident Jews. This,
in turn, was a telling precursor to the conquest by Alexander the Great. The young
warrior’s fury was followed by further outbursts of killing, one furnace of egos after
another, and all this misery only leading to the ultimate fall of Jerusalem in 200 BCE,
as the armies of Antiochus III the Great besieged the doomed city.
13
We are utterly removed from these sagas, even as such blockbuster bloodshed
continues in Israel, Palestine, and the entire Middle East. Civil strife from the streets
of Paris to Charleston, from Rangoon to Portland.
And so to contemplate, for example, Rembrandt’s relatively dismissive 1660
painting “Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther” in Moscow’s Pushkin
Museum, a banquet, the king (Esther’s husband) yielding little if any evidence of his
genocidal madness, provides no clue to the cultural mayhem encincturing the times
11 See The Holy Bible According To The Authorized Version with The Marginal Readings And
Parallel References Printed At Length And The Commentaries Of Henry And Scott Condensed By
the Rev. John McFarlane, London, Glasgow, William Collins, 1862, Ecclesiastes, Chapters I-XII,
pp. 680–689.
12 See Cline’s book, Jerusalem Besieged – From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel, Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan Press, 2005, https://www.press.umich.edu/164087/jerusalem_besieged,
Accessed December 5, 2018.
13 See Taagepera, Rein (1979). “Size and Duration of Empires: Growth-Decline Curves, 600 B.C.
to 600 A.D.” Social Science History. 3 (3/4): 121. doi:https://doi.org/10.2307/1170959.
6.3 The Ecology of Ecclesiastes
6.3 The Ecology of Ecclesiastes
The interpretive sphere of such ruminations arrives on the shores of paradox that is
at once paralyzing, but potentially liberating. The choice is there, and it is ours to
enact. In “Ecclesiastes” (unlike the subsequent “Song of Solomon”) liberation connotes a myriad of contradictions. Chapter 1.4: … “the earth abideth for ever.”
Chapter 2.16: …“And how dieth the wise man as the fool.” Chapter 3.19: “For that
which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts:”…Chapter 9.12: “For man also
knoweth not his time; as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that
are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth
suddenly upon them.” Chapter 11.3: “Whether a tree falls north or south, it stays
where it falls.” Chapter 11.4: “He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that
regardeth the clouds shall not reap”.
11
Such pronouncements by the alleged “Son of David,” a king of Jerusalem,
Ketuvim = writings, one of 24 books of the Hebrew Old Testament or Tanakh, harbor a sprawling psychological allegory that is the same history of the “City of
Peace,” in which, according to Eric H. Cline, there have been at least “118 separate
conflicts during the past four millennia” (massacres, divisions, uprisings of every
persuasion, total chaos, utter destruction repeated and re-invented) (Fig. 6.3).
12
One
must surmise that the author or authors of “Ecclesiastes” had endured much of that
tumult. Perhaps this poignant burgeoning of timeless despair came in the wake of
the brutal suppression of a revolt in Jerusalem by the Persian king Artaxerxes III
(identified as the ruthless Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther). He had much of
Jerusalem burnt to the ground, killing and/or exiling all of the resident Jews. This,
in turn, was a telling precursor to the conquest by Alexander the Great. The young
warrior’s fury was followed by further outbursts of killing, one furnace of egos after
another, and all this misery only leading to the ultimate fall of Jerusalem in 200 BCE,
as the armies of Antiochus III the Great besieged the doomed city.
13
We are utterly removed from these sagas, even as such blockbuster bloodshed
continues in Israel, Palestine, and the entire Middle East. Civil strife from the streets
of Paris to Charleston, from Rangoon to Portland.
And so to contemplate, for example, Rembrandt’s relatively dismissive 1660
painting “Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther” in Moscow’s Pushkin
Museum, a banquet, the king (Esther’s husband) yielding little if any evidence of his
genocidal madness, provides no clue to the cultural mayhem encincturing the times
11 See The Holy Bible According To The Authorized Version with The Marginal Readings And
Parallel References Printed At Length And The Commentaries Of Henry And Scott Condensed By
the Rev. John McFarlane, London, Glasgow, William Collins, 1862, Ecclesiastes, Chapters I-XII,
pp. 680–689.
12 See Cline’s book, Jerusalem Besieged – From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel, Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan Press, 2005, https://www.press.umich.edu/164087/jerusalem_besieged,
Accessed December 5, 2018.
13 See Taagepera, Rein (1979). “Size and Duration of Empires: Growth-Decline Curves, 600 B.C.
to 600 A.D.” Social Science History. 3 (3/4): 121. doi:https://doi.org/10.2307/1170959.
6.3 The Ecology of Ecclesiastes