Book Name
Why is it called Ecclesiastes?
Key Words and Themes
hevel: הֶבֶל
The author uses this word 38 times in the Book of Ecclesiastes. So, understanding this word is absolutely vital to understanding Ecclesiastes.
It’s traditionally translated as vanity or meaningless.
The Bible Project has a podcast episode that is an extensive exploration of the word hevel: Ecclesiastes E1: Not Another Proverbs at (10:18-17:28)
The conclusion of Ecclesiastes is that life is heavy. Hevel, hevel, everything is hevel. And while modern translations typically translate that, Hebrew word into the word meaningless, in Hebrew, it’s literally the word for smoke or vapor. Smoke is real. Like when you see it, a cloud of smoke, you look at it and go, oh, that’s a thing. Look at it. I can see it. I can point at it, but smoke has this unique quality that when I reach out my hands to grab onto it, there’s nothing there. This metaphor that life is like smoke is lost in the translation that life is meaningless.
Because what the teacher isn’t saying is I know all the answers and I declare to you that life is meaningless. What he’s saying is, I’ve discovered there’s a glitch in the system and things that I thought were certain and true aren’t always certain and true.
Hevel, hevel, everything is hevel. He uses the word 38 times in this short 12 chapter book. Michael Fox, my doctoral advisor, he thought the best English word to capture it is absurd. Or I’ve come to prefer the word enigma or paradox. The wisdom of Ecclesiastes.
Based off of this episode I’m leaning towards understanding hevel as incomprehensible, fleeting, paradoxical, or beyond our grasp.
Note also, that hevel is used in Proverbs 31:30. Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. (NKJV) Does it make sense, in that context to say beauty is vain (as the WEB does)? I don’t think so.
Nihilism
It’s hard to read Ecclesiastes and not feel nihilistic. It seems to be absolutely saturated in nihilism, and yet there are a few moments that seem to directly refute nihilism. For example:
Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. Ecclesiastes 12:13