Monday, October 21, 2024

Ecclesiastes 8, Guidance for Civil Servants

The Teacher continues to re-examine traditional wisdom. Here he thinks about matters of the palace and king's court.

Ecclesiastes 8:1, A bright face
Who is like the wise man? 
Who knows the explanation of things? 
Wisdom brightens a man's face 
and changes its hard appearance.

True wisdom creates joy and admiration. Can one provide that wisdom when needed?

Ecclesiastes 8:2-8, Working for the king
Obey the king's command, I say, because you took an oath before God.

Do not be in a hurry to leave the king's presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. Since a king's word is supreme, who can say to him, "What are you doing?"
Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm,
 and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.
For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, 
though a man's misery weighs heavily upon him.
Since no man knows the future,
 who can tell him what is to come?
No man has power over the wind to contain it; 
so no one has power over the day of his death. 
As no one is discharged in time of war, 
so wickedness will not release those who practice it.

This passage (says Davidson) is a guide to the civil servant, the one who seeks to serve the king. Keep to your oath of loyalty. Don't be impatient to leave the king's presence. Don't stand up to for a bad cause -- what good is it to question the king? And so on....  

Clearly this guidance fits the culture of the ancient Near East, where it might be very dangerous to challenge the king. Further guidance says that there is a proper time and place for everything (maybe there is a better time, if the king's plans are foolish, to gently push back on them?) 

The passage includes guidance in poetic form, with a reminder that one has control over very little. Just as one cannot control the wind, so too, one has no power over his death; both war and wickedness have their own currents that drag everyone with them.

Ecclesiastes 8:9-10, A wicked lord buried with honor
All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt.

Then too, I saw the wicked buried‑‑those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless.

Even a king (or his ministers) can damage himself when he views himself as ruler of others. 

An example of an injustice -- of the unfairness of life -- is a wicked person buried with honor and praise. (One imagines a corrupt ruler being honored this way.)

Ecclesiastes 8:11-14, Success of the wicked
When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong. Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God‑fearing men, who are reverent before God. Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.

There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.

The Teacher waffles between two truths (suggests Davidson): on the one hand evil people can stall or postpone justice ... but still, surely, it better to be God-fearing, to be reverent before God. Right? The Teacher does not seem to make this last claim with much enthusiasm, as he quickly returns to the problem he sees: the wicked are treated well and the righteous often are not.

The statement in verse 13 -- that since the wicked do not fear God, they will be punished -- is in contrast to the general complaint of the the Teacher and so some commentators argue that it should be within quotation marks, as a proverb the Teacher cites, to which he disagrees.

Ecclesiastes 8:15, So relax!
So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.
         
If one is distressed by all the unfairness of life, then it is better to step back and enjoy the many gifts that God has given. Try not to let these injustices get to you!

I am now 70 and quite distressed by the corruption visible in our political system. One man (whose corruption I've watched for forty years) has a hundred (no, 88) crimes to which he is charged yet he seems to postpone any judgment against him. Another man deliberately kills citizens in the Ukraine, with impunity. Yet there is nothing I can do about these things. The Teacher suggests that I relax a bit and be glad in the many (many!) gifts God has given me! (Other passages, especially in the New Testament, would still suggest that I hand these over to God in prayer.  Not easy.)

Ecclesiastes 8:16-17, An enigma
When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man's labor on earth‑‑his eyes not seeing sleep day or night‑‑then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.

At the end, God's plans and goals are still mysterious. You gotta just learn to live with that mystery, says the Teacher.

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