So without any further ado, I need to lay let's just dive into prayer a little bit and concentrate our time to God So we can begin to appreciate and love this awesome book And name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit Amen our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come by will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not To temptation but deliver us from evil amen and the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit amen Okay, so welcome again this first lesson of three for Ecclesiastes a life of detachment is going to be introducing the book I do this with all the new books that we study in this series going through book after book of scripture It's really really important to suspend just one hour or so give or take just laying that foundation understanding Where this book came from who wrote it? What are the themes the purposes the theology maybe behind the the title which I think is really really interesting There is some theology and even some spiritual interpretations and my personal opinions on the title itself that I think is worth sharing So hopefully you like that as well, but let's just briefly for our first point Just introduce Ecclesiastes within this context of the Old Testament wisdom literature So you might know of course really quickly here that the Hebrew scriptures the Catholic Old Testament Is really structured into three parts in the Jewish Bible It's called the Tanakh so the T stands for Torah the end stands for the navy Eam which is the prophets and historical books This were obviously is a lot of Moses and then you've got the Ketu even which are the writings that's the wisdom literature And so Ecclesiastes within wisdom literature is pretty interesting here Especially as it's found within the trilogy of Solomon which I think is really really crucial to understand Alright, so the first thing is what is wisdom? We talk about wisdom a lot wouldn't mean a lot of different things in Hebrew the word for wisdom is Hochma and you always got to remember that Flem on your ages Hochma and then in Greek it's Sophia and so a lot of ladies are named Sophia So that's pretty darn easy to remember so I have a little quote here I actually shared this quote with you when we talked about the book of Proverbs And I'll probably do it again We talk about the book of song Solomon and other wisdom books as well because it's really important Especially if you didn't do the other Bible says with me I hope you will I just understand a little bit more about wisdom literature here in the Old Testament Alright, so this quote here comes from the Catholic Bible dictionary Which is a really good summary pretty much any good commentary on the wisdom literature is gonna provide a little bit of an explanation As to what wisdom literature is but here's what the Catholic Bible dictionary says So in the Old Testament wisdom was most often a matter of practical knowledge and other senses of wisdom derived from this primary sense The Hebrew word translated wisdom which again is Hochma often refer to the skill of the tradesmen Likewise to the wisdom of the artisan the sailor and the weaver with wisdom in the specific sense of special notions of skill or ability I'm gonna pause myself here for a second So that's really important here the concept of notions of skill and ability a really great example of this that I use all the time Is if you go back to Exodus 31 there's a couple of characters Bezel El and Holiab they are given Hochma wisdom skill ability to Make all the various artifacts of the Mosaic tabernacle So Moses went up on the mountain for 40 days and received the blueprint of the heavenly tabernacle heavenly tabernacle straight from God If then bezel El and Holiab they're given this Hochma in order to actually make the stuff right make the veils make the vessels of gold and silver all the various furniture and things like that So that's a good example of how God gave them skill and ability Hochma as tradesmen as artisans in order to accomplish What they needed to do for the erection of the worship in the tabernacle of Moses Alright, so good example there so quote goes on to say by simple extension the administrative skill of the able government leader or judge was also called wisdom And you're gonna quick pause that makes total sense right because it takes a lot of wisdom skill ability Hochma to be a good administrator to be a good leader To rule with justice to judge if you are an actual judge To be able to see clearly into a situation and make the right decisions for the common good of your people Alright, so you can kind of see this idea that moves from practical knowledge into leadership and judgment and administration that'll make sense And then this quote concludes by saying finally wisdom Hochma could refer to the skillful discernment of the righteous in making godly moral choices I'm gonna get that again That's really important wisdom could refer to the skillful discernment of the righteous in making godly moral choices Those who are most knowledgeable work also account among the wise and the wiseest of all with Solomon His wisdom was legendary and earned him the admiration of all who met him and there's a reference to first king chapter for there There are many references honestly to the wisdom of Solomon as you probably will know in first kings and the corresponding passage and chronicles All right, so this is really wisdom literature, right? It's the skillful discernment of the righteous and making godly moral choices You see this a ton in the book of Proverbs you see in every single wisdom book of course In Proverbs you're given all kinds of wisdom in short pithy sentences on how to live a good moral righteous virtuous life To live a life according to God's law and to live a life that's truly fully human, right?
So that's where ecclesiastes falls into the mix here into the context right because ecclesiastes is still doing this giving us discernment for the Righteous and making godly moral choices, but it's gonna advance the reflections and speculations on what life really is all about And especially because at least he's is really really famous with its line vanity of anity is all is vanity Well, what exactly does that mean? We're gonna talk about that in this Bible study So ecclesiastes is the second book of the Solomonic trilogy in the wisdom literature collection And I'm gonna argue especially as we get to the end of this from a spiritual point of view It's really important and really beautiful to read Proverbs Cleasegostes and the song of Solomon his trilogy as really different chapters of one whole unit because from spiritual life They're all gonna be touching upon different aspects of our advancement in virtue Alright, so wisdom literature as a whole is really focusing on the discernment of the righteous and making godly moral choices Proverbs our last Bible study the first book of his trilogy really discusses this in terms of all kinds of topics in human life, right? Marriage and family raising children friendship management of wealth came in one's tongue anger temperance etc etc etc Right, so this is really what biblical wisdom literature is all about and you do have you depending on all the comments You might want to dive into you do have some parallels for sure in ancient Near Eastern context and cultures But of course the scriptures are the inspired word of god And so they provide something that no other literary document does alright now one little final point that I always like to think about We talk about wisdom and I can we always pray hopefully we pray for wisdom or give me wisdom into certain things particular matter Lord give me wisdom in advancing in my life and trying to overcome a difficulty or trying to have insight and wisdom into Giving advice for someone else and my family or friend or something like that But whatever you whatever angle you look at wisdom from the practical point of view of a tradesman a sailor a weaver If your government leader a judge or you're just as an ordinary guy or gal trying to make your decisions I always like to some this is my own personal thought here But I was like again Everybody has different interpretations on wisdom to a certain extent So take what I'm my thoughts with a grain of salt But I like to think of wisdom as understanding things according to their proper end in God's design I'll say that one more time wisdom is understanding things according to their proper end in God's design and everything has its proper end Whether you're a tradesman You're building a table or a chair or you're a engineer building a bridge or computer engineer building a computers software You know writing code or whatever you have to understand the end of the thing in order to design properly wisdom Is understanding the end of the thing in order to make a really good chair a really good table a really good computer software program? Or wisdom gives you the ability of understanding the end of human life Which is to love God and to love neighbor Right?
So I like that sums for my own little p-brain that sums it up really nicely for me understanding things according to the proper end in God's design whether in a practical knowledge in government situations or something that may happen in day-to-day life Alright, so excellent now One other point that's really important to keep in mind when reading any book in the wisdom literature is that it wasn't Exclude the wisdom literature of Israel wasn't exclusive the wisdom of God given through Israel specifically through the David King is universal in nature Good Catholic commentaries really point this out a lot wisdom is meant to be given to all nations through the David King And if you go back which I don't have the time to do I'm gonna discipline myself here And I'll just reference though in second Samuel chapter 7 That's a very important chapter in which God establishes an everlasting covenant with David that his kingdom will last forever That his own the senate will be on the throne So that's really important No other person is gonna take charge or usurp the David authority All that stuff happens in chapter 7 the one particular element that David recognizes in verse 19 Especially is that God has given to David a Torah Adam specifically a law for humanity And what this is is that God's wisdom would be communicated to all nations through the David Kingdom Which ultimately would be the Catholic Church right where Jesus is the son of David He establishes he renews the David Kingdom establishes the church to mean to be the means the catalyst by which all nations would receive the wisdom of God All right, that's like a real brief summary of God's plan right there But this is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of David which is the church right so that's really important The wisdom literature is universal in nature and it's meant to evangelize all nations And so here's another little quote here this time from the Catholic study Bible Which says the wisdom books are suited to the instruction of non Israelites in the rudiments of responsible living Beginning with the fear of the Lord. That's a very important expression found all over the wisdom literature This quote gives you a reference to Proverbs 1 7 Job 28 28 here at Ecclesiastes 12 13 C-rac 127 and so forth all right So the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom And so if you have the fear of the Lord and I talked about this a ton in the Bible study on Proverbs Then we'll get there soon enough in a couple lessons in Ecclesiastes 12 Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because if you have that awe that respect and that devotion to God You will which is of course understand the proper end of God's design So our proper end is God right our whole meaning in life is God Well, if you understand that beginning with this respect and filly old love is filly old fear of God and everything else will be ordered appropriately All right, let me go on with the quote then so Gentiles through contact with the inspired teaching of Solomon in the sages who carry out carried on his legacy Could thus be drawn to closer to God way and made ready to accept the truth of his revelation This too helps to explain why the wisdom books speak it down to earth easily understood Experiential language to which people of all backgrounds can relate and quote that's really really important So whether you're a Jew or an Israelite at North or wherever it may be Israelites in general of course are all 12 tribes of Israel That's well the descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob Judah Of course is specifically the tribe of Judah the kingdom of Judah But whether you're up north in Israel in the northern kingdom or south in the southern kingdom or you are an Edomite or an Egyptian or an Assyrian or whomever an American Canadian or whatever it may be You are able to receive the instruction of God through these very down-to-earth easily understood Wisdom sentences based on experience everyone can relate to right? That's really really wonderful So yes, Solomon did demonstrate this as a matter of fact as the son of David and king of Israel Where all kinds of Gentiles kings and royalty and aristocrats and all the rest of them came to listen to Solomon's wisdom And then ended up leaving praising the God of Israel So that's a really good example of what the purpose of wisdom literature is it's to draw people closer to God not just Israelites But also Gentiles as well. Okay, so I think that's just really good I probably spent more time on that than I wanted to but now let's look here at the specific introductory topics to this particular book Ecclesiastes beginning with the title what does ecclesiastes mean and what some theology behind it here?
So in Hebrew the Ecclesiastes is called it's called cohillith. That's really really important cohillith Cohillith comes from the word cahal which means very simply assembly or congregation So the cahal is the assembly the congregation of Israel. It's God's people, right? So you can see the connection right there cahal is assembly congregation cohillith therefore means the one who convokes the assembly one who convokes or brings together the congregation or much simpler It's just the preacher so you see the word the preacher various times throughout the book whenever you see the word of the preacher It's translating the word cohillith and it was actually Saint Jerome when your commentaries will say Saint Jerome was the one who established a tradition at cohillith In Hebrew can be translated into preacher.
All right So this is the influence of which which carries into many of our translations today specifically the revised standard version So that's really really interesting here. So cohillith the preacher he's gathering up assembling the congregation of God in order to teach them wisdom That's what's happening there. I always joke to my own person since because I'm a bit of a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe back when it was good It's since completely just tanked but whatever that's another conversation for another time It's always really funny because Captain America always assembles and Avengers assemble right so I kind of think of Captain America Maybe being the preacher in a very very indirect sense of course But he's the preachers one who assembles everyone in order to teach them wisdom all right now in Greek Ecclesiastes is the direct translation of cohillith. All right, so that's very very simple.
All right It's a transliteration ecclesiastes translates cohillith and ecclesiastes is derived from the Greek word ecclesia Which means assembly congregation or church right? So we have many English words that come from ecclesia So anything ecclesiastical is related to the church or the assembly of God's people So that's really really straightforward cohillith is the Hebrew meaning preacher ecclesiastes translate that translates that so ecclesiastes really means preacher If in Latin comes straight from the Greek ecclesiastes So the the title is really really straightforward But it's very very fascinating that the title ecclesiastes or cohillith is all about this preacher gathering gods of congregation or assembly together in order to teach them wisdom Now I have a couple of personal thoughts about this as I was reflecting on it. So the word cohillith is actually feminine It's a feminine noun, which is interesting if you're translated preacher, okay, who is the preacher? Of course I'm gonna talk about this in a little bit the preacher really is first and foremost Solomon, right?
I'll talk about this in the authorship section. Author shit sections. Excuse me down below here Solomon was the predominant author He's not the sole author by any means but I think you can reasonably argue he is the predominant principal author So he's the preacher But this noun cohillith is a feminine noun so I was reflecting upon this upon in context of the whole trilogy of Solomon Especially proverbs because proverbs is unique in the fact that it's always talking about lady wisdom Lady wisdom were to embrace lady wisdom to cherish her to prize her of all things to be faithful to her to learn from her wisdom Lady wisdom is often very often inviting anyone to listen to her words of instruction and to be wise and to be happy and to be joyful So I have a little personal connection I haven't seen anywhere else I'm sure someone else has probably made this connection that you couldn't a spiritual sense This isn't really exegesis But in a very spiritual sense I think you could safely say that cohillith is lady wisdom lady wisdom herself who spoke so much in proverbs and now she's speaking a whole bunch Here in the clisiaces alright, so lady wisdom is the one who is ultimately talking now first and foremost It's Solomon but in a deeper sense is lady wisdom now There's one more further connection than that that I really like and I like to ponder which is that so the preacher is Is Solomon okay great that makes sense and we talked about in Proverbs how of course Solomon This is actually gone in many Bible studies in many different places that Solomon is always a type of Jesus Christ Alright, so Solomon is the son of David Jesus the son of David Solomon is the temple builder Well, Jesus is the ultimate temple builder Solomon is the wise man Well, Jesus is the true wise man, right? So Jesus is the new Solomon which means he is the new preacher So in a real sense you couldn't a spiritual typological I could probably talk about all this later on at the very end of the lesson But whatever we're talking about now, so Jesus is the fulfillment of this whole book meaning the preacher that is speaking and teaching the people Who's gathering the assembly to teach the assembly that's Jesus Christ He is the true preacher right and simultaneously Jesus is not just the new Solomon He is also the perfection of lady wisdom We talk a lot about this in Proverbs 8 especially how lady wisdom has all these various attributes divine attributes spiritual eternal attributes where she is Somehow divine and she's united to God and yet distinct from God and all these different really interesting things You have to go back to Proverbs to discuss that a little bit more So I really like the fact that if and these again just my own personal thoughts if cohullith is lady wisdom Then ultimately it's another way in which Jesus is cohullith So Jesus is cohullith the preacher because he is wisdom incarnate But he's also the new Solomon the new son of David who's teaching his assembly So think about that I hope that makes sense a little bit It's kind of a new thought that I've had recently I was wanted to share with you Hopefully it's fruitful for you Jesus ultimately is the one who is wisdom incarnate to the new Solomon who teaches his assembly and gathers the assembly together Which is the church to teach the church what really matters in life So there's a little bit of some spiritual interpretation behind these titles But let's move on now to talk about Solomon as the author So this is letter B authorship and date now Jewish and Christian tradition has always identified Solomon as the principal substantial author Who wrote the core or the heart of the Ecclesiastes right along there again with Proverbs and song with Solomon So authorship and they always go together.
You can't really separate the two of them So if Solomon was the originator of this book I'm gonna argue later on based on just good scholarship Catholic Protestant otherwise He's not the sole author the book that we have in front of us today was not written word for word by Solomon Obviously, there is a very mysterious development of writing writing and editing over the course of the centuries I think that's true for probably all the book but he is the the core central He's the principal substantial author who wrote the core of the book and in fact Solomon really inspires the whole genre of wisdom literature him his sages who worked for him and lived with him and then all the People of the sages and the wise men of the bit kings afterwards were really inspired by Solomon Who was the wisest king of all I'm very there's very much a parallel and I said this in the Proverbs Bible study as well There's very much a parallel with the Psalter right so David wrote the majority of the Psalms Slim majority but still majority nevertheless he didn't write every last song but the Psalter is really attributed to David right But many of the Psalms were written by Liturgists or sacrisons or musical leaders or however you want to say that that he appointed even many of them were written like by the scribes of Hezekiah a couple hundred years later So he is the inspiration of the entire genre of the Psalms He wrote the majority of the Psalms not all of them but still they're kind of attributed to him directly or indirectly The same thing is true. I think of the wisdom literature We'll see in future Bible studies here the wisdom of Solomon later on in the book of Cirac Those were written just a couple hundred years before Jesus Christ right Sir at least right around the time the Septuagint was being put together the Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew He didn't write those books at all. That's pretty much unanimous But certainly because Solomon was the father of wisdom literature the they are kind of attributed to him right? So hope that makes sense as well.
So in tradition Jewish and Christian People's together have said yes Solomon is the author here now You do find a lot of evidence for this within the text itself So first and foremost the text identifies Kohleth or the preacher as the son of David and king of Israel So just a couple of verses here We'll take the time to look at these hey This is dr. Neck. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample if you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson Please become a student over at scripture and tradition calm where you can listen to this entire course But also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand however And whenever you want so thank you so much God bless you and keep setting your Bible