Ecclesiastes
Qohelet
Nothing gained by human striving, wisdom included, outlasts death or repeats without loss, so the only defensible response to a world without lasting profit is modest, present enjoyment rather than either despair or grand achievement.
- the futility ("vanity") of striving under the sun
- death as the leveler of all human distinction
- modest enjoyment as the available good
- late, Persian-influenced Hebrew dating the book after its Solomonic persona
A first-person philosophical meditation, framed as the reflections of "Qohelet" (the Hebrew title), on the futility of labor, wealth, wisdom, and pleasure in the face of death, which erases every distinction of merit. Its Hebrew shows late linguistic features, including Persian loanwords, which lead most critical scholars to date it well after the united monarchy the text's persona evokes, likely to the early Hellenistic period. Unusually for the Hebrew Bible, its recurring refrain is not despair alone but a repeated, almost stoic counsel to eat, drink, and find satisfaction in one's work as the only portion available to a mortal being. Its inclusion in the canon was debated by later rabbis precisely because of its skeptical tone.
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