You work and work and save up what you can from your pay. Then you die, which means that one day, no matter how much you’ve worked and saved, you have nothing at all. That’s how it’s always been and how it will remain forever. There are many ways to die, but they all lead to that one result. So all our work is for nothing. That’s what it says in Ecclesiastes (1:3-4, 14; 2:11, and other places). And the person whose job is thinking is not exempt (1:17; 2:15). Even worse, the work of thinking is not only subject to that rule about work leading to nothing, but that particular kind of work also leads to sorrow and craziness because the thinker realizes this pointlessness, which others might not realize (1:18; 2:16-17).
Part of what’s at work here in Ecclesiastes is the two-sidedness of the writings of the ancient Near Eastern wisdom tradition, including works from Egypt and Mesopotamia as well as those in the Hebrew Bible.
- One side is prudence, wise counsel, the conventional and conservative advice represented in the Bible most by Proverbs.
- The other goes beyond, and sometimes against, such prudent advice to philosophical reflection, as in Job and Ecclesiastes. Such works are characteristically sad (2 Sam 14:14: “We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again”). The thought that philosophical reflection brings sorrow is thus an established part of the tradition.
But works that exemplify the second of these kinds of “wisdom” also include the first, the prudent proverb, and not only as a sparring partner.
At any rate, God never required anyone to be a philosopher. That is something some people take on themselves (that is, some free will is involved). “Don’t be overwise: why destroy yourself?” (7:16). “A handful of quietness is better” (4:6) than the sorrow that comes to the speculative thinker.
God has graciously told us what he requires of us (Micah 6:8) and has directed the same instruction to all of us. There is no special word of instruction — or exemption — for thinkers or knowledge-workers.
The commandment I give you today is neither hidden from you nor too far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up for us to heaven and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go across the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it. (Deuteronomy 30:11-14).
Fear God and keep his commandments: that is the whole duty of humankind. (Ecclesiastes 12:13; cf. Deuteronomy 6:2; 10:12).
If anything specific is directed to knowledge-workers, it is counsel either to replace speculative inquiry with obedience, as in Job 28 (climaxing in verse 28: “Your wisdom is to fear God; avoiding evil is your understanding”), or at least not to use their knowledge to compete with each other or to put themselves over others (James 3:13-4:1).
- I use “require” here in an old-fashioned ethical sense, that is, in a sense that assumes human free will rather than negating it.
- “No special word of . . . or exemption”: Yes, I am thinking of academics and other leaders who have used their supposed “special”-ness to justify sexual predation. But other, less newsworthy ends are also justified by such “special”-ness.
- Statements like “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7) can be also be heard as attempts to humble knowledge by placing it under faith and obedience.
The One Story 