Am I toiling?

The introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes in the New Revised Standard Version has some interesting facts. I see that it is comparatively new – only 200 or 300 years before Christ. This was reasoned because there are some Persian loan-words which require a date well after Israel’s release from exile in 539 before Christ.

The book was not written by Solomon. The Dead Sea Scrolls contained some fragments of the book. The writer takes the first person to address us. It contains a variety of wisdom forms – proverbs, parables, admonitions.

I note that Mary Baker Eddy only quotes from Ecclesiastes twice (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures 291: 20; 340: 4). She has set down how material life is indeed “vanity,” which is the key word in the book. Vanity – meaningless, absurd, emptiness, useless. I see that the literal meaning of “vanity” is “breath” or “breeze.”

Where the author of Ecclesiastes leaves material life as vanity, Christian Science says (my phrasing): “Yes, indeed, but that is not the creation God made. He saw His creation, and it was very good (Gen 1: 31). I like this line that came to thought recently: Divine Science demonstrates the rules of goodness. And of course, the scientific statement of being (S&H 468: 8-15) has the final word.

Is the author (Teacher) referring to Genesis, where he is told that man is not made to till the earth (see Gen. 3: 17, 19, 23), when he laments the vanity of “toiling under the sun” (Ecc.1:3 NRSV)?

We read of the repetition or cycles of nature in the wind and water. Just so is the nature of the human existence – much repetition of duties.

In searching on https://jsh.christianscience.com/console for some thoughts on tilling the soil, I found a testimony from Ben Martin from Sydney, Australia. (Ben has provided many Christian Science churches with organ recordings of the most of the hymns in the 1932 Christian Science Hymnal.) Ben speaks of working as a piano teacher, piano-tuner/technician with days lasting from 8am till 11pm with no time for family or recreation. His testimony also attests to the help received from a Christian Science nurse. (See testimony Infected Ear Healed, Benjamin M. Martin – April 18, 2016 Christian Science Sentinel).

Ecclesiastes 1 verse 14 NRSV has a new expression of vanity – “chasing after wind.” [Ed. KJV translates this passage as “vexation of spirit”.]

Ah! The next little poem, “What is crooked cannot be made straight,/and what is lacking cannot be counted” (Ecc. 1:15 NRSV). It is like he is defying what Isaiah had promised and which he must surely have read, for it was written around 740-700bc, well before his date of 300-200BC, i.e. “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain” (Isaiah 40:4 KJV).

[Ed. “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).] 

Joyce Voysey