Ecclesiastes – not for the faint-hearted

I’m reading through Ecclesiastes…it’s better read with a Monty Python smirk and a smile, as if humour itself is the only comfort blanket remaining that can disguise the relentless realism and gloom: ‘Looking on the Bright Side of Life, it is not.

This morning I read a verse that halted me in its tracks, and I suppose I’m using this post as a first attempt to grapple with its stark simplicity, to put it into a test-tube and analyse the death out of it.  

‘If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent perversion of justice, and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter, for high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them’ 6 v 8 

Tradition points the finger at Solomon as the author. Whether he was or was not is inconsequential; the Hebrew title suggests that the author was a speaker who had the authority to call a congregation together to listen to him droning on about vanity and how life ends the same for everyone, rich or poor, and that if you think differently, you’re ‘grasping for the wind’.

It is not the cheeriest book in the bible.

At first sight, this appears to support indifference

But the phrase in the verse about the oppression of the poor that struck me was ‘do not marvel at the matter’. At first sight, this appears to support indifference, as if nothing can or should be done to rescue the poor and the weak from the hands of the rich, powerful, well-healed thugs that run society.

If that were true it would be shocking.

No, that way is defeatist, and I have no doubt that Solomon – once the truth had emerged of the depth of the corruption ruining the poor in a particular province - would have acted decisively.

This happens today. In every society. As the author of Ecclesiastes in the ninth verse of his opening chapter: ‘There is nothing new under the sun’.

Sir William Macpherson used the memorable phrase ‘Institutional Racism’ in his report on the grossly inadequate investigation carried out by the Met into Stephen Lawrence’s murder: "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour that amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.”

Whole provinces, Police forces, or…any hierarchical institution, can sink into corruption aided and abetted by the hierarchical power structures designed to lift up the least and the weakest, but rotten to the core.

Deep breath…let’s attempt to apply this verse to Israel-Gaza-Washington.

Hamas, in my opinion, has long since forfeited its legitimacy as a governing body. It did so by authorising and carrying out the despicable attack on unarmed citizens of Israel on October 7th 2023 at the Supernova Music Festival and kibbutzim, murdering over 1000 and kidnapping 250 taking them hostage; men, women, and children.

The only acceptable recourse for Hamas was to hang their heads in shame, return the hostages, and leave Gaza. Instead, they brought untold misery to the ordinary citizens under their control and the poor under their care, promising to repeat their attacks on Israelis inside and outside of Gaza, and continuing to war against the inevitable military response from the IDF.

But I am humbled by this verse in Ecclesiastes ‘Do not marvel at the matter’. What happened on October 7th should not surprise us. So deep has run the sense of injustice in the veins of ordinary Palestinians following the events in 1948 and the creation of the State of Israel that, I fear, so many have succumbed to an ever-narrowing set of options to resolve their grievances.

In the aftermath of World War II there were those in Britain that, due to their direct and indirect suffering, could not overcome their hatred for Germans and could no longer differentiate between the Nazis and Germans or Germany…after all, it was ordinary Germans that donned the uniform of the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the German Navy and the SS. Those, however, who lost the ability to make that distinction, died with bitterness running through their veins. Thankfully, most who opposed Nazi Germany were able to hate the Nazis but not all Germans and relations between GB and Germany were quickly restored, and the wound healed.

That, surely, is the only path ahead for Israel and Gaza.

Whether the Metropolitan Police Force has put its own house in order only time will tell. The world waits to see what can be done to rebuild Gaza and to build trust between Jews and Palestinians.

I don’t know whether it can be achieved. Hard-line Palestinians - and those chanting ‘From the River to the Sea’ on our streets - are calling for a One State solution – the replacement of Israel with a Palestinian State i.e. Jews out!

And hard-line Ultra-Orthodox Jews are calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank which they wish to rename as Judea and Samaria.

So entrenched are both sides with their respective hierarchical power structures firmly embedded by democratic elections

President Trump has waded in with customary bluster and shaken the world, seemingly adding Gaza to his shopping list of Greenland and Panama.

So entrenched are both sides with their respective hierarchical power structures firmly embedded by democratic elections (44% of Gazans voted for Hamas; 23% voted for Likud – Netanyahu’s party who formed a coalition government) that we must be as realistic as the writer of Ecclesiastes and ‘do not marvel’ if this stalemate continues with further outbreaks of devastating violence.

Is there any hope? Any light?

The following verse, chapter 5 verse 9, offers not only a relief from the apparent inevitability of v8 but presents a vision for the future:

‘The profit of the land is for all, even the king is served from the land’

We watch, maybe with more or less hope, as these cease-fire days build. Much depends on who is in charge and not only who but what sort of administration: one that does everything for the sake of ‘all’ Gazans and ‘all’ Israelis, or one that cares not a jot about the poor, preferring to line its own pockets, disguising its true intent by attempting once again to stir the devotion and sacrifice of its people through blood-lust, coercion and oppression.

Am I referring to Hamas, or Washington, or Jerusalem? I have my views. And it’s not from a journalistic perspective, or historical, or political perspective that I have had a go at putting these two verses from Ecclesiastes in my analytical test tube. If I lean close to that test tube, I can hear the sound of the reaction…the heavy sighs of lament.

In another place, St Paul wrote these words:

‘We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered’

That seems to be an appropriate note to end on. God, the Holy Spirit, is not indifferent and through our inarticulate prayers perhaps we are more on course than we realise. Groanings, sighs, pursed lips, tears even – Jesus wept – maybe this is our vital contribution and may help to shift the whole picture from verse 8 to verse 9.

‘We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered’

I hope so.

As I said at the start, Ecclesiastes is not for the faint-hearted. It tells the truth even if the truth is a hard pill to swallow.