I shall be embarking on a new series here in this space for the 2nd Sunday of each month. In this new series, I will be exploring Bible passages that have appeared puzzling to me. To start off this new series, I shall look at a passage where the youth and I just had an interesting discussion on during last Saturday’s TF gathering. This passage came up as TF has been doing weekly devotional sharing on the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes 7:27-29 (NIV)
27 “Look,” says the Teacher, “this is what I have discovered: “Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things—
28 while I was still searching but not finding—I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.
29 This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.”
Initial impressions:
Verse 28 is puzzling because it sounds misogynistic. It sounds like it is easier to find an upright man than an upright woman. Older commentators like St. Chrysostom from the Early Church Fathers era have no problem offering a misogynistic view on this verse due to their own cultural bias but for people like us, living in this “woke” era, verse 28 presents a problem. This is a problem not just because of the times we are living in but also because we are fully aware that God created humans male and female, although assigning them different roles, yet both are endowed with equal dignity and value. So how do we make sense of verse 28 sounding so biased against women? Let’s look at how some have tried to explain this controversy away with alternate interpretations.
Alternate interpretation #1:
— In verse 28, the word “upright” is not in the original Hebrew and therefore, verse 28 should not be seen as a virtue/morality issue.
>> Tremper Longman III: “Many translations (the NRSV is an exception) fill in the gap by importing an adjective before man and before woman. The NIV is typical as it moves the statement into the realm of morality with the adjective “upright.” While perhaps undermining Qohelet’s subtlety, the NIV correctly makes explicit Qohelet’s meaning, as is clear by looking at the use of “upright” (yāšār) in the next verse.” [NICOT]
Alternate interpretation #2 & #3:
— In verse 28, the Hebrew word for woman can also be translated as wife. The Teacher is merely saying how hard it is for him to find a wife.
— In verse 28, the one upright man is referring to the Messiah.
>> Both explanations simply do not fit the context.
Alternate interpretation #4:
— Verse 28 is merely the Teacher’s personal observations as a person with limitations and therefore his survey of upright men and women perhaps lacks a substantial sample size resulting in skewed results.
>> Very plausible explanation. For example, in Ecc. 2:24, the Teacher says: “A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God,”
Such an observation is based on his own personal experience, not to be taken as absolute truth. When one examines God’s word in totality, it is obvious that there are much better things; much more meaningful things to do than merely meeting our basic needs. Therefore, much of the Teacher’s personal views are not meant to be taken as absolute truths.
Alternate interpretation #5:
— Tremper Longman III: “The conclusion of our study (of verse 28) then is that Qohelet indeed expresses himself here as a misogynist. That he elsewhere speaks favourably of women (9:9) is not surprising. His comments are full of tensions, and thus I have characterized him as a confused wise man whose voice is not to be identified with the teaching of the canonical book.” [NICOT]
>> Highly plausible explanation. The Teacher (Qohelet) is not the author of the book, but an unnamed narrator is. This unnamed narrator appears most clearly in the beginning and the end of the book (Ecc. 1:1 and 12:9-14). Interestingly, the narrator spoke up at 7:27 too. Therefore, while the words of the narrator can be taken as absolute truth, the words of the Teacher should perhaps be taken as honest observations of a Jewish man without a covenant relationship with God (although still acknowledging the existence of God as any good Jewish person does). Having no committed covenantal relationship with God, his mentions of God are distant and cold. It is no wonder then, that he has a pessimistic outlook on life; life being under the sun (and not above); life being meaningless. Just as the words of Job’s friends are God’s word, the Teacher’s words in Ecclesiastes are also very much the inspired words of God, yet we are not to blindly accept them all as absolute truth. Understanding the authorship resolves the gender tension caused by verse 28. For a more in-depth discussion on Ecclesiastes’ authorship and how we ought to be reading Ecclesiastes, here is an article that is fairly easy reading and succeeds in offering a consistent interpretation of the entire book that squares with the overall theology of the Bible: https://www.raystedman.org/bible-overview/adventuring/ecclesiastes-the-inspired-book-of-error
C L