The Riddle of Qohelet and Qohelet the Riddler

1. Introduction

I have for some time argued that the book of Ecclesiastes is fundamentally ambiguous by design. ¹ It is not unusual now for scholars writing on Ecclesiastes to note points of ambiguity in the book. Some have written about the ambiguity of certain words, most notably what is often taken as the key word in the book, ‭לבה‬, ² or certain passages in the book, most notably the opening verses of Ecclesiastes. ³ There is at least one other person who maintains that the book is riddled with ambiguity and that this is the intention of the author. ⁴

Of course, deliberate ambiguity is rather difficult to prove, especially when the word ‘ambiguity’ itself is somewhat slippery and can be taken to indicate a range of different things ⁵ —hence William Empson's famous book entitled Seven Types of Ambiguity. ⁶ However, I detect a return from what Donald Levine calls, ‘The Flight from Ambiguity’, ⁷ and a corresponding openness to acknowledging the presence of deliberate ambiguity in biblical texts. ⁸

My purpose in this article is not to revisit questions of the ambiguity of Ecclesiastes. I am going to work on the assumption that the book has been shown to be fundamentally ambiguous (at least for readers today, though I would argue it was always so) and to explore instead what purpose such ambiguity might serve. My contention is that the translation of the word ‭חלהק‬ as ‘teacher’ (in the NRSV, for example) captures well the context for which the book of Ecclesiastes was designed—it was intended as a teaching tool and the ambiguity of the book is part of the didactic strategy of the author. ⁹ (However, I prefer to use ‘Qohelet’ because it retains the ambiguity of the Hebrew, besides which ‭חלהק‬ doesn't actually mean ‘teacher’. ¹⁰ ) I envisage a context not unlike my own—and perhaps that is no surprise, because this is what readers and commentators have done with Ecclesiastes throughout the known history of its interpretation. ¹¹ The context I refer to is this: I teach in a theological college which primarily prepares women and men for ordained ministry. Some of our students come to college believing they have a thorough understanding of their faith, theology and traditions. I see my role less as ‘teaching’ them what to believe, and even less as confirming them in the beliefs they already hold, but more as facilitating their learning by helping them to think through their beliefs very carefully and in dialogue with other views. Of course this involves passing on information about the Old Testament and its background and the history of its interpretation that they didn't previously know. But it also involves helping students engage with the many significant challenges that serious academic study of the Old Testament throws up. It means studying difficult passages and taking seriously what they actually say—not what we think they say, or what our churches presume they say. It means considering how the Church has used and misused or even abused Scripture in the past—and how it continues to do so today. It means engaging with a range of different interpretations of Scripture by both Christian and other interpreters. It means exploring our own traditions and examining how they correlate with what we find in the Old Testament. It means comparing what we find in the Old Testament with how we experience life—and what other people living in circumstances very different from our own find in the Old Testament and how that correlates with their experience of life. It means asking difficult questions; examining deeply held and dearly cherished beliefs. It is learning that should be ‘transformative’ in the sense that it should make a difference to what we think and how we act, and, indeed, to who we are. It should enable us to come to our study of the Bible (and our contemplation of the world about us) prepared to be changed by what we find there. It should help us to enable others among whom we minister also to experience such change.

So, that's my context. That's what I bring to the text of Ecclesiastes. Only it's not as simple as that! What I bring to Ecclesiastes is now formed in part by how I have been changed by my encounter with Ecclesiastes over some twenty years and more. I believe that my engagement with this book has transformed how I think and act. It has had a significant impact on how I ‘teach’, or, better, how I seek to help students learn: one of the significant influences on my development as a teacher has been Qohelet the teacher in Ecclesiastes.

Of course, another matter that we might deal with at this point is: Were there at the time Ecclesiastes was written institutions at all like the one in which I teach? However, this is a debate I do not intend to enter here. My presumptions are that Ecclesiastes was written in the post-exilic period, probably in the fourth or third century bce, and that it is likely that Jewish schools of some sort existed at this time. This would meet with fairly wide agreement among those who have written on this subject. ¹² It seems very clear that there were ‘schools’ elsewhere in the ancient Near East for some considerable time before this, though biblical scholars disagree over whether such schools existed in Israel in the pre-exilic period. ¹³ There is no convincing biblical evidence to indicate that there were, though a number of scholars have been persuaded by the available epigraphic evidence, but even that is rather scant. ¹⁴ There is more agreement on the existence of schools in the post-exilic period, though here, too, the evidence is meagre and not wholly persuasive. ¹⁵ Of particular interest for my purposes are two quotes from a recent article on education in the Old Testament by James Crenshaw: he writes, ‘The authors of the books of Job and Ecclesiastes were instructed in international wisdom, but we do not know anything about their teachers. The latter [that is, Ecclesiastes] even democratised education, according to the first epilogue.’ Crenshaw then states that ‘In all probability, Israelite sages composed their own texts for use in scribal schools’. ¹⁶ I plan to build on this probability.

2. Qohelet in Ecclesiastes 1.1: Who Is Qohelet?

The opening verse of Ecclesiastes already introduces the reader to an enigma, ¹⁷ perhaps to a deliberate riddle. ¹⁸ The verse opens the book thus: ‘The words of Qohelet, the son of David, king in Jerusalem’. If we take Tom Thatcher's definition of a riddle, as ‘an interrogative statement that generates confusion through the use of intentional ambiguity and asks for an answer that will render the statement clear’, ¹⁹ we might observe that the implicit question raised by this verse—and creating the riddle—is this: ‘Who is Qohelet?’ The phrases ‘son of David’ and ‘king in Jerusalem’ appear to identify Solomon as the person in question, and, indeed, for the most part chs. 1 and 2 correlate well with this identification. It may initially seem, then, that the ‘confusion’ and ‘ambiguity’ are easily resolved, because the statement is rendered clear by the identification of Qohelet as Solomon. Not much of a riddle, it appears! But much of the rest of the book sits awkwardly with Solomon as the speaker ²⁰ and, as is well known among Ecclesiastes scholars, the epilogue in 12.9–14 seems to describe Qohelet as a sage and perhaps as a teacher, with no clear indication that he is a king. Moreover, the further question arises: If the verse is supposed to identify the speaker of these words as Solomon, why not simply name him and dispense with the cryptic word ‘Qohelet’ altogether? After all, the start of Proverbs unambiguously ascribes the proverbs to Solomon (though that ascription is not without its difficulties) in a verse which is very similar to Eccl. 1.1, ‘The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel’.

The opening of Song of Songs also specifically associates the ‘song’ with Solomon, although the wording is not so similar: ‘The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's' (Song 1.1) (and again the association raises problems). Perhaps, then, the author of Ecclesiastes (or the editor—for the purposes of this article it doesn't much matter) is deliberately obscuring the identity of the person whose words are recorded in the book, ²¹ initially hinting that it is Solomon, but then revealing that this early resolution of the riddle is not, in fact, the right answer. ²² Such is often the nature of riddles. I remember a rather crude riddle from my childhood (which needs to be delivered orally rather than in writing!): ‘What is brown and comes steaming out of Cowes [the hearer, of course, hears “cows”] backwards?’ One particular answer may immediately spring to our minds, which is the intention of the gleeful young riddler and is what makes the riddle ‘work’. The ‘right’ answer, however, is less obvious: the Isle of Wight ferry. For those who don't know, Cowes is a town on the Isle of Wight which lies to the south of mainland Britain; ferries steam out of the town of Cowes on their way to the mainland. Whether any of those ferries actually is or ever was brown or actually does or ever did come out of the port in reverse, I don't know. But it didn't much matter for the purposes of the riddle—everyone who knew that Cowes was on the Isle of Wight understood and groaned appropriately. In some riddles, the ‘right’ answer is far from obvious. Again as a child I encountered the riddle, ‘What is black and white and read [the hearer, of course, hears “red”] all over?’ The answer is ‘a newspaper’. However, the same riddle today elicits the reply, ‘A zebra with sunburn’ (or, even more obscurely, ‘A panda in a liquidiser’). There is a double riddle here, because the presumed ‘right’ answer is ‘a newspaper’, but the new ‘right’ answer is different, precisely to mislead the hearer, or ‘riddlee’ as Thatcher calls the hearer or reader of riddles. ²³ A key aspect of such riddles is to ‘toy’ with the hearer in order to illicit a particular response.

Thatcher explains that while ‘riddling’ in modern Western culture is mostly a leisure activity with little riding on it apart from some embarrassment, in other cultures it can at times be a much more serious activity:

Thatcher goes on to argue that Jesus frequently used riddles in his teaching; my argument is that the book of Ecclesiastes also employs riddles as a teaching strategy, and that it casts Qohelet as a teacher who, among other things, uses riddles to facilitate his students' learning. The word ‭הדיח‬, which is the normal word for ‘riddle’ in the Old Testament, is not used in Ecclesiastes. This is the noun which occurs eight times (alongside three occurrences of the verb, ‭דוח‬) in the story of Samson and his riddle about the lion, the bees and the honey—the clearest example of a riddle in the Old Testament. ²⁵ However, the noun is not common, occurring only another nine times in total in the Old Testament. ²⁶ Of these, three are used in the context of teaching ²⁷ and on five occasions ‭הדיח‬ is used in parallel with the word ‭לשמ‬, ²⁸ the word usually translated ‘proverb’, ²⁹ which is used in connection with Qohelet in Eccl. 12.9, ‘Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs’. (Two occurrences of ‭הדיח‬ are explicitly used in connection with Solomon—when the Queen of Sheba tests him with riddles ³⁰ —and the word is used once at the start of Proverbs, which is also associated with Solomon. ³¹ ) However, the English word ‘proverb’ isn't sufficient to cover the range of meaning of the Hebrew word ‭לשמ‬, which includes such things as sayings, aphorisms, allegories, riddles, discourses, etc., as well as proverbs. ³² Thus, when Eccl. 12.9 refers to Qohelet ‘arranging many proverbs’, or ‭םילשמ‬, this may well include riddles, particularly as Prov. 1.6 specifically links riddles with the ‘words of the wise’, using exactly the same expression that we find in Eccl. 12.11. ³³ Proverbs 1.5–6 says, ‘Let the wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles’. Ecclesiastes 12.11 asserts that ‘The words of the wise are like goads’. If the ‘words of the wise’ include riddles, this might well explain how they act like ‘goads’, goading the hearer or reader to find the answers to the riddles the wise pose to them.

The identity of Qohelet is the first riddle which confronts readers of Ecclesiastes immediately they start reading the book. ³⁴ The purpose of the riddle is to raise questions in readers' minds about who this character is, to encourage them to answer the riddle and then to realize that their initial answer (that is, Solomon) is not, in fact, the answer the author had in mind (or that the book as a whole leads us to if we are concerned about editorial additions or wary of talking about ‘the author's intentions’ ³⁵ ). This also serves to engage readers actively in making sense of the book—an important aspect, I believe, of how Ecclesiastes ‘works’, and how Qohelet educates his students. The author wants his readers (as the character Qohelet wants his students) to apply the strategies developed in relation to the ambiguities (including the riddles) in the book, to the anomalies and ambiguities of life in the world beyond the text.

If the first verse of the book is understood as a riddle, it may be that readers should consider less ‘obvious’ interpretations of other parts of the verse to help them work out who Qohelet is. Thus, for example, in my childish riddle, different meanings have to be provided for ‘cows’ (Cowes) and ‘steaming’, and ‘brown’ may indicate ‘rusty’. ‘Backwards’ also has a different sense—not ‘coming out of the rear end’ (which anyway is a rather strange meaning for ‘backwards’), but ‘in reverse’. The words which may need reconsideration in Eccl. 1.1 are ‘son of’ and ‘king’. It is well known that ‘son of’ in the Hebrew Bible does not always indicate a first generation male offspring, but can refer to a more distant descendant, or even a person related in some other way, for example as a disciple or pupil. ³⁶ The plural ‘sons of David’ is used elsewhere in the Old Testament with such an extended sense. ³⁷ Thus ‘son of David’ here might indicate a ‘davidide’ in a very broad sense, perhaps even indicating that Qohelet lived in Jerusalem, the city of David. This would be a reasonable extension of the usage found elsewhere in the Old Testament and would not be an unacceptable extension of what the word means in the context of a riddle.

The word for ‘king’, ‭ךלמ‬, is a very common word in the Old Testament which most often refers to someone we might call a king, but on a number of occasions refers to a lesser ruler. ³⁸ There may be two roots ‭ךלמ‬ in the Old Testament, one associated with kingship, sovereignty, authority, and the like, and the other with advice or counsel. ³⁹ However, ‭ךלמ‬ as ‘king’ occurs over 2,500 times, while the noun probably never has the sense ‘counsellor’ (though the Aramaic noun in Dan. 4.24 means ‘counsel’) and the verb means ‘counsel’ only once, in Neh. 5.7, and this may be a loanword from Aramaic. Nonetheless, some commentators have made this connection, ⁴⁰ and Nel points out that ‘The cognate word in Akk. malkum … designates an adviser, and not a king’. ⁴¹ Indeed, the root is very often associated with counsel or advice in Aramaic, and if Ecclesiastes was read against a background of Aramaic literature, this connection might well have been made. Viewing Qohelet as a ‘counsellor’ certainly ties in better with the description of him in 12.9–11, where he is described as a wise person and may be one of a body known as ‘the wise’—perhaps a group of people employed as state advisers because of their wisdom. ⁴² I can imagine a reader or hearer reaching the epilogue and exclaiming, ‘Ah, yes! So perhaps that's what ‭ךלמ‬ in 1.1 means. I didn't think “king” was quite right somehow!’

3. Qohelet in Ecclesiastes 1.2: The Ambiguity of Qohelet's First Words

‘The riddle of Qohelet’ does not finish with 1.1. The second time we encounter Qohelet is in the very next verse, ‘Vanity of vanities, says Qohelet, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”’ A great deal has been written on the Hebrew word ‭לבה‬ in Ecclesiastes, rendered here as ‘vanity’, and I also have written on this at some length elsewhere, ⁴³ so I will make only brief comment here. Many commentators regard ‘all is vanity’ as the book's ‘motto’, the function of which is ‘to guide the reader toward a proper interpretation of Qohelet's words’, ⁴⁴ or which ‘controls the way we read’ ⁴⁵ the book, or which ‘will profoundly affect our understanding of Qohelet's message’, ⁴⁶ etc. The problem is that the commentators offer a wide range of translations of this word from ‘transient’ or ‘temporary’, to ‘enigmatic’ or ‘mysterious’, through to ‘meaningless’, ‘absurd’, ‘futile’, etc., which make a significant difference to the way the book as a whole is understood. Kathleen Farmer captures it well when she asks, ‘How is it possible for one small book to generate such opposite and contradictory theories about its meaning?‘, then answers, ‘One important reason is the ambiguity of the thematic word hebel… Ecclesiastes has been understood in radically different ways by readers in part because the thematic metaphor “all is hebel” is fundamentally ambiguous.’ ⁴⁷ Here, then, is another riddle, where the implicit question is ‘What does the word ‭לבה‬ mean?’ A number of answers to this riddle are possible, and again I would argue that this is a deliberate didactic device employed by the author (or by the character and teacher, Qohelet) to encourage his readers (or students) to engage for themselves with the question and work towards a resolution through the course of the rest of the book. Before coming to similar conclusions to mine, Charles Melchert asks the questions, ‘If the author was seeking to transmit clearly and unequivocally his conclusions, why has he chosen words that are so ambiguous and open textured? Is it possible the author did not intend precision in meaning? If not, might that suggest a different way of reading this text?’ Melchert goes on to say,

This is my point precisely: whether we regard the first two verses of Ecclesiastes as ‘riddles’ or not, there seems clearly to be plenty of scope for differences of interpretation. Might this not be deliberate ambiguity used as a teaching strategy in order to prompt or provoke readers to handle this particular text differently? ⁴⁹ Quite often I will start a classroom session at college with a probing question, or perhaps a provocative quote, or even an ambiguous statement for discussion in groups, to prompt my students to start engaging with the issues in a different way and to start working their way towards their own conclusions. In 1.1, then, Qohelet is the riddle; in 1.2, Qohelet poses his first riddle: the riddle of Qohelet and Qohelet the riddler!

4. Qohelet in Ecclesiastes 7.27: What Did Qohelet Find and Not Find?

To return to the word ‘Qohelet’, we meet in Eccl. 1.2 the two words ‭רמא‬ ‭תלהק‬, ‘says Qohelet’, which indicate that the ambiguous motto ‘all is ‭לבה‬’ is specifically ascribed to Qohelet. We encounter very similar words to these in 7.27. This is the only time that Qohelet's monologue in 1.3–12.7 is interrupted ⁵⁰ and the interruption is the two words ‭תלהק‬ ‭הרמא‬, ‘says Qohelet’. It is as if readers are being reminded that these are still Qohelet's words, though scholars disagree about why this reminder is given. ⁵¹ These words come in another very puzzling passage which has left scholars floundering as they try to pin down just what it is that Qohelet is saying in these verses. Perhaps we have another deliberate riddle here.

Even in English translation, the passage sounds awkward and is difficult to follow—and, indeed, some scholars resort to emending the text or excising parts of it in order to make sense of these verses. ⁵² As divided in the mt, the passage displays an alternation between ‘finding’ and ‘not finding’ at the end of clauses:

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However, the marking of these divisions is late and it hides the difficulty facing a reader of the unaccented text in determining what is and is not found. If v. 28 is presented in a way which separates out the occurrences of ‘finding’ and ‘not finding’, the interpretative challenges are more apparent:

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I have included ‭רבל‬ (the first word in v. 29) here because, once the requirement to follow Masoretic divisions is removed, this opens up further possibilities for translation which are more in accord with the way that ‭רבל‬ is used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. ⁵³

Thus, for example, the passage might be read so that the occurrences of ‘finding’/‘not finding’ are at the start of their respective clauses, rather than at the end (as the Masoretic divisions indicate). This would give balanced opening and closing lines of 13 words each, both of which start with ‭יתאצמ‬ ‭הז‬ ‭האר‬, include references to ‘finding’ and ‘seeking’, and in which there is a wordplay surrounding the use of ‭ןובשח‬ and ‭תונבשח‬ (which, of course, in the unpointed text could be the same word in singular and plural), with the reference to ‭םדא‬ and ‭השא‬ in between:

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This might be translated: ‘“See, I found this”, said Qohelet, “by adding one thing to another to find a conclusion that I sought. I did not find a man/person among a thousand, but I did find a woman/wife among all these. This is not all I found. See, I found this, that God made man/people straightforward, but they sought many schemes.”’ Many questions remain about these verses (not least concerning the waw on ‭השאו‬), ⁵⁴ but the point for my purposes here is that the unaccented passage makes it extremely difficult to determine exactly what is and what is not found. The riddle, then, is to answer the implicit question ‘What is “found” and what is “not found” in this passage?’

5. Qohelet in Ecclesiastes 1.2; 7.27 and 12.8: Masculine or Feminine; Definite or Indefinite?

To return to the specific reference to Qohelet, what is not obvious in English translation is that the Hebrew in 7.27 is different from the similar phrase in 1.2—‭תלהק‬ ‭הרמא‬ rather than ‭תלהק‬ ‭הרמא‬; that is to say, the feminine form of the verb is used rather than the masculine form. The word ‭תלהק‬ appears to be a feminine participial form from a verb meaning ‘to assemble’, or ‘gather’, ⁵⁵ but the word occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. Very occasionally elsewhere in the Old Testament feminine participles are used in what looks like a similar way, ⁵⁶ which might indicate that the feminine participle may be used for a role that could be carried out by a man. The evidence is not strong, however, and the name or title Qohelet is without any clear precedent and remains enigmatic. ⁵⁷ The mystery is further heightened by the use of the masculine verb in the phrase ‘says Qohelet’ in 1.2, but the feminine verb in 7.27. Almost all scholars put this down to a scribal error whereby the hē from the beginning of ‭תלהקה‬ has ended up on the end of the verb. ⁵⁸ However, on all the occasions where we have encountered the word ‭תלהק‬ to this point in the book (1.1, 2, 12) the noun has been anarthrous, that is, it has not taken an article, and therefore has appeared to be a name rather than a title. Two of the remaining three occurrences (12.9, 10, both of which are in the epilogue) also function as anarthrous masculine nouns, but the other one complicates matters even further. This occurs in the inclusio in 12.8, where we read these words: ‘“Vanity of vanities”, says the qohelet; “all is vanity”’. Here the noun does take a masculine verb, but it is the only occasion in the mt of Ecclesiastes where ‭תלהק‬ takes the definite article, ⁵⁹ which would seem to make it some kind of a title or role rather than a proper name as it appears to be elsewhere in the book. We thus have the phrase ‘says Qohelet’ (or ‘says the qohelet’) three times in Ecclesiastes, and on each occasion it is slightly different: ⁶⁰

I am inclined to think that, rather than being due to scribal error, or incorrect division of words, this repeated phrase is designed to further the mystery that enshrouds the person whose words are recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes. My inclination here is strengthened by the observation that such variation is typical of the book. ⁶¹ It also furthers my argument that the name Qohelet is a riddle, and all three phrases occur in contexts which pose riddles that the author ascribes directly to Qohelet (12.8 concluding Qohelet's words with the same riddle with which they started in 1.2). Again, the riddle of Qohelet and Qohelet the riddler.

6. Qohelet in Ecclesiastes 1.12: ‘I am Qohelet—guess who I am!’

I have not so far considered 1.12, where the word ‭תלהק‬ also occurs: ‘I, Qohelet, was king over Israel in Jerusalem’. This verse, too, is puzzling because it looks like an introductory verse, but such an introduction seems somewhat redundant in light of 1.1. Why do we have Qohelet's words introducing himself as ‘king in Jerusalem’ when that information has already been supplied? Moreover, this ‘introduction’ is twelve verses into the book. There are two further anomalies which add to the strangeness of the verse. First, the verb rendered here as ‘was’ is a perfect verb which might most obviously be read to indicate a completed action, ‘I was king' or ‘I have been king’. ⁶² If it were intended clearly to indicate the present tense, either the participial form could have been used, or an imperfect verb, or, more probably, the verb might have been omitted altogether as in the closest parallel uttered by David in 2 Sam. 19.23,‭לארשי־לע‬ ‭רלמ־ינא‬. The implication of the perfect form of the verb could be that the writer is not at the time of writing king over Israel. Perhaps this is a hint that Qohelet is not in fact King Solomon, ⁶³ perhaps even that he makes no pretence at being a king, but is rather an adviser over Israel. Farmer describes the ‘use of the completed-action form of the verb’ here as a riddle: ‘Qohelet…uses the form of a self-introduction to pose a type of riddle. In effect he is saying, “Given these clues (I was king over Israel in Jerusalem and known for my wisdom), guess who I am”.’ ⁶⁴

Secondly, the preposition ‘over’ (‭לע‬) is also unusual, because, although the construction with this preposition does occur a number of times elsewhere, the much more common expression in the Old Testament is just ‭לארשי‬ ‭ךלמ‬, as, indeed, it is in Prov. 1.1 and the two other occasions when exactly the same phrase, ‭לארשי‬ ‭ךלמ‬ ‭דיוד־ןב‬ ‭המלש‬, is used (2 Chron. 30.26; 35.3). It is perhaps noteworthy that on the two occasions when the root ‭ךלמ‬ meaning ‘to advise’ occurs (Neh. 5.7; Dan. 4.24), it is followed by the preposition ‭לע‬.

7. Qohelet in Ecclesiastes 12.9, 10: Qohelet, the Wisdom Teacher?

The final two references to Qohelet in Ecclesiastes are to be found at the start of the epilogue, where we read, ‘Besides being wise, Qohelet also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs. Qohelet sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly’ (12.9, 10). There are many anomalies and puzzles about these two verses and the epilogue in general, ⁶⁵ but two questions in particular suggest that these verses also may be intended as a riddle, which it is left to the reader to try to resolve: ‘Who is Qohelet in these verses?’ and ‘What is the narrator's view of the words of Qohelet recorded earlier in the book?’ The second question is further complicated by the issue of whether there is just one epilogue or two; and, if there are two, whether they take the same or different views of Qohelet's words.

Unlike the start of the book, here at its conclusion there is no explicit indication that Qohelet is a king (if that's what the word means there, of course!), and were it not for the third person description of Qohelet in 1.1 and his own words in 1.12, this is not a conclusion the reader would be likely to come to on the basis of the epilogue alone—or probably even on the basis of the epilogue and all the rest of the book, apart from 1.1 and 1.12! Rather, Qohelet is described as someone who is wise and who teaches the people—though both of these could be true of a king, especially if that king was Solomon. However, the activities which Qohelet undertakes in these verses more readily suggest that he was a sage and teacher: the words translated as ‘wise’, ‘knowledge’, ‘weighing’, ‘studying’, ‘arranging’ and ‘proverbs’ in v. 9 all occur much more often in the wisdom literature than elsewhere (though, of course, proverbs are elsewhere associated with Solomon ⁶⁶ ); and ‘teaching’, ‘finding pleasing words’ and ‘writing words of truth plainly’ are all activities one might readily associate with a teacher. It is true that the word ‭םכח‬, ‘wise’, is an adjective and could be used of any wise person, as, indeed, it is used of Solomon; however, it often functions like a noun meaning ‘wise one’ or ‘sage’, as may be the case when the plural is used in v. 11, ‘The sayings of the wise are like goads’. Hence it would seem reasonable to read it as ‘wise one’ or ‘sage’ here also. Thus, for example, the NASV renders the start of 12.9, ‘In addition to being a wise man…’, and the NJPS translation says, ‘A further word: Because Koheleth was a sage…’ The actual noun ‘teacher’ does not occur either ⁶⁷ (despite the translation of ‘Qohelet’ as ‘the teacher’ in many English versions), but the description of Qohelet as someone who ‘taught the people’ might reasonably be taken to imply that he was a teacher. Hence, for example, Choon-Leong Seow maintains that ‭םכח‬ ‘is used here in the technical sense of someone who is a wisdom teacher (Jer. 18.18; Prov. 1.6; 22.17; 24.23) and not just the generic sense of a wise person’. ⁶⁸ Nonetheless, just as Qohelet is not explicitly identified as Solomon at the start of the book, though that identification is strongly hinted at, so here at the end of the book, Qohelet is not explicitly identified as a wisdom teacher, though that identification is strongly hinted at. The riddle, it seems, remains finally unresolved. This is typical of Ecclesiastes and, indeed, of Qohelet the teacher: riddles are frequently left without definitive resolution, prompting readers and students to work out for themselves what is the ‘correct’ answer to these puzzles.

Moreover, v. 10, which moves on from describing Qohelet himself to describing his words, contains a number of puzzling features which add to the continuing sense of mystery surrounding Qohelet's identity. Firstly, the first half of the verse refers to Qohelet ‘seeking to find’ using two key words from Eccl. 7.27–29, where we noted that Qohelet ‘sought’ but ‘did not find’ as much as he ‘did find’, and anyway it was rather unclear just what he found. I argued that the riddle there was to answer the implicit question ‘What is “found” and what is “not found” in this passage?’ Then in 8.17 we read these words: ‘I saw all the work of God, that no one can find out what is happening under the sun. However much they may toil in seeking, they will not find it out; even though those who are wise claim to know, they cannot find it out.’ This time ‘not find out’ is repeated three times, and again seeking seems not to achieve very much, however hard one works at it, and even the wise cannot find it out (whatever precisely ‘it’ refers to). Similarly, in 3.11 we read, ‘He [that is, God] has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end.’ ⁶⁹ And again, 7.14 says, ‘In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other, so that mortals may not find out anything that will come after them’. It seems that in Ecclesiastes, ‘seeking’ and trying to ‘find’ are rather futile (hebel-ish?) enterprises, so when we hear in the epilogue that Qohelet ‘sought to find’ we may be forgiven for wondering if he succeeded. This is even more the case when we discover that he sought to find ‘pleasing words’; ‘pleasing’ hardly seems an apt description for the words ascribed to Qohelet earlier in the book. Did Qohelet then fail in this search also? Or is this description intended to be ironic?

The second half of the verse serves only to compound the problem. The word translated ‘he wrote’ is a passive participle in Hebrew which seems awkward, ⁷⁰ and is usually emended by commentators either to the infinitive absolute or to the third-person perfect. If the passive participle is retained, it should probably be translated something like, ‘that which is written uprightly [or, perhaps, “honestly”] are truthful words’. This leaves a puzzle over the relationship between the two halves of the verse and the relationship between the ‘pleasing words’ and the ‘truthful words’ (and this puzzle is not wholly resolved by emending the verse):

8. Qohelet and the Narrator: What Does the ‘Frame Narrator’ Think of Qohelet?

This feeds into our second question about the epilogue: ‘What is the narrator's view of the words of Qohelet earlier in the book?’ Does he commend Qohelet's words to the reader, ⁷¹ or defend them against criticism; ⁷² or does he perhaps intend to guide the reader towards a ‘proper’ interpretation of Qohelet's words, ⁷³ or seek to highlight what he thought was important in the book; ⁷⁴ or does he provide an orthodox conclusion to ease acceptance of Qohelet's words, ⁷⁵ or perhaps to encourage the use of Ecclesiastes as ‘a schoolbook in Jerusalem’; ⁷⁶ or does he hope to connect Ecclesiastes to other wisdom literature, especially Proverbs; ⁷⁷ or does he disapprove of Qohelet's words and hope to subdue the unorthodoxy of the book; ⁷⁸ or does he use Qohelet's words to warn students away from the teachings of ‘the wise’; ⁷⁹ or has he actually fundamentally misunderstood Qohelet's words; ⁸⁰ or are there two epilogues, one of which commends Qohelet, the other being more critical, ⁸¹ possibly one from the writer of the rest of the book and the other the words of an editor; ⁸² or has the author of Ecclesiastes perhaps deliberately created tension between Qohelet's words and those of the frame narrator whose voice we hear in 1.1 and 12.9–14, and who also speaks the words ‘says (the) Qohelet’ in 1.2; 7.27 and 12.8? ⁸³

All these possibilities find support among modern scholars, and it is notable that even in the most recent works there is disagreement regarding the extent of any secondary additions, from none (Salyer; Provan; Bartholomew; Krüger), or possibly none (Davis), to 12.13b–14 (Fox; Seow), or 12.9–14 (Brown; Tamez; Huwiler; Burkes; Christianson; Melchert; Ogden and Zogbo); and whether there are one (Huwiler; Longman; Krüger; Shields) or two epilogues (Tamez; Fox; Seow; Lohfink; Ogden and Zogbo); and whether the message of the book is to be sought in Qohelet's words (Christianson), or in the theology of the frame narrator (Longman), or perhaps in the way the epilogue guides us to ‘fill in the gaps’ (Provan; Bartholomew); and whether there is a fundamental incongruity between the frame and Qohelet's words (Brown; Melchert; Longman; Shields)—and if there is, whether this is part of the book's message (Salyer; Shields; Longman), or a ‘garish, “establishment-issue” frame’ (Christianson)—or whether the epilogue is basically in harmony with the rest of the book (Provan; Huwiler; Fox; Seow). There seems little doubt that the epilogue is, or the epilogues are, puzzling; perhaps again we have an intentional riddle whereby the reader is supposed to answer the question, ‘What is the narrator's view of the words of Qohelet earlier in the book?’

9. Conclusion

In this article I have explored all seven of the occurrences of the name or title ‘Qohelet’ or haqqohelet (the qohelet) in the book of Ecclesiastes in order to demonstrate that on each occasion there are puzzling features which raise questions about the identity of this key character in the book, whose words constitute the bulk of its content. I hope I have shown convincingly that these puzzles surrounding Qohelet or haqqohelet justify using the expression ‘the riddle of Qohelet’ in relation to this enigmatic person. It is my contention that Qohelet is presented to readers as a riddle to be solved. Further, like many riddles through the ages, this riddle deliberately toys with readers and seeks to lead them initially to the wrong answer, before providing them with the right answer, or at least giving further information which indicates that the first answer may not be the correct one. It is nothing new to argue that readers are initially supposed to guess that Qohelet is Solomon and then realize that this guess was incorrect, though I'm not aware of any systematic study that has considered this a ‘riddle’. What I think may be new is the argument that this is a deliberate didactic device used throughout the book whereby ambiguity is employed in order to engage readers and learners in ‘solving’ for themselves the various riddles that the book throws up, and by this means to educate readers to ‘solve’ the innumerable riddles that life and faith throw up. However, I don't believe that readers are expected to come up with many definitive answers to life's riddles. Rather, they are supposed to find satisfactory ways to cope with these riddles, without having to find answers to them all. After all, Ecclesiastes makes it abundantly clear that no matter how much we may seek and no matter how wise we may be, there are severe limits to our ability to find. It seems we should expect ‘not to find’ as much as ‘to find’.

This supports the second part of my thesis, that ‘Qohelet the riddler’ might be an apt description of the main speaker in Ecclesiastes, and that his riddling is part of the way in which he, as a teacher of the people, intends to educate his students. I have given some examples of this in the article, and my earlier work, in which I sought to demonstrate that Ecclesiastes is riddled with intentional ambiguity, feeds into this discussion—and conversely this discussion takes the earlier studies a stage further because it provides an explanation for the use of ambiguity in Ecclesiastes.