Seekers of Evil Schemes
Wisdom gives a wise person more protection than ten rulers in a city. For there is not one truly righteous person on the earth who continually does good and never sins.
Also, do not pay attention to everything that people say; otherwise, you might even hear your servant cursing you. For you know in your own heart that you also have cursed others many times.
I have examined all this by wisdom; I said, “I am determined to comprehend this” – but it was beyond my grasp. Whatever has happened is beyond human understanding; it is far deeper than anyone can fathom.
I tried to understand, examine, and comprehend the role of wisdom in the scheme of things, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the insanity of folly.
I discovered this: More bitter than death is the kind of woman who is like a hunter’s snare; her heart is like a hunter’s net and her hands are like prison chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is captured by her.
The Teacher says: I discovered this while trying to discover the scheme of things, item by item. What I have continually sought, I have not found; I have found only one upright man among a thousand, but I have not found one upright woman among all of them. This alone have I discovered: God made humankind upright, but they have sought many evil schemes (Ecclesiastes 7:19-29).
All explorations of wisdom and folly must grapple with the depth of human depravity.
Throughout Ecclesiastes 1:1-6:12 the Preacher meditates upon the hevel of life under the sun: all is vain, futile – truly absurd. He compares most human endeavors toward meaning as “chasing after wind”: people pursue pleasure, wealth, wisdom, or other things looking for ultimate purpose and satisfaction and will be disappointed and frustrated by all of them. To rage against such truths is itself futile and striving after wind. God understands better than we do.
In Ecclesiastes 7:1-10 the Preacher seemed to have set forth a series of aphoristic exhortations not unlike the proverbs for which he is well known. Ecclesiastes 7:11-18 presented a series of pericopes a bit more focused on wisdom and life principles. In Ecclesiastes 7:19-29 he persisted in the same theme.
In Ecclesiastes 7:19-20 the Preacher transitioned effectively by means of his two declarations: wisdom providing protection hearkens back to Ecclesiastes 7:11-12 and well ties together the pericopes of Ecclesiastes 7:11-19, and the confession of the sinfulness of everyone anticipates the rest of his theme in Ecclesiastes 7:20-29. The Preacher connected these two themes together in Ecclesiastes 7:19-20: wisdom provides protection for the wise person because everyone, even the wise person, commits sin. The wise man has been corrupted by sin and is fallible. He does well when he relies on wisdom; yet no one always behaves according to wisdom. The Preacher would know: he is honored as the wisest among men, and yet his follies regarding women and idolatry remain exposed for all to see in 1 Kings 11:1-43.
Yet even on its own Ecclesiastes 7:20 remains salient, reinforced by Paul in Romans 3:23 and John in 1 John 1:8. No one is fully and truly righteous; all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Nothing good has ever come from any attempt to presume we have transcended sin. For good reason Paul wanted Christians to be continually reminded of their past sinfulness (Ephesians 2:1-11, Titus 3:3-8): such remains the necessary ground in humility to relate properly to God and to fellow human beings.
The Preacher then provided a bit of practical wisdom: do not give heed to everything people say, or you might even hear someone you think is socially inferior to you or who is very close to you cursing you. If you would find this terribly offensive, you do well to remember how you have cursed others in your heart many times (Ecclesiastes 7:21-22). This pericope has a light connection with how everyone commits sin in Ecclesiastes 7:20 and almost no connection with what will follow. Nevertheless, the Preacher’s advice is good; we are tempted to get very incensed or offended if we happen to hear the way others negatively feel about us, but has that ever stopped us from having negative feelings about others? We do well to lightly hold onto offense because of such things; while we might do well to reflect on how we have related and treated people who would curse us, we must also remember their cursing might well tell us more about them than it does about us.
The Preacher has considered all the things he has thus mentioned according to wisdom, yet in the attempt has perceived how all such things are beyond his understanding and remained far beyond what any human being could imagine (Ecclesiastes 7:23-24). As in Eccclesiastes 6:10-12, so again the Preacher grappled with the limitations of human capacity. Such is why wisdom cannot be the ultimate good; even at our best, humans remain finite created beings, and thus cannot fully understand anything and everything. The Preacher consistently returns to this humble recognition which has become quite lost on people today across the socio-political spectrum. We remain finite creatures; we cannot understand anything to its fullest extent. Such remains true about how we view the creation; yet such is also true about inquiry and investigation regarding spiritual matters. We have good reason to maintain strong confidence in God as our Creator and His covenant loyalty, but must be careful about how dogmatically we hold onto any specific belief or idea, for whatever we think we know is only a shadow of a much more profound reality beyond our capability to understand. Whenever we want to make any thing God has made absolute, whether a substance or our understanding or even ourselves, we commit idolatry.
In Ecclesiastes 7:25-27 the Preacher developed serious rhetorical scaffolding around the danger of the temptress or covetous woman. He investigated wisdom in the grand scheme of things as well as the mad folly of wickedness; in so doing he came upon the woman “like a hunter’s snare,” whose heart is as the “hunter’s net” and hands as prison chains; she is more bitter than death. The man who pleases God would escape such a woman, but sinners are captured by her.
The Israelite wisdom tradition personified Wisdom and Folly as contrasting women. Wisdom cries out, inviting everyone to learn humility and wisdom from God (Proverbs 1:20-33, 8:1-26). Folly, on the other hand, is described as the seductive adulteress, leading naïve men to their doom (Proverbs 2:11-18, 5:3-15, 7:6-27). We should understand the Preacher’s exhortation in Ecclesiastes 7:26 according to this paradigm. Today we would speak of such women as “gold diggers”, those seeking significant material wealth from their romantic relationship without much regard to the well-being of their partner. Any woman who would prove emotionally or otherwise abusive would also fit the paradigm.
While the Preacher’s exhortation is gendered, we would be remiss and naïve to assume such gendering is entirely prescriptive as well as descriptive. Men can also prove abusive in relationships, and we can imagine many situations in which men who display certain behaviors would be more bitter than death for women.
We do well to similarly understand how the Preacher concludes his pericopes related to wisdom: he has not found what he sought, for he found only one upright man among a thousand, and no upright woman among any of them. If he discovered anything, it is this: God made humans upright, but they have sought many evil schemes (Ecclesiastes 7:28-29).
We understand the general nature of the Preacher’s observation: humans are depraved. We do well to understand this observation as returning full circle to Ecclesiastes 7:20 and it provides a nice rhetorical finish. And yet he has communicated this observation in a misogynistic way. It is not as if the Preacher is really commending men or masculinity here; finding only one upright man out of a thousand is not a good testimony for men. But what do we make of him not finding any upright women? Is it the misogynistic perspective of the Preacher himself? Or does it testify more to the kind of women with whom he has surrounded himself, or, perhaps, the kind of women who would be around a wealthy king like the Preacher?
Any attempt to use Ecclesiastes 7:28 as some kind of cudgel to degrade women is itself depraved; men and women have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory; men and women can equally find salvation in Jesus and equally share as joint-heirs of the grace of life (Romans 3:23, Galatians 3:28, 1 Peter 3:7).
In this way we do better to focus on the Preacher’s general observation than his specific explication: people sin. The Preacher well observed how humanity’s propensity to sin is not God’s fault because of how God made humanity, for God made humans and they were very good (Genesis 1:1-31). Instead, in their corruption, humans have sought evil schemes. They fall prey to their anxieties and fears and act in ways which harm others in a misguided attempt to establish benefits for themselves and those they deem their associates. The Israelites well perceived this tendency among the nations; God, and the Preacher, could also see this tendency among the people of God as well.
To this day people have sought evil schemes. We all remain very attuned to the evil schemes which “they,” whomever we define as not “us”, have propagated and perpetuated; yet we do well to explore, like in the wisdom of the Preacher, how we ourselves, and those we associate as among or allied with us, have sought out evil schemes as well. We are not intrinsically upright; we have been corrupted by sin and our anxieties and fears which attend to our decay and death. Our only hope has been salvation from our condition and plight from God who has richly bestowed His love, grace, and mercy in Jesus Christ His Son and our Lord. May we in wisdom recognize our limitations and our depravity in our corruption, and in humility trust and depend on God in Christ through the Spirit to overcome sin and death!
Ethan R. Longhenry
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