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Ecclesiastes, part 21, Immorality is Folly

Ecclesiastes 7:23-29 reports what wisdom can do, what it cannot do, and what it reveals about the human condition. Ecclesiastes 7:23, 24 says,

²³ I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. ²⁴ What has been is remote and exceedingly mysterious. Who can discover it?

Wisdom has its limits. By confessing that “it was far from me,” Koheleth begins with intellectual humility. Ultimate understanding is “remote,” (out of reach). Reality cannot be mastered, even by disciplined wisdom. Wisdom is real, but partial. Paul makes the same confession in 1 Corinthians 2:11-16,

¹¹ … Even so, the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, ¹³ which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit… ¹⁴ But a natural [“soulish”] man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised… ¹⁶ For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

The soulish “man” is the old man of flesh which was begotten by natural seed of our fathers going back to Adam, the first “living soul.” Being mortal and corruptible, it lacks the ability to discern spiritual things. Its wisdom is limited to the wisdom of the world, whereas the spiritual “man,” which has been begotten by God, has access to the wisdom of God.

Hence, Paul provides a clear solution to Koheleth’s dilemma. Such spiritual wisdom is one of the benefits of Pentecost, which comes with the gifts of the Spirit. Even so, in my opinion, Pentecost is about spiritual growth which is not completed until the fulfillment of Tabernacles.

Moral Danger

Ecclesiastes 7:25, 26 says,

²⁵ I directed my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness. ²⁶ And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.

Moral vulnerability—not ignorance—is the true danger, he says, because desire is the gateway to temptation. He describes snares, nets, and traps. The imagery evokes seduction, entanglement, and enslavement.

Integrity is Rare

Ecclesiastes 7:27, 28 says,

²⁷ “Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation, ²⁸ which I am still seeking but have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all these.”

In wisdom literature, both wisdom and folly are often personified as a woman. In Proverbs 1:7, 8, we read,

⁷ … Fools despise wisdom and instruction. ⁸ Hear, my son, your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

In other words, take heed to your father’s “instruction” and the wisdom of your mother’s teaching. Again, we read in Proverbs 1:20, 21,

²⁰ Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square. ²¹ At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings.

In Proverbs 9:1 we read, “Wisdom has built her house.”

The Hebrew word for wisdom is ḥokmāh. The “ah” ending is a typical feminine noun marker in the Hebrew language. Hence, wisdom is naturally personified as “she” in Hebrew poetry, and biblical poets naturally personify Wisdom as a woman, especially in wisdom literature.

Later, in Ecclesiastes 9:9, the Preacher shows that he does not have a low opinion of women,

⁹ Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.

Wisdom literature as a whole repeatedly honors women of insight and virtue, while abhorring harlotry and adultery.

Folly (siklût) in verse 25 is also a feminine word. Hence, the Preacher pictures folly as a woman. We should not take this to mean that all women are either wise or foolish, or that men cannot be wise or foolish as well. Both Koheleth’s point is to say that integrity is rare. In Proverbs 7:6-23 we see foolish men being overcome by the temptations of foolish women. Both are equal in foolishness, because, as Paul tells us, they are soulish. The soul is both mortal and corruptible.

Whatever asymmetry appears in 7:28 is immediately broadened (and equalized) into a statement about humanity as a whole. The problem is not women; it is human “devices,” (scheming).

Ecclesiastes 7:29 concludes,

²⁹ “Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices.”

This reminds us of God’s statement in Genesis 1:31, “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Mankind was not created evil, nor did man fall into a body made of evil matter, as the Greeks believed. The problem came after sin entered the picture, and Adam’s sin was the start of his corrupt schemes.