Thursday, June 02, 2016

Ecclesiastes 5.1-12

I'm not preaching on this passage and I don't have heaps to say on it either. Unfortunately there are more sections than there are weeks and this one and the next will have to be left by the roadside, hopefully to be picked up again another day.

5.1-12 seems to be one of the wisdom sections that punctuate the book, as do the poems. 5.1-12; 7.1-13 and 9.14-11.10 have a very different feel to the first person narrative either side of them, but do maintain thematic similarities with the rest of the book, so they have been assembled/composed and arranged meaningfully.

5.1-4 Better to x, therefore y.
5.5-7 Better to z, therefore a.
5.8-12 If you see b, be assured that c.

x = be obedient, y = fulfil what you vow.
z = not vow, a = fear God.
b = oppression, c = you can sleep well.

As a section, this is perhaps then an attestation of the truths presented earlier, 5.8-12 in 4.1-6 for instance.

The only other thing to mention is the repetition of the negating particle על, which occurs 6 times in these verses, making the positive affirmations even stronger against all the 'shalt not's.

No comments: