Poetry and Wordplay in the Book of Kohelet
By Joseph Wertzberger[1]
Sefer Kohelet, the Book of Kohelet, was written approximately 700-600 BC according to Rabbinic sources,[2] and is dated to somewhere between that time and the early to mid-third century BC by academic sources.[3] Its wisdom is traditionally attributed to King Solomon.[4]
The book is part of ancient Hebrew wisdom literature, and is known for its existential, philosophic lessons and motifs. But alongside that also, the book is suffused with sophisticated poetry and wordplay, and I’d like to use this essay to point out a few examples.
- The Meaninglessness of Huvel
The book begins with its most well-known verse, summarizing the work’s theme and setting its tone.
הבל הבלים אמר קהלת, הבל הבלים הכל הבל. קהלת א ב
Huvel of huvel,[5] said Kohelet, huvel of huvel, all is huvel.
The word huvel can be translated variously as air,[6] vapor, meaninglessness, vanity,[7] folly, futility, absurdity,[8] or nothingness.[9] The word is repeated throughout the book as a motif, describing aspects of human endeavor and life experience.
The book begins with a bang, so to speak; a strong summary statement that captures the book’s theme, while also the reader’s attention; and the theme is then explained, elaborated upon, and expanded throughout the rest of the book. The sentence is only eight words long, and a remarkable five of them, more than half of the sentence, are the same word, essentially nothing.
Using a word that also means air, or vapor, as the book’s theme is not accidental, for in the author’s effort to examine life’s purpose, meaning and sense, to dig into it and to pin it down, he (and we, alongside) discovers ultimate meaning and sense to be elusive. We think we understand things, and our minds naturally intuit purpose and endow things with meaning, but the moment we try to pin it down and fully capture it, it slips through our fingers like so much vaporous air.
In fact, the word huvel itself symbolizes its meaning onomatopoeically well, being composed of only soft consonants,[10] its vocalization almost entirely pure breath itself, with no hard sounds; an unusual verbal formulation. The entire sentence, in fact, is composed almost completely of “air” with almost no hard consonants, the only two being the hard ‘k’ sounds in Kohelet and hakol, balancing each other out at the two ends of the sentence. When the sentence is read aloud, particularly with its ancient Hebrew pronunciation and syllabic emphasis, it has a very lilting, bouncing and poetically balanced quality to it.[11]
It is also intriguing to notice that the hard ‘k’ sound in hakol is in fact the only thing that distinguishes the word from the similar word huvel – in fact, even more so, the tiniest difference between the letters kuf and vet are what distinguish absolutely everything from nothing! And the only other ‘k’ sound in the verse is in the only other physical object that appears in the sentence, the speaker of the sentence at its opposite end, who is examining everything, and turning it into nothing.[12] And so, essentially, nothing appears in the sentence until almost its very end, and when something does appear, everything appears all at once with the one simple word, hakol, and it’s all immediately revealed to in fact be… hevel, nothing at all.
- Onomatopoeia
The book includes many beautiful examples of onomatopoeia. In addition to the word huvel and its use as mentioned, some of the best are the following.[13]
כל הנחלים הלכים אל הים והים איננו מלא, אל מקום שהנחלים הלכים שם הם שבים ללכת[14]. קהלת א ז
We hear the pitter-patter of water bouncing, running and tumbling through the brook down the mountainside.
סובב סבב הולך הרוח ועל סביבתיו שב הרוח[15]. קהלת א ו
The wind’s whistle and howl comes through.
כי כקול הסירים תחת הסיר, כן שחק הכסיל[16]. קהלת ז ו
We can clearly hear the kindling under the kettle crackle and hiss,[17] and the fool’s braying cackle alongside.
אם ישך הנחש בלוא לחש, ואין יתרון לבעל הלשון[18]. קהלת י יא
Here we hear the hiss of the snake, and the whispered sounds of the luchash, in the sounds of the sentence. There’s also a poetically ringing rhyme to the verse, and the gossip whisperer’s tongue coming at the end of it circles poetically back to the snake at its start, whose bite is also viscerally associated with its flicking tongue (snakes hunt by smelling prey through their tongue).
- He Gives Another, His Portion
כי יש אדם שעמלו בחכמה ובדעת ובכשרון ולאדם שלא עמל בו יתננו חלקו[19]. קהלת ב כא
The word chelko at the end of the sentence seems initially extraneous and off-balance, for when we read the sentence from its start, it seems complete with the word yitnenu. The word chelko then appears, almost an added appendage at the sentence’s end.
It seems that the word chelko (his portion) would have fit the sentence better had the preceding word been yiten (he gives) instead of yitnenu (he gives it to him). Since the word yitnenu includes a subject-reference, it’s odd to refer to the subject again in the next word. Noticing this odd juxtaposition and double subject reference clues in the reader to understand that the person (and portion) described in chelko can also be read as referring to the receiver.[20]
In other words, the sentence is written so as to create in the reader an initial visceral perception of chelko as referring to the giver, followed by an understanding that it refers to the receiver; providing – in prose – an illustration of the very act described by the prose itself, namely having chelko, the portion, ‘pass’ as it were, from the giver to the receiver![21]
- Making Meaning of Experience
ראיתי את הענין אשר נתן אלהים לבני האדם לענות בו. קהלת ג י
The words “inyan’ and “la’anot” in this sentence have at least four translations, all of which fit together to provide a fuller meaning to the sentence.
La’anot and inyan can mean suffering, pain and negative experience, as in,
וכאשר יענו אותו. שמות א יב
כל נדר וכל שבעת אסר לענת נפש. במדבר ל יד
יום ענות אדם נפשו. ישעיהו נח ה
This translation is given to the words by the Targum,[22] and in this reading the sentence means, “I saw the suffering that God gave people to be afflicted with.”
La’anot and inyan can also mean celebration,[23] happiness and positive experience, as in,
קול ענות אנכי שמע[24]. שמות לב יח
כי האלהים מענה בשמחת לבו[25]. קהלת ה יט
This translation is given by Mordechai Zer-Kavod in his commentary to Mossad Harav Kook’s edition of Kohelet, and at Kohelet 1-13 he notes a similar translation by R. Shlomo Kluger. In this reading, the sentence means, “I saw the experience that God gave people to be enjoyed with.”
La’anot and inyan can also simply mean experience, with no negative or positive connotations, similar to the Rabbinic Hebrew, and from there modern Hebrew’s, use of the common word inyan,[26] as in,
וענתה שמה כימי נעוריה. הושע ב יז
R Sa’adia Gaon, Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra and Ralbag provide similar translations of the word.[27] In this reading the word inyan means a matter, or engagement, la’anot means something like “to be engaged in” or “exercised with”, and the sentence is translated as, “I saw the engagement that God gave people to be exercised with.”[28]
So, it turns out, there are three different ways to translate the words inyan and la’anot, each of which changes the overall meaning of the verse, and each of which diverse translations are accurate, work in the sentence structure, and can provide meaning to the sentence.[29] Which is all to say, that our interpretation of experience and how we see it, provides the meaning we give to it!
Finally, la’anot and inyan can also mean to witness, as in,
לא תענה ברעך עד שקר. שמות כ ב
לענות בו סרה. דברים יט טז
וענתה השירה הזאת לפניו לעד. דברים לא כא
In this translation the verse means, “I saw the experiences that G-d gave to people to witness (i.e., to see and experience)”.[30]
Here too, are two layers of meaning, for in one sense, to say that one has ‘witnessed’ an event is simply another way of saying that one has seen and experienced it. But in a deeper sense, it is the witnessing of the event itself that gives meaning, shape and form to the event; and with no witness, the event would be formless and without meaning.[31] This reading, of course, fits right into, and complements, the first three readings of the verse, for it is our experience of an event, and the way in which we witness it, that creates it as an event for us, provides us its meaning, and makes it what it is to us.[32] [33]
- Relax, In the End Nothing Makes Sense
הבל הבלים אמר הקוהלת הכל הבל. קהלת יב ח
The same sentence that began the book, bookends it again as its conclusion.[34] [35] Its meaning at both ends, however, can be read differently.
In writing and in reading the book, and in working through its problems, questions, discussions, and thematic variations, the author and his readers undertake a journey of exploration of life’s contradictions and paradoxes. Taking that journey, in depth, leaves the traveler different at the end than at its start, for along the way, the reader has discovered, and partly through their own thoughtful exploration of the author’s words, that the only choice, and inherent to life’s experience, is acceptance of the absurdities and paradoxes intrinsic to it.[36] [37]
In this way, what began as a lament of discomfiture at life’s impossible contradictions, ends as a statement of their factuality and acceptance. As we initially began peeling away the layers of life’s onion, and realizing that things don’t make as much sense as we intuitively feel they should, our natural, instinctive need for sense is disturbed. But at the journey’s end, once we’ve gone through the process of internalizing experience’s innate senselessness, its fuller realization and our more complete understanding that it’s all simply part of life’s inherence, permits us to accept things for what they are; and having done that, our experience becomes all the easier for it, rather than harder. Things are not really meant to make sense anyhow, they never completely will, and in the final analysis, it gives us permission to take our life in hand once again, accept it, make of it its best, and live it calmly[38] and productively,[39] prudently and judiciously,[40] happily[41] and to the fullest of our efforts.[42] Like the t-shirt that reads, “Relax, nothing is under control”, the excision of our attempts at understanding releases us from them when they don’t serve us well.
Relax, do what you can to live a good life… “before the silver cord snaps, before the golden cup shatters…[43]
.הבל הבלים אמר הקוהלת הכל הבל
[1] The author is the creator of the youtube channel “Understanding Kohelet”, here.
[2] בבא בתרא טו-א
[3] See, e.g., here. Ibn Ezra also seems to note that at least some of the book’s editing was done after the first temple period, for example at 2-25. In other verses as well, ibn Ezra and other commentators note language and word choices resembling writing of times closer to the Rabbinic period. See also the Preface to Mossad Harav Kook’s edition of Kohelet, Section 5, Part 4.
[4] קהלת רבא א-א, סנהדרין כ-ב
[5] In its simple reading, the double havel havulim can be understood as emphasis, i.e., the epitome of vanity, or utter vanity, similar to the words shir hashirim, and many other double words used in Tanach. In a deeper sense it can also be understood to intimate that huvel, meaninglessness, is itself also meaningless (a double negative that cancels itself out), because by the end of the book, and through its exploration, we discover together with the author, that in as much as things can never be fully and truly understood, an overemphatic focus on meaninglessness is itself meaningless and purposeless.
[6] In referring to air, the author is foreshadowing the many other verses in which the book uses air and wind to represent the ephemeral, fleeting nature of life and experience, e.g., 1-6, 1-14, 12-7, and many others.
[7] Not in the contemporarily more common use of the word vain, as narcissistic pride, but vain as futile.
[8] Not with its commonly used definition of farcically ridiculous, but something much closer to its existentialist philosophic meaning of senselessness, as used in, for example, Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus.
[9] If our attempt to pin down a precise meaning for the word huvel is frustrated, we are not the first to experience such frustration, for R Sa’adia Gaon, as well, mentions five potential Arabic translations of the word.
Defining the book’s theme through a word that has many translations and interpretations is in no way coincidental, for that is a practice and theme throughout the work, using words and constructing phrases in such ways that exploration and thought is required to unpack and fully understand them in their context, and through such exploration and understanding, different aspects of the intended message are communicated.
[10] The letter vet in ancient Hebrew was pronounced with a “w” sound, similar to its contemporary Yemenite pronunciation.
[11] This is true of much of Tanach, an appreciation of which has been lost due to historic changes in reading style and pronunciation.
[12] The phrase havel havulim umar kohelet may also allude to the fact that even the statements and attempts of the author to examine the world and its meaning are also impossible and vain, as elaborated upon later on in the book, for example chapter 1, verses 8, 13, and 17, and chapter 7, verse 23. So the analysis too, and the attempt at finding meaning, is itself meaningless. See also Ralbag at 12-8.
[13] The poetry and onomatopoeia comes through best when the sentences are read with the sound, pronunciation and syllabic emphasis of original, ancient Hebrew.
[14] All the rivers go to the sea, and the sea is not full; to the place the rivers go, there they return to go.
[15] Circling in circulation, goes the wind, and on its circulation, returns the wind.
[16] For like the sound of the twigs under the pot, so is the laugh of the fool.
[17] In fact, the sounds are very similar to the English words, ‘cackle’ and ‘hiss’, which themselves sound like their meaning.
[18] If the snake bites, without a hiss/spell, and there is no advantage to the master of the tongue.
[19] For there may be a person whose efforts are with intelligence and with wisdom, and with suitability, and to a person who expended no effort over it, he gives (it to) him, his portion.
[20] See Targum, which translates the phrase as יתנניה למהוי חולקיה, “he gives it to become his portion”, clearly reading the portion as attached to the receiver, presumably because of the otherwise odd double subject reference. Ibn Ezra also reads chelko as referring to a subject receiver. Rashbam too, reads chelko as attaching to the receiver, but states that the giver in yitenenu is God (presumably due to the otherwise double subject reference), and in this reading perhaps yitnenu means “it shall be given [by God]”, rather than he shall give it, since the giver in yitnenu is not referring back to the person described in the first half of the sentence.
On the other hand, R Sa’adia Gaon’s commentary clearly translates chelko as referring to the giver. R Moshe Yitzchok Ashkenazi (Tedeschi) in Ho’il Moshe also provides a grammatical reading of the sentence in which chelko refers to the giver.
Reading yitnenu as attaching to the receiver’s object referred to in chelko is also somewhat supported by the ta’amim, since yitnenu is given a munach, tying it to its succeeding word chelko, rather than to its preceding phrase (i.e., the phrase ‘he gives’ modifies ‘his portion’, rather than any object that may have been described earlier in the sentence, in amulo or in bo). Consider also that the object being passed from the giver to the receiver has not yet been explicitly articulated into the sentence prior to the appearance of the word chelko, since, arguably, amulo is describing only the giver’s efforts, not the fruit of those efforts, which would be the object actually being passed; and the word bo in and of itself, does not either provide the sentence with a subject.
[21] Mordechai Zer-Kavod in the Mossad Harav Kook edition of Kohelet describes a third potential subject to which chelko might refer, which is the fruits of the giver’s labor, and in this reading the word chelko means “part of”, i.e., a part of the giver’s possessions, and the sentence reads as, “For there is a person whose efforts are with intelligence… and to a person that labored not for it, he gives part of it.” See also Rashi on the verse for a similar formulation based on midrash.
[22] In Kohelet 1-13, the verse includes a similar formulation
ונתתי את־לבי לדרוש ולתור בחכמה על כל־אשר נעשה תחת השמים הוא ענין רע נתן אלהים לבני האדם לענות בו
and Targum, ibn Ezra and Tanchum Yerushalmi provide a similar translation to the words inyan and la’anot in that verse, while Metzudat Tzion provides a similar translation for the word la’anot, although not for the word inyan, and Ri Karo provides a similar translation for the word inyan, although not for the word la’anot.
[23] It is quite possible that the root of the word enu as it is used in phrases like
עלי באר ענו לה, במדבר כא יז, ענו לה׳ בתודה, תהלים קמז ז, ביום ההוא כרם חמר ענו לה, ישעיהו כז ב
is also related to the word celebration, although in these cases it is also, and perhaps more closely, related to word respond or say.
[24] See for example, Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Ralbag and R’ Avraham ben Harambam, although others provide different translations of the word in this sentence too.
[25] See Rashbam and Ralbag, although there are also other ways to translate the word in this sentence as well.
[26] In reviewing the related words and meanings in all of these similar verses, as parsed through the various commentaries, it seems to me also that the general word inyan in this reading, as meaning something close to an engagement, or more simply a thing, something that is, may also be etymologically related to use of the similar word and root for the concept of residing in or simply being in, as in the word ma’on.
[27] In some cases these translations are in Kohelet 1-13, and as between the different commentators, they are provided with varying nuance as to the precise translation and word usage.
[28] In the larger context of the chapter, this sentence is a response to the verses coming just before it, which read,
לכל זמן, ועת לכל חפץ, תחת השמים. עת ללדת ועת למות… עת לאהב ועת לשנא, עת מלחמה ועת שלום. מה יתרון העושה באשר הוא עמל
This well-known section of Kohelet questions the point of a life of constant change and dissolution, where the pendulum of experience always swings from one side to the other, and where every effort invested, and even the things invested in, often ends and changes to its opposite; and therefore, the question is begged, “what advantage the doer in such that he toils?”
It is this question that the present verse responds to, explaining that these fluctuations and changes in expended effort, and in life and experience, in fact have as their purpose the engagement and exercise of people in and with their life and experiences. In other words, the goal settings, fluctuations, achievements, disappointments, moving goal-posts, and corrections, are actually the very things that create the life of engagement and attunement, and a life lived in one straight line would be pointless and meaningless, and lacking in engagement.
The other translations as well, are responsive to the prior verses and question in a similar way. The frustrated and constantly changing efforts can be seen as a form of immiseration that people are afflicted with (in this reading, the present verse in 3-10, is simply extending the question and problem discussed in the prior verse), or they can be seen as challenges which can be invigorating, and bring a person joy when approached from the perspective of, and with a purpose to, building and improving.
[29] This is a good representative illustration of a lot of the messaging in Kohelet, which often revolves around purpose, perception and meaning, and how these are multi-layered, and appear different from different vantage points, or when different factors or interpretations are brought to bear. This is also the key to understanding the many seeming ‘contradictions’ in Kohelet (בבלי, שבת ל׳ ב׳) – for when the meanings and contexts of what are being said are fully understood, they are clearly seen not to be contradictions at all.
[30] And in a fifth translation, which fits right in alongside the rest and is related to witness, the word la-anot can also mean to respond, see medrash rabah here, and ibn Ezra at Kohelet 1-13. And, believe it or not, with these five translations we have still not exhausted all the possible translations of the word as used in the sentence, see for example Rashi, Ri Karo, and Tanchum Yerushalmi in the parallel verse at Kohelet 1-13, each with other, additional translations.
[31] In fact it might questionably even be called an “event” at all.
[32] This theme comes up in art too, for example in Albert Camus’ “The Stranger”, and Jonathan Blow’s “The Witness”.
[33] This verse is a good example of what we find with many of the verses and statements in Kohelet, which is that they can be translated and interpreted from a number of different vantage points, with several layers of meanings able to be peeled back like layers of an onion, while all of those layers of meaning interact with, and nest within, each other to provide an ultimate interpretation and meaning to the sentence. And while it’s easy to assume that some or many of these interpretations are unintentional, and arise coincidentally due to the poetic nature of the text, or due to the brevity of ancient Hebrew which, because it has relatively few words compared to other languages, consequently more meanings and translations for each of its words; on closer reading and familiarity with the nuances of the book’s style and messaging it seems likely that the varied and rich layers of meaning were seeded intentionally.
[34] Rashbam notes that the book’s ending, from this verse on, was appended at a later time by its editors. This is also evident from the style, tone and content of verses 12-9 through 12-14, which differ from the rest of the book. See also Ralbag, Ho’il Moshe at 12-7, and Metzudas Dovid, Shadal at 12-8. It’s also possible that verses 1-2, and 12-8 (the two bookending huvel verses), which more closely resemble the rest of the book, were part of the original earlier work, while verses 1-1 and 12-9 through 12-14 were added later as a kind of prologue and epilogue. See also FN 3 regarding the book’s editing.
[35] The end of the book and its beginning also mirror each other in that the lead-in from the summary sentence to the rest of the book (verses 1-4 to 1-7), and the lead out from the book to the closing summary sentence (verses 12-2 to 12-7) are composed of evocatively colorful imagery, which express their messages of the ephemerality of existence and the eventuality of life’s and of experience’s end, not only in the literal statements of their message, but also in the impressionist emotions that their images create in the reader. As well, some of the same elemental imagery of earth, sun, air and water is mirrored between the start of the book and its end (compare Chapter 1 verses 4, 5, 6 and 7 with Chapter 12 verses 2, 6 and 7).
[36] One cannot point to any one verse that states the premise of this point explicitly, rather it is an idea that develops organically and expands its realization over the course of the work in the perceptions experientially realized by the reader through their effort in working through the book’s perambulatory contemplations and exploratory deliberations. One can point in support, however, among various verses, to 9-7 through 9-10, which in a sense can be seen as the conclusion of the first part of the book (which begins at 1-12). Arguably, it is the author’s intent is for the reader to discover the point’s salience for themself as they work through the book’s ideas together with the author.
[37] That the present verse’s summary conclusion is a result of the conclave of ideas preceding it is also supported by the verse’s choice of wording, ‘umar hakohelet‘, with the definitive article, ‘the’ kohelet – for it is the gathering together and synthesizing of the various strands of thought through the course of the book that produce the conclusions reached at its end. In this interpretation we translate the word kohelet as ‘a coming-together’ or a ‘gathering (n.)’, as in ‘the results of the act of gathering’, or ‘the things that have been gathered’, conjugating the root verb ko-h-el, similar to words such as toelet and pesolet.
Interestingly, the same conjugation of the root also produces the feminine verb, a point made by wordplay in Chapter 7, verse 27, where, as compared to the word construction in our present sentence, the author changed the word kohelet from a noun to a feminine verb simply by moving the letter ‘heh’ over one word (changing amrah kohelt to amar hakohelet).
[38] 12-3 to 4, in its emotional resonance.
[39] E.g., Chapter 11, generally.
[40] Verses 11-8 to 12-1.
[41] Verses 9-7 to 9, and 11-8 to 9.
[42] Verse 9-10.
[43] Verse 12-6.
