The conception of God has passed, in this book, entirely beyond the tribal Deity Jehovah, and even beyond the ethical Personality known to the Prophets, to One who is felt to be unknowable; and yet withal Job clings to the idea that he shall one day see the face of the Redeemer who now hides Himself. As in the Psalms, the alleged idea of immortality (xix. 25 ff.) is not very definite, and so contradicts the general expectation of the book (vii. 9 f. x. 21 f. xiv. 10 ff. 20 ff. xvi. 22; xxi. 26; xxx. 23), that it must be taken to refer to Job's conviction that some vindication of his cause will be made here in this life. At the same time the idea of a future judgment which shall proclaim his innocence and the ill-desert of his sufferings, is so strong, that it sweeps death out of vision, and the hope of the future life hovers in the thought if it does not break into language.
A dispassionate examination of the solutions here offered to the problem of suffering shows that nothing really beyond a negative position is reached in this book. The speeches of Job must be taken to convey the author's opinions, and they are a most emphatic repudiation of the doctrine of Providence expressed by the three friends. They can only repeat the accepted notion that suffering is everywhere the cause of sin, and with scorn and indignation Job repudiates the charge, so far as he is concerned; he maintains his innocence and appeals to God as his witness; but the Witness is silent and there is no daysman betwixt them. Job's protest is not concerned with mere innocence, for in one magnificent passage he appeals to his beneficent life spent in the service of the poor and needy (xxxi.). The answers of Job leave the little system of Providence supported by his friends, completely discredited, and in this particular Jehovah sides with Job. The theophany and speeches of Jehovah do not, however, seem to convey any further contribution to the problem than perhaps the idea that for man it is insoluble, because he does not and cannot see the whole; and so nothing is left for man but to bear his griefs in silence and maintain his trust in God.
Job remains, not only the finest contribution of Semitic genius to the realm of literature, but a classic for all those who feel the anguish of the world and the unintelligible perplexities of life. If it conveys no real solution, it at least disposes of one long accepted as adequate, and its complete overthrow removes one of the worst mistakes of human observation and refutes one of the cruellest judgments of men. The idea that prosperity always follows goodness has been a most disastrous bequest of Hebrew thought, and has more than anything else obscured from men's eyes the real meaning of life, prevented an accurate judgment of character, and done much to turn aside the expression of sympathy and obscure the duty of pity and forgiveness.
That a solution was not within the limits of Israel's faith cannot be affirmed with Isa. liii. before us; but that it had never been rightly understood and had never taken deep hold of even noble minds is driven home with a telling force, in a further contribution of the Wisdom Literature, the Book of Ecclesiastes.
The name Ecclesiastes is borrowed from the attempt to translate the Hebrew term Qoheleth into Greek. Of this name a variety of interpretations have been put forward (Qoheleth, from qahal an assembly, is the active feminine participle and means, one who calls, or addresses, or is merely member of, an assembly; A.V., "the Preacher"; R.V. "the great Orator"), but the one that perhaps best describes the term is that of "the debater." The work is put forward in the name of Solomon, and of all the works ascribed to him there is none that would come so suitably from the pen of that monarch, if he ever reflected deeply on his career; but this ascription is not kept up with any idea of deceiving the reader, but is simply one of the literary customs of the time and a way of honouring a great name, for there are biographical statements impossible to Solomon ("I was king," i. 12; "above all that were before me in Jerusalem," i. 16), while the reflection of society and the stage of thought, but most notably the extremely late language, betray what is one of the latest of the Old Testament writings.
Ecclesiastes is a work that has held an unusual fascination for certain types of disposition, Renan declaring that it was the only lovely thing that ever came from a Hebrew mind. The presence of the book at all in the Old Testament is strange, and there were strong opinions against admitting it into the Canon; it was perhaps only eventually sanctioned because its contradictory statements made it possible to interpret the book as a work written to controvert pessimistic ideas, which are brought forward only to be refuted. For the intention of the work is difficult to gather owing to its disjointed and incomplete character, which makes the book as it stands a mass of contradictions. Some passages profess utter pessimism and unbelief in God's providence, while others, like the closing chapter, seek to inculcate religious fear and trust. Various theories have been proposed to explain these phenomena occurring in one book. It has been suggested that the work is a dialogue between a doubting scholar and an orthodox believer. With a view of straightening out the argument it has been conjectured that the sheets of the original have somehow become disarranged, and others have thought of a series of interpolations in an originally quite unbelieving work; first by a writer who wishes to defend Wisdom from the author's charges of unprofitableness, and then by a writer who wishes to defend the providence of God. If interpolation is to be thought of at all—and it should only be a refuge of despair—it is to be sought in the opening and closing verses of the last chapter (xii. 1, 13, 14), which may have been added to correct the influence of the work; but even they are not impossible from this strangely vacillating author. Certainly no explanations can remove the gloomy tone of the book. The writer seems to have come into contact with Greek pessimism, and from this standpoint he sees nothing true in the Hebrew doctrine of retribution, and especially does he reject the too optimistic doctrines of the Wisdom school. The problems that are solved so simply in Proverbs, stated and left unanswered by Job, are by this author answered in entirely negative fashion: nothing is profitable in this life, nothing is new; nature and man move in an endless cycle without hope or meaning. The pursuit of Wisdom is just as foolish as the pursuit of folly: the end of the fool and the end of the wicked is the same; life is not worth living; vanity of vanities, all is vanity. In this book we at last come upon a clear recognition of the doctrine of immortality, but only to find it explicitly denied by our author (iii. 19–21). The only solution that the writer proposes is a sad Epicureanism: make the best of a bad world. And yet in spite of this conclusion the author still believes in God (iii. 11, 14; viii. 17); but He is a God who has hidden His purpose from man and whom man can do nothing to turn from His ways. This is more like the inscrutable Fate of the Greek tragedians than the Jehovah of the Prophets: indeed the word Jehovah is never once used throughout the book. If the concluding chapter comes from the original author, then it recommends a religious attitude towards these mysteries; but there is no revelation of anything that gives assurance of the reasonableness of this position or of the goodness of God.
What are we to learn from this Book? Are we to refuse to read it and to reverse the judgment that included it in the Canon? Hardly that. It is well that man's doubts should find a place in the same sacred collection with his surest beliefs, for doubt may be but a stage in a process from an inadequate to a fuller faith. The book shows that the common appreciation of Israel's faith could not satisfy the mind that had its attention fixed upon the facts of life; and especially does it show that the hope of immortality, apart from which Israel's faith had largely developed, is not the one thing that is lacking. That hope, with its promise of retribution in a future and better world, will always appear too speculative to some minds to relieve the burdens of the life that now is, and even if believed in, it would offer no real clue to the meaning of our trials here, but only tend to take men's eyes off this life where perchance they might find the solution they have missed. For there is an attitude to life that solves its darkest problems, a disposition which transmutes its pain and failure, finding it no enigma, but an opportunity for learning the will of the Father; our presence here not a thing to be reluctantly borne, but a task to be joyfully accepted as the commission of God. The book of Ecclesiastes shows us, therefore, that the revelation through Israel is not yet complete; for it voices the unsatisfied need and stretches out hands of faith for something not yet made known. It is the deep dark of the night; the next hour will see the Morning Star of Bethlehem above the horizon, the fleeing shadows and the breaking of the day.