Episode Details

The door in front of you is ancient oak and black metal. The stonework of the walls towers above, worn smooth by time, and half consumed by the deep green ivy splashed across the grey colourscape. A pale mist moves slowly in the air, hanging before these portals. The forest behind you is quiet in the early morning chill, and the distant birdsong hails a sunrise yet to come. The dull yellow light of the lanterns is caught visibly in the morning air, suspended in the morning mist. This labyrinth has outlived empires.

Welcome to the door of the labyrinth, because that is what Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 really is.

This passage introduces us to the themes and questions of the entire book, and in that sense it stands before us as an ancient monolithic entryway into the maze. As we make our approach to the doorway of the labyrinth, I want you to open your imagination and try to visualize what’s before you. This maze, as we come to it, is vast. As you walk up to the entrance, on either side you see again those great stone walls spreading out in either direction. As you look at the door itself, what stands before you is a great set of twin oaken panels, closed fast. Each one of these panels represents a mystery – the twin mysteries that will be turned over in our minds and considered again and again as the book unfolds. Verse two lays out these twin enigmas before us in a single expression: “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”

This phrase is one of the most famous and well-known verses in all of scripture, but it is also one of the most troubling. “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!” Why in the world would a Christian, of all people, say that everything is vanity? Now to help you to understand this, I want to begin by giving you a lesson in Hebrew. I want you to forget the word vanity for a moment. Where verse two says “vanity,” I want you to insert the word: “hevel.” Hevel, heveleem, says the preacher, hevel, heveleem, all is hevel!” (that’s a rough English equivalent of the Hebrew word, by the way!). This is what I want you to do: every time you hear the word “vanity” I want you to replace it with the word “hevel.”

Now, unless you’ve studied Hebrew, chances are that this word means nothing to you, which is exactly why I want you to use it. Because the truth is that “vanity” is an unfortunately limited translation. When we say “vanity,” in English, we’re calling to mind ideas like: “pointless, meaningless, etc,” but these are not the main ideas that the Preacher is trying to convey. There are times when he does use this word with a nuance of frustration, but “meaningless” is far from the dominating concept that’s on his mind.

What is “hevel”? Literally speaking, it means: “breath.” More literally, then, you could translate verse two as saying: “A breath! A breath! Says the preacher, all things are but a breath.” “Vaporous” also captures the meaning here. All of a sudden, that expression makes a whole lot more sense doesn’t it? A Christian wouldn’t call life meaningless, but vaporous, that makes sense. And so what Solomon is primarily doing with this word is that he’s using an image to express his idea. “Vanity” represents an attempt to translate the imagery of a breath into a concept. I suggest that it’s better to keep the image. After all, we often use images ourselves to convey meaning.

You might see a powerful rugby player and say: “He’s a beast!” He’s not actually a beast, of course, but he’s strong and powerful, and plays the game hard. We might also say something like: “University is a doorway to the future,” or: “The office is a hive of activity.” We use metaphors like this to communicate something about a concept or idea, and that’s what Solomon is doing here.

Solomon is saying: “A breath! A breath! All things are but a breath!” Now when we say a man is a beast, we’re highlighting his strength and his savagery. When we say an o