Our time is like vapor: live wisely

The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher.

"Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless!"

(Ecclesiastes 1:1-2)

"Hold on," said Samantha, "I thought the Bible was supposed to be comforting. This is just depressing." I had just started leading a group of youth through the Old Testament book of wisdom called Ecclesiastes. Samantha was just expressing what everybody else was thinking. To be fair, I did warn them that the book of Ecclesiastes can seem cynical and depressing. However, if you're willing to stick with it, the book also is a deep reservoir of wisdom.

The Israelite idea of "wisdom" is a different concept that we tend to think in our current time. We usually define wisdom as "knowing between right and wrong," but for the Israelites the idea of wisdom means to "live in a right way." The Old Testament books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs are trying to convince their readers to not only internally know wisdom, but to embody wisdom with how they live.

The writer of Ecclesiastes is referred to as the "Teacher" (or in the Hebrew: Qoheleth). Some traditions have held that Solomon wrote the book, but that is likely not the case. Qoheleth begins his book by telling us that life is "Meaningless!" The above translation comes from the NIV. Other translations use the word "Vanity" (NRSV, NASB) or " perfectly pointless" (CEB). However, none of these are very good translations of what is actually being said.

The Hebrew word used here for "Meaningless" is the word hevel. And the word actually means "vapor" or "wind." It's meant to convey something that is temporal and fleeting. It's like if you've ever tried to grasp at smoke: it's there for a moment and then it's gone.

Just become something is temporary does not make it devoid of meaning. Qoheleth is trying to get his readers to understand that in order to live a truly wise life, they must be willing to reckon with life's transitory nature.

In fact, the book of Ecclesiastes is not at all interested in eternity or the afterlife; it focuses on this life. As Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis writes, "Qoheleth is not much of a theologian, in the narrow sense; he tells us very little about God and nothing about the world to come. But he tells us a great deal about what it means to be human: to live in this world responsibly and joyfully, in the peculiar tension between limitation and freedom that is the human condition" (169).

During this time of year parents know this reality very well. Every year as thousands of young people graduate from high school, their parents marvel at how fast time went by. But the speed of time in no way diminishes the significance of their child's school experience.

How would it change the way we live if we took Qoheleth's words seriously and understood life to be akin to vapor or smoke? Perhaps we would live with a greater awareness of the preciousness of our time and the value of those we love.

In an odd way, there is something comforting about that.