Abstract
The time poem in Eccl 3.1–8 reflects a marked structure and progression of themes. These connections suggest that the initial lines of vv. 2, 5, and 8 open their respective stanzas by focusing on a similar theme: war and peace. This thread clarifies the meaning of Qohelet’s enigmatic throwing and gathering stones, activities for which no fewer than nine interpretations have been suggested. While interpreters have favored a reference to sexual intercourse, this view is unlikely. I contend that a preferable solution modifies an earlier interpretation relating the throwing and gathering of stones to acts of wartime and peacetime. The throwing away of stones relates to the demobilization of the military, while the gathering of stones relates to the mobilization for war (1 Sam 17.40; 2 Chron 26.14–15). This interpretation offers a more consistent approach to the themes of war and peace developed in the poem’s stanzas.
1. Introduction
The time poem of Ecclesiastes 3 opens with a couplet summarizing the relationship of time to the finite created order, especially to human activity within it. 1 While interpretations vary as to where the poem begins and ends, several factors suggest the limits of the poem as 3.1–8. The verbal parallelism, terseness, and simplicity of clause structure link v. 1 cataphorically to the following verses as the poetic introduction. 2 Further, the repetition of the term time (עת) functions as a catchword in the poem proper (vv. 1–8), distinguishing it from the following unit (vv. 9–15), which reflects on the human experience of time. The latter unit is marked by the reiteration of the programmatic question (v. 9; cf. 1.3), the resumption of prose (vv. 9–15), and the re-activation of the mainline qatal 1cs thread: the form ראיתי (‘I have seen’) appears at or near the beginning of each succeeding unit (3.10, 16; 4.1, 4). 3
Following the opening couplet, Qohelet provides a succession of fourteen antitheses exhibiting merismus. The opposite, mutually exclusive activities encompass both the polar actions and everything related to that realm of activity. 4 The number fourteen is significant, with the doubling of seven to represent fullness or completion. Each activity requires conscious human effort (outside, perhaps, one’s birth and death). Collectively the activities touch on aspects of the intellect, will, and emotions, and involve the whole person. They signify the full range of human experience, starting with birth/death and ending with war/peace. They encompass both the basic, essential activities of life as well as the outer limits of human endeavor. In sum, the activities constitute what it means to be human in the created world, and they represent the entire sweep of activities humans engage in during their lifetimes. 5
2. The Literary Structure of Ecclesiastes 3.1–8
The structure of the time poem is arranged with a high degree of artistic symmetry (Table 1). The poem comprises two stanzas (vv. 2–4, 5–7) with a closing couplet (v. 8). 6 Loader suggests that the lines alternate from desirable to undesirable activities. 7 Although Michel objects to this classification, arguing that it runs counter to Qohelet’s affirmation in 3.11 that God makes everything beautiful in its time, a rubric to distinguish the activities as positive or negative proves useful. 8 The stanzas exhibit a chiastic structure with the following arrangement, with italics denoting the negative activities:
Symmetrical Structure in Eccl 3.2–8.
The macro-structure of the poem features overarching concentric movement. The first two stanzas frame the list of twenty-four actions with positive activities, which also occupy the center of the chiasm. The closing couplet provides the interpretive key to the poem by contrasting positive activities (love/peace) with negative activities (hate/war) on the social and civil levels.
The poem tilts slightly toward the positive, as evident in the movement of each final couplet: from mourning to joy (v. 4) and from mourning to renewal (v. 7). In addition, the poem begins with life (procreation/being born) and concludes with well-being (שׁלום), a fitting finale with its nuances of ‘wholeness/intactness’, suggesting a summary of human experience, and ‘peace’, underscoring the promotion of health, welfare, and prosperity. 9 The poem thus gives a realistic picture of the brokenness of the world while affirming the goodness of life and offering some hope in the end. 10
The literary hook in both stanzas is the ending arrangement of negative activities in one bicolon that primes for the repetition of negative activities in the succeeding bicolon. In the first stanza the negative activities of v. 2 anticipate the negative activities of v. 3, revolving around the concept of death or destruction. 11 The first stanza focuses on constructive/destructive activities (vv. 2–3), with the closing couplet depicting mourning that turns to joy (v. 4). The literary hook in the second stanza is the negative activities of v. 6 that anticipate the negative activities of v. 7, revolving around the concept of loss or separation. The second stanza focuses on unitive/divisive activities (vv. 5–6), with the closing couplet depicting mourning that turns to recovery (v. 7). Verse 8 stands independently, with its own chiastic structure depicting polar actions within the individual (love and hate) and societal realms (war and peace).
The structure of the poem thus confers special import on the opening lines of vv. 2, 5, and 8, where the activities may be classified as developing the themes of war and peace. Such an emphasis is in keeping with the implicit theme of warfare in other portions of the book. In 8.8 Qohelet compares one’s inability to evade death with a like inability to escape dispatch to war.
12
He grimly remarks in 9.11 that ‘time’ (עת) and ‘chance’ (פגע) overtake everyone, such that sometimes the swift lose the race, the strong fall in battle, and the wise forfeit their riches. This latter text links ‘time’ with war as in the time poem. The eschatological poem of 12.1–8 may also allude to the motif of warfare in the divine warrior’s march to and return from battle, accompanied by cosmic and meteorological signs.
13
Here in the time poem birthing and planting would occur as normal peacetime activities, while dying and uprooting take place during war. This conclusion finds support in the specific activities related to agriculture and procreation. Planting and reaping abundant crops appear in ANE monumental inscriptions as indicators of peacetime prosperity. Thus the Phoenician king Azatiwada boasts in the seventh-century bce inscription: Now there was in all my days all good for the Danunians and abundance and luxury. And I filled the granaries of the city of Pahar. . . . And I made peace with every king. And indeed every king made me as a father, On account of my righteousness, my wisdom and the goodness of my heart.
14
As a result of his accession, he calls on the gods to bless the nations subservient to him with a proliferation of people; Much let them beget for us, And much let them multiply, And much let them be in service to Azatiwada.
15
Likewise the eighth-century BCE Aramaic inscription of Phoenician king Bar-Rakib acclaims the achievements of his father, Panamuwa, in restoring peace and ushering in agricultural prosperity: And he made it better than before. And it abounded with wheat and barley and ewe and cow in his days. And then [the land] ate [and drank . . .] The price was cheap.
16
While harvesting is part of the ordinary agricultural cycle, plucking up plants by the root is not. The normal agricultural process in ancient Israel included several steps: clearing the land of stones, tilling the soil with a plowshare pulled by oxen, breaking up remaining clods by hoe, scattering seed on the surface, and finally covering the seed with soil by means of a harrow or animals trampling the field. 17 Rooting out plants is not mentioned as part of the customary agricultural cycle in the tenth-century Gezer calendar or in the Sumerian ‘Farmer’s Almanac’. 18 Uprooting instead carries negative connotations associated with crop failure, barrenness, or judgment (Isa 5.1–6; Jer 1.10; 18.7–8; Amos 9.14–15; Matt 3.10; Luke 3.9). Fox is likely right to conclude that ‘this is not a seasonal chore, but a sporadic act of destruction’. 19 Qohelet contrasts, then, the activity of planting seed in the ground with that of pulling up plants by the roots due to barrenness or, more likely, as an act of war. Similarly, as I develop below, throwing (away) stones and embracing should be construed as acts of peace, while gathering stones and refraining from embracing are acts of warfare. The final couplet (v. 8) depicts harmony and conflict on the individual and civil levels.
With respect to the poem’s depiction of time, interpreters divide over whether the poem portrays time as fixed and determined by God or as suitable and appropriate from the human perspective. The meanings assigned to זמן (‘season’) and עת (‘time’) are integral to the debate. Murphy argues that the poem presents time as fixed by God and outside human control. 20 Thus the poem concentrates on the ultimate futility of human activity in light of the harsh reality of divine determinism. 21 Whybray, on the other hand, concludes that Qohelet, in keeping with the norms of wisdom, presents time as the appropriate moment for a particular activity. 22 The wise person fastens upon the right time or wrong time for a given action (Job 22.16; Prov 15.23; 25.11) and acts accordingly. 23 Both perspectives find elements within 3.1–15 to support their view. 24 Thus Fox is right to note that while the theme of divine sovereignty pervades the section, many of the actions are to some degree within man’s control and relate intrinsically to an optimal time. 25 God does not cosmically determine, for example, the right time to sew or to hug. Moreover, the use of nearly 50 imperatives in the portions of the book following the time poem suggests that Qohelet values prudent human agency. 26 Yet Gordis is also astute to observe that the opportune time remains elusive to Qohelet. He is frustrated by the ineffectiveness and brevity of human achievement (v. 9) and by man’s inability to transcend his brief moment of time (v. 11). In the end the gains from labor are nullified, rendering his actions (to a point) futile. 27 Even in the recognition of appropriate/inappropriate activity, Qohelet affirms that God has determined the social and environmental context which gives rise to the right action (v. 14). In assessing the conundrum, Belcher observes that the determinists tend to read the negative elements of 3.9–15 back into 3.1–8, while compatibilists tend to prioritize the positive elements of 3.1–8 in their reading of 3.9–15. 28 The resolving of this tension is facilitated in part by recognizing the distinct semantic domains of זמן, which pertains to a set or specified time, and עת, which pertains to a suitable or opportune time. By pairing these terms, Qohelet recognizes both the divine fixture of time as well as the timeliness of proper human activities.
3. Throwing and Gathering Stones in Eccl 3.5
In 3.5 Qohelet opens a new stanza by turning to the enigmatic activities of throwing and gathering stones, the pair of activities most debated in the catalog. In the poetic structure the movement of activities shifts from negative–positive alternation to positive–negative. If this were not the case, v. 5 would feature the only couplet in the poem where this alternating parallelism fails. In every other bicolon the first activity of the first colon, whether positive or negative, anticipates the first activity of the second colon. Since ‘embracing’, the first activity of the second colon, is clearly positive, ‘throwing stones’ must also be positive.
Here for the only time in the poem both infinitives are collocated with an accusative (cf. v. 2b). ‘Throwing stones’ employs the Hiphil of שׁלך, meaning ‘to throw upon/out/away’, ‘remove’, with the accusative אבנים, ‘stones’. 29 The Hiphil of שׁלך occurs 112 times in the OT but is collocated with אבן or a pronoun referring to אבן only a few other times. In Lev 14.40 the priest is to command that the stones from an infected house be removed and ‘thrown’ outside the city in an unclean place. In YHWH War during the conquest, YHWH ‘throws down’ large stones from heaven on the panicked armies of Israel’s enemies (Josh 10.11). After a battle with Moab, the triumphant Israelites take stones and ‘throw’ them down on every piece of arable land to destroy Moab’s crop production (2 Kgs 3.25). In Jer 51.63–64 the prophet instructs the recipients of his letter in Babylon to tie a stone to the scroll and ‘throw’ it into the river to symbolize Babylon’s coming judgment. Finally, in his night visions the prophet Zechariah ‘throws’ a stone (i.e., a lead cover) over the basket containing ‘Woman Wickedness’ before she is spirited away to Babylon (Zech 5.8).
Although not precisely parallel, a few other passages feature the piling, casting, or removal of stones. Num 35.22–23 provides regulations for the inadvertent manslayer who kills another without malicious intent by ‘causing [a stone] to fall upon him so he dies’ (Hiph of נפל). The writer of Lamentations mourns over the triumph of his enemies, who have relegated him to the pit and ‘cast a stone’ (Piel of ידה) over him (Lam 3.53). To memorialize the Jordan crossing, Joshua instructs the twelve tribes to retrieve stones (נשׂא) from the river and to situate them in the camp (Hiph of נוח), while he also sets up a stone monument (Hiph of קום) in the midst of the river to honor the priests (Josh 4.8–9; cf. Deut 27.2, 4; Josh 24.26). In other uses, the privative sense of the Piel stem with סקל can mean ‘to clear of stones’ or ‘remove stones from’ a field or roadway (Isa 5.2; 62.10). 30 Also in Josh 8.29 and 10.27 Joshua removes the corpses of hanged kings, throws them down in a public place, and erects a large pile of stones over them (cf. Absalom’s demise in 2 Sam 18.17). In summary, with respect to throwing stones in the OT, four occasions are connected with wartime (Josh 8.29; 10.11, 27; 2 Kgs 3.25), two with building/demolition (Lev 14.40; Isa 62.10), two with prophetic symbolism (Jer 51.63; Zech 5.8), and one with agriculture (Isa 5.2; cf. also 2 Kgs 3.25). None of the texts seems to provide a clear parallel to Eccl 3.5.
‘Gathering stones’ uses the Qal of כנס, meaning ‘to gather’, ‘collect’, most often of people (1 Chron 22.2; Est 4.16; Ps 147.2; Ezek 22.21; 39.28) but also of objects (Ps 33.7; Eccl 2.8, 26). 31 The term occurs 11 times in the OT (5x in the Judean desert texts) and is never collocated elsewhere with ‘stones’. The term provides a catchword link to the royal autobiography, where it describes Qohelet’s amassment of silver and gold (2.8) as well as the futile task of the sinner as ‘gathering and collecting’ for the God-pleaser (2.26).
3.1 Proposed Interpretations for Throwing and Gathering Stones
In the absence of clear precedents to the idioms, proposals for the meaning of throwing and gathering stones have included the following:
(1) Throwing stones is removing stones from a dilapidated building (or demolishing the building), and gathering stones is collecting materials for a new building. 32 A variation of this view (1a) interprets the throwing of stones as the destruction of the temple and the gathering of stones as preparation for building the new temple (or spiritualized [1b] as a reference to the building of the church or of the heavenly Jerusalem). 33 Jerome takes the activities in a metaphorical fashion (1c), with the stones representing the Gentile nations that are scattered (thrown) and then gathered into the church. 34
(2) Throwing stones is sterilizing a field to prevent agriculture, and gathering stones is clearing a field to plant crops. 35 A variation of this view (2a) reads the gathering of stones as preparation for the triumphant entry of the military conqueror (cf. Isa 62.10). 36
(3) Throwing stones is engaging in sexual activity (stones as a euphemism for male semen or genitalia), while gathering stones is abstaining from sexual activity. 37
(4) Throwing stones is casting tokens in an ancient board game, while gathering them is retrieving them at the end of a turn. 38
(5) Throwing stones is assessing weighted stones for a business transaction (i.e., selling) (cf. Lev 19.36; Deut 25.13; Prov 20.10), and gathering stones is collecting them to complete the business transaction (i.e., buying). 39
(6) Throwing stones is a funerary rite mourning the loss of the deceased, and gathering stones signifies the end of mourning possibly related to the building of a house or tomb. 40
(7) Throwing stones is distributing wealth (stones = precious stones), while gathering stones is accumulating wealth. 41
(8) Throwing stones denotes stoning a guilty person according to the Mosaic Law, while gathering stones means ‘accepting’ these stones as testimony for the truth as the innocent martyr Stephen does in Acts 7. 42
(9) Throwing stones is tearing down stone walls to make peace with an enemy, while gathering stones is building a wall to keep out invaders. 43
Difficulties attend several proposals. First, in keeping with the poetic structure discussed above, throwing stones is more likely the positive or constructive activity, while collecting stones is the negative or destructive activity. This would limit the tenability of views 2, 6, 8, and probably 1. View 6 suffers also from the fact that while throwing stones into a pile is part of some funerary rites, it is unclear that stones were gathered at the end of mourning, as Plumptre admits. View 8 forces anachronistically a New Testament lens on the act of gathering stones. In addition, the act of stoning is depicted everywhere in the OT with the verb סקל or רגם rather than with the construction אבנים + שׁלך. Second, the merismus quality of the activities in the catalog renders at least one view unlikely. View 4 is thus improbable, as the actions of board game play are not mutually exclusive, and in general such game playing would be too obscure to be relevant in such a list encompassing a range of human activities. Third, the action of throwing the stones renders a few of the views doubtful. View 5 suffers from the absence of attested stone throwing in the context of business transactions. The stones are used exclusively for weighing on a scale and are never described as ‘thrown’. Likewise, the distribution of wealth as in view 7 is nowhere described as ‘throwing (away) stones’. Although Provan offers the intriguing link in the second stich to כנס as the term for amassing wealth in the royal autobiography (2.8, 26), it is doubtful that distributing wealth would be depicted as throwing it away (שׁלך). 44
Fourth, the sexual intercourse interpretation (view 3) suffers from several shortcomings, even though it has been a popular view among commentators. Schwienhorst-Schönberger offers three lines of evidence in its favor, so we will survey these before discussing the limitations of the view. First, the poetic structure suggests that v. 5a may be read in the light of v. 5b so that ‘embracing/refraining from embrace’ forms a counterpart to ‘throwing/gathering stones’. Both idioms would be read as euphemisms for sexual intercourse. Second, the dual form of ‘stones’ (אבנים) appears in Exod 1.16, where the Hebrew midwives are determining the gender of infants, and may serve there as a euphemism for the male genitalia or testicles. Third, many cultures, including ancient Israel, used metaphors or euphemisms for sexual activity. These include ‘to know’ (ידע) (Gen 4.1, 17, 25; 24.16; 38.26); ‘to go into a woman’ (בוא אל־אשׁה) (Gen 16.2, 4; 19.31; Deut 22.13; 25.5); ‘to approach’ (קרב) (Gen 20.4; Lev 18.6, 14, 19; Deut 22.14); ‘to lie with’ (שׁכב) (Gen 19.32–35; 26.10; 30.15; Lev 15.18; Num 5.13); ‘to touch’ (נגע) (Gen 20.6; Prov 6.29); ‘to drink water from a cistern/fountain’ (Prov 5.15); and ‘feet/legs’ (כף or רגל) as a euphemism for genitalia (Gen 32.25; Exod 4.25; Deut 25.12; Isa 6.2; 7.20; Song 5.3).
These arguments, however, are ultimately not compelling for several reasons. First, as Hans Debel observes, the affirmations carry unequal weight. 45 The third line of evidence is very general and does not conclusively confirm anything about the use of the idiom here since none of the sexual euphemisms relates to throwing or gathering stones. Second, Exod 1.16 is probably not a valid parallel. The midwives are commanded during the delivery to ‘look upon the stones (?)’ (וראיתן על־האבנים) to determine whether the infant is a son or daughter. 46 The ‘stones’ in this case may refer to the ‘birthing stones’ used in Egypt (either the stones upon which the delivering mothers knelt or the bricks upon which the newborn was placed) 47 or to the genitalia, either to the mother’s 48 or the infant’s. 49 If the reference is specifically to the male testicles as ‘stones’, as necessary for a clear parallel to Eccl 3.5, the phrasing is obscure at best. The midwives are to ‘inspect’ or ‘look upon’ the stones (על + ראה) rather than simply to ‘look at’ them (את־ + ראה). Further, nowhere else are the testicles called ‘stones’. Moreover, the context suggests that both male and female babies are associated with the stones. 50 These challenges cast doubt not only on the meaning of Exod 1.16 but also on its comparative use for Eccl 3.5.
Third, taking the actions as relating to sexual intercourse would make them the only metaphorical activities in the catalog. 51 Fourth, the term כנס (‘gather, collect’) in the second stich never means to hold back or refrain. 52 In the same vein, if the stones were in fact a metaphor for male semen, the ‘throwing’ would be at the same time the ‘gathering’ from the woman’s perspective, making the latter an unlikely euphemism for sexual abstinence. 53 Fifth, although the strongest line of evidence for a sexual euphemism relates to its possible association with embracing in v. 5b, here again the connection is dubious. In most of the bicola the two activities are not synonymous but are simply consistent with each other, whether positive or negative. For example, killing/healing is not identical to demolishing/building (v. 3), and birth/dying is not identical to planting/uprooting (v. 2). As to the embracing in the next colon, the more likely meaning is filial/communal affection rather than sexual union. Further, to imply sexual intercourse by the throwing or gathering of the male sexual organ is awkward phrasing, while a reference to semen would relate the activities exclusively to the man’s role. In the light of these interpretive challenges, it is unlikely that throwing/gathering stones is a reference to sexual activity.
3.2 A New Interpretive Proposal Consistent with the War and Peace Themes
The best option, then, is view 1 or 9, in the absence of viable alternatives. 54 I suggest above that view 1 is probably not optimal because throwing stones would constitute the negative activity. Thus, one is left with a variation of view 9. Lioy argues for this interpretation, viz., that throwing stones involves tearing down stone walls, indicative of a nation’s desire to make peace with their enemies, while gathering stones involves building walls to keep out invaders. 55 While the reference to building or demolishing walls seems to read too much into the context, the distinction between an act of war and an act of peace seems likely. 56 The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew suggests that the appropriate gloss here for להשׁליך is ‘throw away’. 57 The lexicon draws comparison to a fragment of the Qumran War Scroll (4Q491) which reads: ‘to throw away all their corpses’ (15.9) (also Hiph inf const of שׁלך). 58 Holmstedt, Cook, and Marshall observe that שׁלך is ‘overwhelmingly trivalent’, usually collocated with a noun phrase signifying the object thrown and a locative prepositional phrase denoting the goal of the throwing. 59 Where the locative phrase is absent, as here, the general meaning is ‘to throw (something) out/away’. The Hiphil of שׁלך carries this sense of ‘throw away’ in several biblical texts. In Ezek 20.7–8 YHWH charges the people of Israel to throw away all the detestable items connected with idolatry. In Jer 7.9 YHWH admonishes the people to mourn by cutting off their hair and throwing it away. The Syrian army in 2 Kgs 7.15 throws away its equipment as the soldiers flee the battlefield. In Joel 1.7 an invading army strips the bark of the fig trees and throws it away. Moreover, ‘throw away’ is the best gloss for the term in the following verse (3.6), where להשׁליך (also Hiphil inf cons) denotes ‘to throw away’ in contrast to לשׁמור, ‘to keep’.
The term אבן occurs roughly 270 times in the Hebrew Bible and encompasses a range of lexical categories: (1) stone as building material (houses, altars, temples); (2) large stones (as memorial, quarried stone, boundary marker); (3) small stones (as memorial, in heaps); (4) stones as weapons (personal conflict, combat, capital punishment); (5) stones as naturally occurring (rocks in a field, mineral deposits); (6) stones as engraved objects (precious stones, tables of law, cultic images); (7) stones as weights; (8) stone as support (pillow, seat); or (9) stone as metaphor (denoting heaviness, strength, lifelessness). 60 Germane to our study, the fourth category accounts for 34 uses of the term, the third-largest category behind stones as building material (1) and large stones as quarried rock (2). In analyzing these occurrences, four distinct subcategories emerge for the use of stones as weapons: (1) personal weapon for interpersonal conflict (Exod 21.18; Num 35.17, 23; 2 Sam 16.6, 13; Prov 26.8); (2) personal weapon for hunting animals (Job 41.20); (3) official weapon for military slingers (Judg 20.16; 1 Sam 17.40, 49–50; Zech 9.15; 1 Chron 12.2; 2 Chron 26.14); or (4) official instrument for capital punishment (Lev 20.2, 27; 24.23; Num 14.10; 15.35–36; Deut 13.11; 17.5; 21.21). The term אבן occurs as a military weapon also in the Qumran fragment 4Q Narrative and Poetic Compositionb, where it is translated ‘stone of wounding’ or ‘deadly stone’, depicting either the battle between Moses and Og or the contest between David and Goliath. 61 This latter text dates from the late Hasmonean period and likely joins a matrix of Second Temple references to the David-Goliath battle as an archetype for the divinely wrought victory of the weak over the strong, recalled, for example, in the prayer of Judas Maccabee (1 Macc 4.30); a Maccabean hymn from Qumran (1QMxi.1–2); Ben Sira 47.4–6; and Joseph and Aseneth 27.1–5. 62
In view of this understanding, the stones may refer here to their use in warfare, as stones projected by a sling were a common ancient weapon. Arsenals in the ancient Near East encompassed a variety of short-range weapons (sword, spear, axe, mace), medium-range weapons (javelin, throwing stick), and long-range weapons (sling, bow).
63
The sling (קלע) as used by David (1 Sam 17.40, 50) and the soldiers of Uzziah (2 Chron 26.14) comprised two leather strips with a center patch or pocket (its ‘palm’ [1 Sam 25.29]) from which the soldier would hurl the slingstone.
64
Writers of antiquity concur that proficient slingers could outrange archers, effectively reaching targets in excess of 180 meters.
65
In ancient warfare slingers comprised a portion of the light infantry, used often as advance troops initiating the battle and followed by the heavy infantry (2 Kgs 3.25–27; Zech 9.15).
66
Slingers were especially deadly during siege.
67
The tribe of Benjamin kept a military unit of crackshot slingers who would not miss by a hairsbreadth (Judg 20.16; cf. 1 Chron 12.2). The stones hurled were carefully selected smooth pebbles (1 Sam 17.40) or, more frequently, flintstone trimmed into rounded projectiles 5–8 centimeters in diameter (2 Chron 26.14). Large fields of these stones have been excavated around ancient cities.
68
Slingers are also commonly depicted in reliefs of ancient siege warfare.
69
The eighth-century
Interpreted thus, the notion of throwing away stones signifies getting rid of the implements of warfare as a symbolic gesture to indicate the inception of peace, while gathering of stones signifies the mobilization of weaponry for military operation. 72 The former act would be analogous to ‘cutting off the battle bow’ (Zech 9.10) or ‘shattering the bow, sword, and weapons of war’ (Hos 2.18) to signify the onset of peace. While prophetic texts elsewhere depict beating swords to plowshares and spears to pruning hooks (Isa 2.4; Mic 4.3), these acts demonstrate a lasting, pervasive peace where the short-range weapons function as synecdoche for all the implements of warfare. In Eccl 3.5 the jettisoning of long-range weapons denotes instead the intention to refrain from initiating war in order to keep peace with neighboring nations. Conversely, the ‘gathering’ of stones and other weapons refers to military mobilization as depicted in 2 Chron 26.14–15: ‘And Uzziah provided for all the army the shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging (ולאבני קלעים). In Jerusalem he set up machines, invented by skilled workers, on the towers and the corners, for shooting (ירה) arrows and large stones (ובאבנים). And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, until he became strong’ (NRSV). 73 Likewise, in preparing for combat against Goliath, David gathers (לקח) stones (אבנים) from a brook to hurl (קלע) them at his foe (1 Sam 17.40, 49).
4. Conclusion
The poem on time in Eccl 3.1–8 reflects a marked structure and a clear progression of themes. Due to this structure and the poem’s thematic links, the opening lines of vv. 2, 5, and 8 likely revolve around the themes of war and peace. The opening colon of v. 5 would then reflect a positive-then-negative movement of activities related to this motif. As to the meaning of Qohelet’s enigmatic throwing and gathering stones, no fewer than nine interpretations have been suggested in the reception history of Ecclesiastes. While interpreters have favored a reference to sexual intercourse, this view has several shortcomings that render it unlikely. Rather, the best solution involves the modification of an earlier interpretation relating the throwing and gathering stones to acts of wartime and peacetime. Correlating the use of similar phrases elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, I conclude that the throwing (away) of stones relates to the demobilization of the military to signal the onset of peacetime, while the gathering of stones relates to the mobilization for war against the nation’s enemies (1 Sam 17.40; 2 Chron 26.14–15). This interpretation offers a more consistent approach to the prominent themes of war and peace as they are developed in each of the stanzas of the poem.
Footnotes
1.
R. N. Whybray classifies 3.2–8 as a list rather than a poem, comparing the unit to passages such as Ps 119; Prov 30.11–14; 31.10–31 (‘“A Time to Be Born and a Time to Die”: Some Observations on Ecclesiastes 3:2–8’, in Near Eastern Studies: Dedicated to H. I. H. Prince Takahito Mikasa on the Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. Mori, H. Ogawa, and M. Yoshikawa, 469–83 [Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1991], pp. 471–74; idem, Ecclesiastes, NCBC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989], pp. 66–67). Whybray posits that such lists in the ANE served a theological, pedagogical, or rhetorical function in attesting to the ordered structure of the world and to the sage’s effort to master this structure and corresponding elements in their totality (cf. James L. Crenshaw, ‘The Eternal Gospel (Eccl. 3:11)’, in Essays in Old Testament Ethics, ed. James Crenshaw and John T. Willis, 25–55 [New York: KTAV Publishing, 1974], p. 27).
2.
See Tod Linafelt and F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, ‘Poetic Line Structure in Qoheleth 3:1’, VT, 60 (2010), pp. 249–50, especially n. 4. While the NIV, NET, and NASB render 3.1 as prose, the NRSV and CSB render it as poetry. Among commentators, Barton and Lohfink view 3.1 as prose, while Crenshaw, Fox, Krüger, Bartholomew, Holmstedt-Cook-Marshall, Longman, and Seow classify it as poetry.
3.
Roland E. Murphy, Ecclesiastes, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1992), p. 31.
4.
Kurt Galling, ‘Die Rätsel der Zeit im Urteil Kohelets (Koh 3, 1–15)’, ZTK, 58 (1961), p. 10.
5.
Katharine Dell proposes that the activities of birth and death (v. 2) may have a wider orientation to the plant and animal world (‘The Cycle of Life in Ecclesiastes’, VT, 59 [2009], p. 187). Whilst providing glimpses into a wider frame of reference, the poem appears to focus upon humans primarily and what they are doing within the created order.
6.
For the structure of the poem, see Addison G. Wright, ‘“For Everything There Is a Season”: The Structure and Meaning of the Fourteen Opposites (Ecclesiastes 3, 2–8)’, in De la Tôrah au Messie, ed. Maurice Carrez, Joseph Doré, and Pierre Grelot, 321–28 (Paris: Desclée, 1981), p. 325. On the structure of Hebrew poetry in general, see Wilfred G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques, JSOTSupp 26 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), pp. 160–200.
7.
J. A. Loader, ‘Qohelet 3,2–8—A “Sonnet” in the Old Testament’, ZAW, 81 (1969), p. 240.
8.
Diethelm Michel, Untersuchungen zur Eigenart des Buches Qohelet, BZAW 183 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1989), p. 55. On the usefulness of the desirable-undesirable rubric, see Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Kohelet, HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2004), p. 246; Murphy, Ecclesiastes, p. 32.
9.
John Jarick, ‘The Hebrew Book of Changes: Reflections on Hakkōl Hebel and Lakkōl Zĕmān in Ecclesiastes’, JSOT, 25 (Sept 2000), p. 97.
10.
Tyler Atkinson, ‘Overcoming Competition through Kairological Enjoyment: Implications of Qoheleth’s Theology of Time for the Ethics of Work’, Studies in Christian Ethics, 26 (2013), p. 403.
11.
On the progression of themes in the poem, see Wright, ‘For Everything There Is a Season’, 326.
12.
Delitzsch and Schoors relate this to the Persian practice of impressment for war (Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, trans. M. G. Easton [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891], p. 344; Anton Schoors, Ecclesiastes, HCOT [Leuven: Peeters, 2013], p. 614).
13.
These signs include the retinue of dark rain clouds accompanying the divine warrior (12:2; cf. 2 Sam 22.12; Judg 5.4; Isa 19.1; Job 36.29), the languishing of the elements (12.5; cf. Isa 34.4; Amos 1.2; Nah 1.4; Hab 3.8–12; Ps 29.3), and the capture of the city during which the palace guards cower in fear and the women watching from the window grow despondent (12.3; cf. Judg 5.28; 1 Sam 5.9; 14.15; 2 Sam 6.16–23; 2 Kgs 9.30) (C. L. Seow, ‘Qohelet’s Eschatological Poem’, JBL 118 [Sum 1999], pp. 209–34). On these signs as consonant with the divine warrior motif, see Frank M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 147–94.
14.
‘The Azatiwada Inscription’, trans. K. Lawson Younger, Jr., in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, 4 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997–2017), 2.149.
15.
‘Azatiwata’, trans. J. D. Hawkins, in The Context of Scripture, 2.126.
16.
‘The Panamuwa Inscription’, trans. K. Lawson Younger, Jr., in The Context of Scripture, 2.159.
17.
Dictionary of Daily Life in Biblical and Post-Biblical Antiquity, s.v. ‘Agriculture’, by Roland K. Harrison and Edwin Yamauchi, 1.36–37.
18.
Ibid., 1.37–38.
19.
Michael V. Fox, Ecclesiastes, JPS Bible Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004), p. 21. Cf. Thomas Krüger, Qoheleth, trans. O. C. Dean, Jr., Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), p. 77.
20.
Murphy, Ecclesiastes, p. 31.
21.
So also Delitzsch, Ecclesiastes, pp. 254–55; Robert Gordis, Koheleth, the Man and His World: A Study of Ecclesiastes, 3rd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 229; James L. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), pp. 92–93; Michael V. Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions, JSOTSupp 71 (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), p. 191; Norbert Lohfink, Qoheleth, trans. Sean McEvenue, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), p. 60; Choon-Leong Seow, Ecclesiastes, AB (New York: Doubleday, 1997), p. 170; Schoors, Ecclesiastes, pp. 234–35; Dominic Rudman, Determinism in the Book of Ecclesiastes (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), pp. 84–89.
22.
‘A Time to Be Born and a Time to Die’, p. 474.
23.
So also E. H. Plumptre, Ecclesiastes, Cambridge Bible (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1898), pp. 126–31; Loader, ‘Qohelet 3,2–8’, p. 240; Michael V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 197; William P. Brown, Ecclesiastes, Interpretation (Louisville: John Knox, 2000), p. 41.
24.
As Mette Bundvad observes: ‘These two brands of interpretation are not necessarily mutually exclusive: the notion of a proper time requires that the events of our lives are, to some extent, temporally ordered and could therefore feasibly be integrated into a loosely conceived framework of determinism’ (Time in the Book of Ecclesiastes [New York: Oxford University Press, 2015], p. 95).
25.
Fox, A Time to Tear Down, 201; idem, ‘Time in Qohelet’s “Catalogue of Times”’, JNSL, 24 (1998), p. 29.
26.
See Tomáš Frydrych, Living Under the Sun: Examination of Proverbs and Qoheleth (Leiden: Brill, 2002), p. 120.
27.
Gordis, Koheleth, pp. 228–29.
28.
Richard P. Belcher, Jr., Ecclesiastes, Mentor Commentary (Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2017), pp. 136–37.
29.
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 2 vols., trans. M. E. J. Richardson (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 1528; David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, 8 vols. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993–2011), 8.395–98.
30.
See Ronald J. Williams, Williams’ Hebrew Syntax, 3rd ed., revised by John C. Beckman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), p. 61, §146.
31.
HALOT, p. 484; DCH, 4.436.
32.
Peter S. Knobel, The Targum of Qohelet (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), p. 28; Mariano Gómez Aranda, El Comentario de Abraham Ibn Ezra al Libro del Eclesiastés (Madrid: Instituto de Filología del CISC, 1994), p. 50; Christian D. Ginsburg, The Song of Songs and Coheleth (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1970), p. 306.
33.
Ernest W. Hengstenberg, A Commentary on Ecclesiastes (n.p.: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 1960), pp. 99–100; H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Ecclesiastes (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), pp. 87–88; Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues, trans. Odo J. Zimmerman, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, ed. Hermigild Dressler, Robert P. Russell, Thomas P. Halton, et al. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1959), 39:185 (Gregory the Great, Dialogues, 3.37).
34.
St. Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, trans. Richard J. Goodrich and David J. D. Miller, Ancient Christian Writers 66 (New York: Newman Press, 2012), p. 57.
35.
Tremper Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 116; Delitzsch, Ecclesiastes, p. 257; Hans W. Hertzberg, Der Prediger, KAT (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1963), pp. 104–5; R. N. Whybray, Ecclesiastes, p. 71; Fox, A Time to Tear Down, p. 208.
36.
Michael A. Eaton, Ecclesiastes, TOTC (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1983), p. 80. Craig Bartholomew combines views 1 and 2 by taking the throwing stones to mean clearing a field and the gathering stones to prepare for a new building (Ecclesiastes, BCOTWP [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009], p. 164).
37.
Midrash Q. Rabba; Ludwig Levy, Das Buch Qoheleth: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sadduzäismus (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1912), pp. 144–50; J. A. Loader, Ecclesiastes, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), pp. 36–37; Gordis, Koheleth, p. 230; Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Kohelet, p. 252; Lohfink, Qoheleth, p. 60.
38.
E. Pfleiderer, Die Philosophie des Heraklit von Ephesus (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1886), p. 274.
39.
Galling, ‘Die Rätsel der Zeit’, p. 11.
40.
Plumptre, Ecclesiastes, p. 129.
41.
Ian Provan, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), p. 88.
42.
Nerses von Lampron, Erklärung des ‘Versammlers’ (Predigers), trans. and ed. Max Herzog zu Sachsen (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1929), pp. 39–40.
43.
Dan Lioy, ‘The Divine Sabotage: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Ecclesiastes 3’, Conspectus 5 (Mar 2008), p. 117.
44.
Provan, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, p. 88.
45.
H. Debel, ‘Stones of Contention?!: A Critical Evaluation of the Erotic Interpretation of Qoh 3:5a’, VT, 64 (2014), pp. 554–60, here p. 557.
46.
The most recent and thorough treatment of the phrase is found in Kevin M. McGeough, ‘Birth Bricks, Potter’s Wheels, and Exodus 1,16’, Bib, 87 (2006), pp. 305–318. McGeough argues that the term אבנים does not, in fact, derive from אבן and that the term refers to birthing equipment, viz., the bricks upon which newborns were placed after birth.
47.
Eugene A. Carpenter, Exodus 1–18, EEC (Bellingham, WA: Logos, 2012), p. 106; Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967), p. 14; T. Desmond Alexander, Exodus, AOTC (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2017), pp. 52–53; McGeough, ‘Birth Bricks’, p. 318.
48.
C. Houtman, Exodus, trans. J. Rebel and S. Woudstra, HCOT, 3 vols. (Leuven: Peeters, 1993), 1.253–54.
49.
W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 1–18, AB (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 139.
50.
Propp, Exodus 1–18, p. 139.
51.
Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, p. 95; Hertzberg, Prediger, p. 105.
52.
Fox, A Time to Tear Down, p. 208.
53.
Ibid.
54.
Seow suggests a potential counterpart in the Proverbs of Ahiqar: ‘My son, it is better to remove stones with a wise man than to drink wine with a fool’ (‘The Story of Ahikar’, 2.9, in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, ed. R. H. Charles, 2 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1913], 2.730–31). Yet, as he acknowledges, it is unclear what removing stones means in this context (p. 161). Moreover, the contrast is with drinking wine, not gathering stones. Removing stones also would be a negative activity, so this comparison is likely not germane.
55.
Lioy, ‘The Divine Sabotage’, p. 117.
56.
Cf. Eaton, Ecclesiastes, p. 80.
57.
DCH, 8:397.
58.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth, 10 vols. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 2.161.
59.
Robert D. Holmstedt, John A. Cook, and Phillip S. Marshall, Qoheleth: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017), p. 124.
60.
DCH, 1.110; HALOT, p. 8; Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, s.v. ‘אֶבֶן’, by Arvid S. Kapelrud, 1.48–51; Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. ‘צוּר’, by A. S. van der Woude, pp. 1068–69.
61.
This textual fragment was known previously as 4QapocrJosephb (4Q372, fragment 2). See Qumran Cave 4.XXVIII, Miscellanea, Part 2, ed. Moshe Bernstein, Monica Brady, James Charlesworth, et al., Discoveries in the Judean Desert, vol. 28 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), pp. 165–98; Eileen Schuller, ‘A Preliminary Study of 4Q373 and Some Related Fragments’, in The Madrid Qumran Congress, ed. Julio T. Barrera and Luis V. Montaner, 515–30 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), pp. 528–29; Eileen M. Schuller, ‘The Psalm 4Q372 1 within the Context of Second Temple Prayer’, CBQ 54 (Jan 1992), pp. 68–70; E. Qimron, ‘Observations on the Reading of “A Text about Joseph” (4Q372 1)’, RevQ 15 (1992), pp. 603–4; The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, ed. Florentino G. Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997–98), 2.736.
62.
Schuller, ‘A Preliminary Study of 4Q373’, p. 524; Philip R. Davies, 1QM, The War Scroll from Qumran: Its Structure and History, BibOr 32 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1977), pp. 96–97.
63.
Hans Bonnet, Die Waffen der Völker des alten Orients (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1926), pp. 16–125; Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Study, 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 1.6–12, 40–46; T. R. Hobbs, A Time for War: A Study of Warfare in the Old Testament (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989), pp. 112–27; Seth M. Rodriguez, ‘The Arsenal of the Hebrew Kings and Their Neighbors: A Description of Biblical Weapons in the Iron Age’ (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2009); Boyd Seevers, Warfare in the Old Testament: The Organization, Weapons, and Tactics of Ancient Near Eastern Armies (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2013), pp. 57–64.
64.
R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, trans. J. McHugh (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), p. 244; O. R. Sellers, ‘Sling Stones of Biblical Times’, The Biblical Archaeologist, 2 (Dec 1939), pp. 41–44; John R. Mixter, ‘Man’s First Long-Range Missile Weapon, the Sling Was a Deadly Military Asset in Skilled Hands’, Military History, 18 (Aug 2001), p. 12.
65.
Xenophon, Anabasis, 3.4.16 (The Greek Historians: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Arrian, ed. Francis R. B. Godolphin, trans. Henry G. Dakyns, 2 vols. [New York: Random House, 1942], 2.286); Strabo, Geography, 8.3.33 (Geography of Strabo, trans. W. Falconer, 3 vols. [London: Henry G. Bohn, 1856], 2.33); Cassius Dio, Roman History, 49.26.2 (Dio’s Roman History, trans. Earnest Clary, 9 vols. [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955], 5.395). See also Edward C. Echols, ‘The Ancient Slinger’, Classical Weekly 43 (1950), p. 228; Wallace McLeod, ‘The Range of the Ancient Bow’, Phoenix 19 (Spr 1965), pp. 7–8, 14. Interesting in this regard is that in Sennacherib’s reliefs of the conquest of Lachish the slingers are stationed behind the archers (see David Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib [Tel Aviv: The Institute of Archaeology, 1982], pp. 78–79).
66.
Hobbs, A Time for War, pp. 114–15.
67.
Echols, ‘The Ancient Slinger’, p. 229; Manfred Korfmann, ‘The Sling as a Weapon’, Scientific American 229 (Oct 1973), p. 37.
68.
Vaux, Ancient Israel, p. 244; Sellers, ‘Sling Stones’, p. 43; Rodriguez, ‘The Arsenal of the Hebrew Kings’, p. 246.
69.
Ussishkin, Conquest of Lachish, pp. 78–85; Israel Eph’al, The City Besieged: Siege and Its Manifestations in the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 24–25.
70.
‘The Victory Stela of King Piye (Piankhy)’, trans. Miriam Lichtheim, in The Context of Scripture, 2.45. Cf. the recounting of the campaign in James H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, 5 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906), 4.409–410, §799–802.
71.
‘The Kirta Epic’, trans. Dennis Pardee, in The Context of Scripture, 1.102; ‘The Disputation between Ewe and Wheat’, trans. H. L. J. Vanstiphout, in The Context of Scripture, 1.180; ‘Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur’, trans. Samuel N. Kramer, in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, ed. James B. Pritchard, 3rd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 618; Three Šulgi Hymns: Sumerian Royal Hymns Glorifying King Šulgi of Ur, ed. Jacob Klein (Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1981), pp. 78–79.
72.
One might compare the ancient Roman custom of closing the doors of the Temple of Janus to signify peace and their opening to signify the onset of war.
73.
The verb used for ‘shooting’ or ‘slinging’ stones or arrows is typically not שׁלך but ירה or קלע (1 Sam 17.40, 49; 20.36; 2 Sam 11.20; 2 Kgs 13.17; 2 Chron 26.15; Ps 64.7; Prov 26.18).