Times as Task, Not Timing: Reconsidering Qoheleth’s Catalogue of the Times

Peterson, Jesse M.

Abstract

This essay examines Qoheleth’s Catalogue of the Times poem in Eccl 3:2–8. I argue that the two most common scholarly interpretations of the poem’s overall meaning fail to sufficiently account for its literary context and that an underdeveloped alternative reading is to be preferred. When we read the poem in light of two other closely related passages, 1:4–11 and 3:9–15, it becomes clear that a poem ostensibly about “time” is much less concerned with “timing” than is typically thought, but instead signifies Qoheleth’s frustration with the inevitable equilibrating tendency embedded into every human task.

Citation

Peterson, J. M. (2022). Times as Task, Not Timing: Reconsidering Qoheleth’s Catalogue of the Times. Vetus Testamentum, 72(3), 444-473. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10039

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Nov 11, 2021
• Publication Date: 2022-07
• Deposit Date: Feb 9, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 18, 2023
• Journal: Vetus Testamentum
• Print ISSN: 0042-4935
• Electronic ISSN: 1568-5330
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 72
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 444-473
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10039
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1214403