The Structure of Kohelet

Kohelet(Ecclesiastes) is a difficult book to read. Most books in the Tanach are divided into distinct stories, poems, or prescriptive passages. Kohelet, on the other hand, is written in a stream-of-consciousness style, full of repetitive and and contradictory passages that make it hard to follow. As a first step to approaching this book, it may be helpful to analyse it's structure.

Kohelet divided based on Masoretic divisions

The Masoretic Structure

For a start, let's look at the breaks in the Masoretic text of Kohelet. Verse 11 ends with an Open Break and the poem "For Every Season" is also delineated with Open Breaks. There is also a break 52 verses before the end of the book. In all, these divisions give us five sections. This is not satisfactory as the bulk of the book remains in one long 118 verse section followed by a 52 verse section. Compare this with Esther whose 167 verses are broken into over 20 sections by the Masoretic breaks, making it's structure explicit.

  

Kohelet divided by Chapter

Chapter Divisions

What about the 12 chapter divisions in Kohelet? These divisions are not part of the original text(circa the 9th century BCE), but were made by Stephen Langton in the 13th century based on his understanding of the text. These divisions are generally based on textual cues, but sometimes seem disconnected from the text(for instance consider the break between Kohelet Ch. 4 and 5, when there is no discernible break on the narrative, and perhaps was added due to Langton's desire to create roughly consistent chapter sizes).

The granular Chapter Divisions can help us get an overview of the text, since they are roughly similar in size and each one's content can be summarized. That said, this structure is not fundamental since the divisions are not based on a deep textual analysis.

I am Kohelet

I recently encountered a fresh take on Kohelet in Yoel Bin-Nun and Yaakov Meidan's "Ani Kohelet"(published in Hebrew in 2017). They develop a literary theory that the book of Kohelet is a dialectic between four different "Voices", each a different perspective presented by the book's single author:

1. Wise Man- a master of wisdom
2. Practical Man- a man of action and achievement
3. Hedonic Man- out to enjoy all life has to offer
4. Pious Man- Godfearing man

"Ani Kohelet" is a collection of lectures and papers developing this approach, delineating these characters, their literary styles, and their themes. This theory quite effectively explains the book's dialectic style and resolves it's conflicts since the voices are explained as warring perspectives in the mind of the author.

Incidentally, the name "Kohelet" is explained as rooted in the word "Makhelah"--the Hebrew word for "Choir". These four arguing voices come together into a sort of choral song of multiple voices.

Structure Based on Ani Kohelet

If we map-out the passages spoken by each of the four voices(as well as a fifth voice for general narration), then a clear structure for the book emerges.

Yoel Bin-Nun divides the book into two distinct halves of similar size, with the 2nd half beginning with Chapter 7. He also divides the halves into 3 sections each, roughly along Chapter divisions, but with notable exceptions in chapers 4 and 9.

Kohelet's Structure based on "Ani Kohelet"

In the first half, the four voices are in constant, chaotic dialog with one another, with no clear winner emerging. At the beginning of Section 3, the Pious Voice opens with a significant monologue, but this is immediately undermined by the other voices. This unresolved dialog goes well with the theme of the "To Every Season" poem at the beginning of the Section 2. The Poem's meaning is that there is no ultimate perspective and that different times call for different approaches. The four voices demonstrate this principal as they refute one another's arguments, but with no clear winner emerging.

In the second section, the dialog is much more ordered. The Wise Voice has a long monologue spanning all of Section 4, and then argues with each of the other three voices individually in Section 5. In Section 6 the Wise Voice has a final monologue, but is then undermined by the Pious voice and his final monologue. Kohelet ends with the general Narrator's summary, first restating Kohelet's dilemma, then  praising Wise men and their works, and the finally arguing for Piety and the fear of God.

Insights from the Structure of Kohelet

If you would have asked me to summarize Kohelet before this analysis, I would have said that King Solomon is seeking the meaning of life and ultimately concludes that it is to live a God-Fearing life.

After performing this analysis, however, I think that King Solomon's answer is much less black-and-white. Solomon really truly believes that each of the four perspectives herein have their "season". That said, he ultimately favours Wisdom and Piety as primary over Practicality and Hedonism.