The end of the book, and its most sustained piece of poetry. Qoheleth has spent eleven chapters testing everything under the sun; now he turns and speaks directly to a young man.
What happens
"Rejoice, O young man, while you are young… Follow the ways of your heart, the vision of your eyes; yet understand that as regards all this Theos will bring you to judgment… Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come… when the guardians of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders are idle because they are few, and they who look through the windows grow blind… when the almond tree blooms, and the locust grows sluggish and the caper berry is without effect… before the silver cord is snapped and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the broken pulley falls into the well, and the dust returns to the earth as it once was, and the life breath returns to Theos who gave it."
What to notice
The opening instruction is one of the boldest sentences in the Hebrew Bible, and a deliberate contradiction. Halakh be-darkhei libbekha u-ve-mar'ei einekha — walk in the ways of your heart and the sights of your eyes.Numbers 15:39 says the opposite in almost identical words. Qoheleth reverses a commandment, then adds the qualifier. Then the allegory, a single extended picture of a great house running down: the guardians who tremble are arms; the strong men bent are legs; the grinders too few are teeth; those at the windows are eyes. A man wakes at birdsong and cannot hear the singers. The almond tree blooms — the almond flowers white, and it is hair. The caper berry, used as an appetite stimulant, no longer works. And then four irreparable objects: a silver cord snapped, a golden bowl broken, a pitcher shattered at the spring, a pulley fallen into the well. The last two are a water-drawing apparatus destroyed at the source. The closing verse returns the dust to the earth and the breath to Theos who gave it — Genesis 2:7 played backwards.
The psalm of Moses, sung here for the second time this week. On Thursday it answered Qoheleth's what profit?; today it answers his poem about the end.
The selected verses
Psalm 90:3–4."You turn man back to dust, saying, 'Return, O children of men.' For a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday, now that it is past." Psalm 90:5–6."You make an end of them in their sleep; the next morning they are like the changing grass, which at dawn springs up anew, but by evening wilts and fades." Psalm 90:12–13."Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart. Return, Yahweh! How long?" Psalm 90:14, 17."Fill us at daybreak with your hesed, that we may shout for joy… prosper the work of our hands for us!"
What to notice
Limnot yamenu ken hoda — "to number our days, so teach us." The request is for arithmetic, and it is odd enough to notice: the psalmist asks to be taught to count something he could count himself. What he means becomes clear beside today's first reading. Qoheleth's allegory is a young man being shown, in detail, the body he will have in fifty years — with the instructionremember your Creator now, before it.Numbering days is not morbidity. It is the refusal to be surprised by something that was always on the schedule. And Psalm 90:14 asks for the hesed to arrive ba-boqer, in the morning — the same hour at which verse 6 has the grass springing up before it wilts. The psalm asks to be filled at exactly the moment it has just called brief.
Immediately after the healing of a boy with a demon, and the placement is the whole point. Luke's sentence is "while they were all amazed at his every deed" — the crowd at its highest pitch of admiration, and that is the moment he chooses.
What happens
"While they were all amazed at his every deed, he said to his disciples, 'Pay attention to what I am telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.' But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying."
What to notice
The command is more physical in Greek: thesthe hymeis eis ta ōta hymōn tous logous toutous — "put these words of mine into your ears." Not listen carefully; deposit them, store them where they will keep. And what he tells them is short and passive: the Son of Man is about to be handed over into human hands. Paradidōmi is the passion word, the one used of Judas — and there is a bitter symmetry in the son of manbeingdelivered into the hands of men. Then Luke does something no other evangelist does here: he states the failure of comprehension three times in a single verse. They did not understand it. It was parakekalymmenon — veiled — from them. And they were afraid to ask. The middle clause is the strange one: a passive with no agentnamed. He simply reports that the meaning was covered. Compare yesterday: then they were told plainly and forbidden to repeat it; today they are told plainly and cannot take it in — and the announcement was made into applause.
Men told exactly what is coming, who do not understand and are afraid to ask
Both long readings today are about being told the end in advance, and about what a person does with that information.
Qoheleth's method is remarkable and is not gloom. He tells a young man to enjoy himself — follow the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, in flat contradiction of a commandment — and then, without softening either half, walks him through the dismantling of his own body: the arms that shake, the teeth that go, the eyes at the window, the ear that can no longer find the singers, the white almond blossom of the hair. The pleasure and the decline are given to the same person in the same breath, and the hinge between them is remember your Creator in the days of your youth. The reason for the timing is practical rather than pious. You cannot start remembering when the guardians of the house are already trembling. The capacity to attend to the end is itself one of the things that runs out, so the work has to be done while the equipment is good.
Then Luke shows what happens when someone is handed the ending directly and the equipment fails anyway. The disciples are not slow or wicked; they are standing in the middle of the most successful afternoon of the mission, with everyone marvelling, and into that they are told the Son of Man is about to be handed over.Luke's triple report is one of the most honest sentences in the gospels — they did not understand, it was veiled, and they were afraid to ask. That last clause is the one to sit with, because it is the only part with no mystery in it. Whatever the veiling was, being afraid to ask is a decision, and it is the ordinary human response to a sentence you have half-understood and would rather not have confirmed. They could have asked. They chose the not-knowing, and Luke says so without comment.
And Psalm 90 supplies what both readings want. Teach us to number our days — a request to be given, deliberately and in advance, the thing Qoheleth's young man is being shown and the disciples cannot look at. It is not a prayer for a shorter life or a sadder one: it comes four verses before fill us at daybreak with your hesed, that we may shout for joy, and one verse before prosper the work of our hands.The counting and the joy are asked for together, by the same voice, in the same breath — which is exactly what Qoheleth does with the young man, and exactly what the disciples could not manage in a field full of applause.
A Question to Sit With
"They were afraid to ask him." Not afraid of what was coming — they had not understood enough to be afraid of that. Afraid of the question, which would have made the half-heard thing definite. I know the mechanism exactly: the result I do not chase, the conversation I keep almost having, the number I do not add up, all of it protected by the thin comfort of not having asked. What have I half-understood and left unconfirmed, and what would it cost me to ask this week?