God is omnipresent. God is in heaven, on earth—everywhere. That is a very popular belief, especially in the more evangelical circles I once inhabited. God is always there, and is always watching over you. Fear not!
But actually, yes, you better be fearful. Quite fearful. At least for one biblical author, you really need to walk on eggshells whenever you go to the house of God. And yet, it would seem God is not home; not this particular home, at least.
Where is God? Can God really be everywhere? These are some of the questions that I found myself asking when I first read Ecclesiastes 5:1–2. As I concluded in my previous post, God’s location amidst the chaos on earth is nowhere close to the oppressed or the solitary toiler we’ve met before. So, again I ask, where is God? Qoheleth answers: God is in heaven.
“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; and draw near to listen, rather than giving a sacrifice to fools, for they do not know to keep from doing evil. Do not be rash with your mouth and do not let your heart be hasty to bring forth a word before God; for God is in heaven and you upon earth, therefore let your words be few.” ~Ecclesiastes 5:1–2
The God of the Hebrew Bible
As I mentioned before, depictions of God in the Hebrew Bible are quite diverse. Of course, we all know this God is Creator, can be angry and violent, and deeply cares for the nation of Israel. In some books God is vengeful, such as Amos, and in others God is a comforter, such as Isaiah.
But one thing quite common to several Old Testament books is that God directly intervenes in all the chaos of the world. God walks in the cool of the evening in Genesis, appears as a whirlwind to Job, and dictates the Law to Moses. This God seems to fit what I call the Deuteronomic formulation… a fancy way of saying “an idea about God that comes from the book of Deuteronomy.” Specifically, what Deuteronomy 4:39 says:
“So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.” (Deut. 4:39)
Now, returning to Ecclesiastes, you may well notice that we have a bit of a problem.
The God in Heaven… but Not Earth?
When Qoheleth declares that “God is in heaven and you upon earth,” he is demonstrating the reality of the Deus absconditus (Latin: the hidden God). That is, a God whose sovereignty is absolute, yet whose presence is inaccessible. Somehow, Qoheleth manages to echo the Law… and make it sound twice as threatening?
Qoheleth flips the Deuteronomic formulation on its head. God’s presence is located in heaven, on a completely separate realm from humans, directly contrasting it with a reminder of humanity’s frailty and insecurity. God is in heaven; you are on earth; therefore, shut your mouth.
I find it imperative to note here that scholarly interpretations of God in Ecclesiastes are incredibly wide-ranging. As such, I acknowledge and want to reiterate that this project is solely my interpretation; I do not have the final say on the matter. Some scholars find that this passage has nothing to do with God at all, and others find an unresponsive God disinclined to be burdened. I find this God to be hidden but volatile.
Despite these differences, there are a few examples within the text worth noting. For starters, per Ecclesiastes 7:14, God is the maker of both the day of prosperity and the day of adversity. God limits understanding, according to 3:11. In this God’s creation, death serves as the ultimate equalizer—for all beings (3:19–22; 9:1–6).
I believe I summarized my stance best in my formal research on this text::
“For Qoheleth, God is not the intimate, responsive God of the prophets or Torah, but a distant ruler: active in determining times and seasons yet never seen nor heard from by the people in the province.”
Reverence before the Deus Absconditus
God is in heaven; we are upon earth. And I find that this jarring gap demands an examination of reverence. “Let your words be few.” But why? Taken in isolation, 5:1–2 reads like housekeeping rules for entering the temple. “Guard your steps,” “never be rash with your mouth,” “for God is in heaven, and you upon earth” and now this command to keep it brief.
The fear of God. This is not the Sunday school version of “the fear of God.” It is this: God can and will smite thee, so you better watch yourself. Not convinced? A few verses later: “why should God be angry at your words and destroy the work of your hands?” (5:6). More on this next week.
“Never be rash with your mouth” and “let your words be few” underscore the danger of making the slightest misstep before a volatile deity. Qoheleth does indeed still encourage the reader “to draw near,” but in doing so, to avoid the sacrifice of fools that might provoke God’s anger.
This is the issue: Qoheleth’s God is not dead or absent, but dangerously alive. God is active, but rules from afar. But if you provoke this God, you run the risk of having “the work of your hands” destroyed by the same God.
Where is the Comforter?
The oppressed have no one to comfort them, in Qoheleth’s perception (4:1). In the midst of all this, where is God? Their tears fall when we should hope for someone to have the decency to wipe them away. No one does. And where is God? In heaven. Inscrutable. Inaccessible. And the result? Everything is hebel.
This is the issue for the present study: the gap is real, the absence actual, and this is the reason justice fails. God is in control. Qoheleth “certainly recognises God’s transcendence, but his enthusiasm about it is very much low key, not to say inexistent,” to quote the late Antoon Schoors. The temple is not a place of comfort, but a place of anxiety where one must walk carefully to avoid provoking God’s wrath. In my view, this is an inversion of the Proverbial deed-consequence relationship. That is, the idea that you do a good deed, you get rewarded—as found throughout Proverbs.
Here, though, the commands to be silent are not followed by a promise of blessing if they are carried out. Instead, one faces potential destruction if they do not comply (5:6). Negative reinforcement much?
Conclusion: A Protest
Qoheleth is quite an intelligent teacher. The “theodic settlements” he challenges are the accepted understandings of God in his day. I almost consider it a given that Qoheleth knew his scriptures deeply. He knew the theologies of his day.
Though it is certainly debatable, Qoheleth appears to be inverting one of these theodic settlements. Deuteronomy 4:39. In Ecclesiastes, the “on earth” dimension recedes. For Choon-Leong Seow, Qoheleth reimagines Deuteronomy 4:39 to underscore God’s “Wholly Other” transcendence and “to emphasize the distance between God and humanity.”
For Qoheleth, the theodic settlements are not holding up against empirical reality. Unlike the Deuteronomist, God is in heaven, separate from the earthly realm. Unlike Deutero-Isaiah, the oppressed have no comforter. God is not showing up to comfort them. God is close enough to punish a badly formed utterance, yet not close enough to wipe away the tears of the oppressed. This too is hebel.
But that is our reality, in Qoheleth’s perception. In a world without an expected divine order, even visiting the temple guarantees at best anxiety and at worst divine destruction. In this world. The hebel world.