Vertaling Bijbel, Kanttekeningen SV, [], Daarom [48]haatte ik dit leven, want dit werk [49]dacht mij kwaad, [50]dat onder de zon geschiedt; want het is al ijdelheid en kwelling des geestes. 48. Dat is, het verdroot mij te leven. 49. Hebr. was kwaad in, bij, of over mij. 50. Dat is, al de werken en handteringen der mensen.
, [], Thomas BOLIN, Rivalry and Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth on the Divine-Human Relationship , Vol. 86(2005) 245-259.
This article looks at the repeated gnomic phrase in the Book
of Qoheleth, "All is vanity and a chasing after wind" (NRSV) and reads it as a
disjunctive parallelism in which the terms lbh
and xwr denote mortality and the divine spirit,
respectively, thus showing the sense of the phrase to be, "All is mortal, but
strives for immortality". Using René Girard's concept of mimetic rivalry
clarifies this reading of the proverb, and shows it to be a concise expression
of a major theme in the Book of Qoheleth, viz., the author's thoughts on the
difference between humanity and God, understood as paradoxical relationship
based on both similarity and difference between humans and the divine. More
importantly, Girard helps to understand more deeply how and why Qoheleth views
human proximity with the divine as the cause of conflict and pain in human life.
Because this tension is also evident in numerous other biblical and
extra-biblical texts, caution must be exercised, in referring to the Book of
Ecclesiastes as a "radical" or "heterodox" writing