Texts in Conversation
Sirach warns to not follow the desires of the heart, opposing the attitude of Ecclesiastes 11, which urges the young to follow their heart and eyes. These texts may reflect two distinct perspectives in Jewish wisdom tradition.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ecclesiastes 11:9
Hebrew Bible
7 Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for a person to see the sun. 8 So, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many—all that is about to come is obscure. 9 Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, but know that God will judge your motives and actions. 10 Banish emotional stress from your mind and put away pain from your body; for youth and the prime of life are fleeting.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Sirach 5:2
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
1 Don’t set your heart upon your goods. Don’t say, “They are sufficient for me.” 2 Don’t follow your own mind and your strength to walk in the desires of your heart. 3 Don’t say, “Who will have dominion over me?” for the Lord will surely take vengeance on you. 4 Don’t say, “I sinned, and what happened to me?” for the Lord is patient.
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Search:
Notes and References
"... As joy, piety, and pessimism all meet in Ecclesiastes 11:9, Qoheleth’s clamorous internal dialogue draws in a canonical bystander, Torah, in the form of Numbers 15:39 ... Since, however, Qoheleth seems to endorse precisely the pursuit of personal pleasure that the fringe, or tsitsit, is intended to prevent, and since Numbers presents this libertarian behavior as the alternative to remembering and doing all the commandments of the Lord, it is little surprise that the rabbis pointed to this intertextual conflict as an indication of Ecclesiastes’ questionable canonical status. Some early translators even corrected the apparent contradiction with small alterations of Qoheleth’s words, and Ben Sira appears to reject them explicitly: “Do not follow your inclination and strength in pursuing the desires of your heart” (Sirach 5:2) ..."
Will Kynes, “Follow Your Heart and Do Not Say It Was a Mistake: Qoheleth’s Allusions to Numbers 15 and the Story of the Spies,” in Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually, ed. Katharine Dell and Will Kynes (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 15–27.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,