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About this book

Ecclesiastes

About this book
Chapter 11

1 Send your grain overseas, for after many days you will get a return. 2 Divide your merchandise among seven or even eight investments, for you do not know what calamity may happen on earth. 3 If the clouds are full of rain, they will empty themselves on the earth, and whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, the tree will lie wherever it falls. 4 He who watches the wind will not sow, and he who observes the clouds will not reap. 5 Just as you do not know the path of the wind or how the bones form in the womb of a pregnant woman, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.⁠ 6 Sow your seed in the morning, and do not stop working until the evening; for you do not know which activity will succeed—whether this one or that one, or whether both will prosper equally. 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.

Texts in conversation

Compare Ecclesiastes 11:9 and Sirach 5:2

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

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.

Passages

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.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ecclesiastes

Sirach 5:2

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
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.
195–180 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sirach

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.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Ecclesiastes 11:9 and Sirach 5:2

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