40 Fun Facts About Book of Ecclesiastes

Which number one hit by the Byrds takes its lyrics almost word for word from Ecclesiastes chapter 3?

Turn! Turn! Turn! was written by Pete Seeger, who added only the title refrain and the closing lines. The Byrds' recording is known as the American chart-topper with the oldest lyrics.

Ecclesiastes 1:9, the source of a famous saying, declares that there is nothing new under what?

The sun closes the Teacher's complaint that whatever has been done will only be done again. He uses the same three-word phrase 29 times as his shorthand for life on earth.

In the King James Bible, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes opens his speech by declaring that all is what?

Vanity here means emptiness rather than conceit, which is why many modern Bibles say 'meaningless' or 'futile' instead. The same cry returns near the end to bracket the whole speech.

Which American novelist took the title of his first novel, set in Paris and Pamplona, from Ecclesiastes 1:5?

Ernest Hemingway also printed the passage as an epigraph, beside Gertrude Stein's remark about a lost generation. British readers first met the novel under the title Fiesta.

Jewish and Christian tradition credits Ecclesiastes to which king of Israel, called David's son in its first verse?

Solomon is never actually named in the text, which only hints at him through a fabulously rich and wise royal narrator. Its late style of Hebrew leads most scholars to date it centuries after his reign.

After praising two as better than one, Ecclesiastes 4:12 says what of three strands is not quickly broken?

A cord of three strands caps a short passage on companionship: two people can keep each other warm, lift each other after a fall and fight off an attacker together.

Ecclesiastes 9:4 argues that the living still have hope because a live dog is better than a dead what?

Lion or not, the dead lose out in the Teacher's reckoning. The living at least know that they will die, he says, while the dead know nothing and are soon forgotten.

Ecclesiastes 11:1 promises a return after many days to anyone who casts what upon the waters?

Bread on the waters is often read as a saying about spontaneous acts of kindness. The next verse adds a hedge: divide your portion among seven or eight, because disaster may strike the land.

The final verses of Ecclesiastes sum up the whole duty of man as fearing God and keeping what?

His commandments close Ecclesiastes in an epilogue spoken by a narrator, not the Teacher. Many scholars think a later scribe added it to give a sceptical work a more orthodox ending.

Ecclesiastes 10:1, on a little folly outweighing much wisdom, is the likely source of which idiom?

A fly in the ointment comes from the King James wording, in which dead flies make an apothecary's ointment stink. The verse's point is that a little folly can outweigh a great deal of honour.

Ecclesiastes 12:12 warns that much study wearies the body and that there is no end to the making of what?

Books without end is the narrator's wry parting warning to a pupil he calls 'my son'. It comes just after he praises the Teacher for searching out and arranging many proverbs of his own.

Ecclesiastes 3:20 says that humans and animals alike all come from, and all return to, what?

Dust is the shared end the Teacher sees for people and beasts alike. He then asks who can really know whether the human spirit rises upward while an animal's goes down into the earth.

The first verse of Ecclesiastes introduces the Teacher as a son of David ruling as king in which city?

Jerusalem is where the Teacher says he outdid every ruler before him, laying out gardens, parks and reservoirs and piling up silver and gold, only to judge the whole effort futile.

Which John Grisham legal thriller, his debut novel, borrows its title from the poem of seasons in Ecclesiastes 3?

A Time to Kill lifts one of the poem's fourteen paired opposites, the one matched with a time to heal. Grisham reused the pattern decades later for a sequel called A Time for Mercy.

In which Ray Bradbury novel does the fireman Guy Montag find he has memorised part of Ecclesiastes?

Fahrenheit 451 ends with Montag among exiles who each carry a banned work in their heads. Ecclesiastes is his contribution, held in memory for the day society is ready to read again.

Which saying from Ecclesiastes 8:15 does the rich fool echo in a parable in Luke 12?

Eat, drink and be merry is the Teacher's sincere advice, given because he finds nothing better in a short life. In the parable the same words are a rich man's boast on the night he dies.

Ecclesiastes 5:10 warns that whoever loves what will never be satisfied, however much of it he gains?

Money only attracts more mouths, the Teacher goes on: when possessions increase, so do those who consume them, and the owner gains nothing but the sight of them.

Ecclesiastes 12:1 urges readers to remember their Creator in the days of what, before the hard years arrive?

Their youth is the moment to do it, because the poem that follows pictures old age as a household falling quiet, with trembling guards, dim windows and doors shut to the street.

The Teacher of Ecclesiastes keeps calling human toil futile and comparing it to a pursuit of what?

The wind can be chased but never caught, and the Teacher passes that verdict on his own building projects, his pleasures and even his hard-won wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 10:20 warns against cursing the king even in private because what creature may carry the words?

A bird of the air may carry your words, the Teacher warns, and a winged creature may report them. The same verse says not to curse the rich even in your bedroom.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 says the race is not to the swift because which two things happen to everyone?

Time and chance, the Teacher argues, undo any guarantee that talent wins: battles do not go to the strong, nor wealth to the intelligent. He likens people to fish caught suddenly in a net.

Which English writer rewrote Ecclesiastes 9:11 in bloated modern prose in 'Politics and the English Language'?

George Orwell praised the verse as vivid, concrete English, then recast it as abstract jargon with many more syllables and not one fresh image, to show how such writing smothers meaning.

Which title does the King James Bible give the speaker of Ecclesiastes, whom most modern versions call the Teacher?

The Preacher and the Teacher are two attempts at a Hebrew title for someone who speaks before a gathering. Oddly, the Hebrew word is feminine in form, which has puzzled commentators for centuries.

According to Ecclesiastes 5:12, whose sleep is sweet whether he eats little or much?

The worker rests easy, while the rich man's abundance is said to permit him no sleep at all. It is one of several places where the Teacher treats great wealth as a burden.

Ecclesiastes 7:1 opens a run of proverbs by saying that what is better than fine perfume?

A good name makes a pun in Hebrew, where name is shem and perfumed oil is shemen. The verse then grows darker, claiming the day of death is better than the day of birth.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 says that whatever your hand finds to do should be done with all your what?

Might is called for because, the verse goes on, there is no work, planning or knowledge in the realm of the dead, where everyone is headed.

Ecclesiastes 5:2 advises that words spoken before God should be what, since God is in heaven and you on earth?

Few words are best, the Teacher says, comparing a fool's stream of talk to the dreams that come from too many cares. He would rather worshippers draw near to listen.

Ecclesiastes 5:5 says it is better not to make what at all than to make one to God and not fulfil it?

A vow should be paid without delay, the Teacher insists, because God takes no pleasure in fools. He adds that nobody should tell the messenger it was all a mistake.

Ecclesiastes 10:8 warns that anyone who breaks through a wall may be bitten by what?

A snake in the stonework is one of four workplace hazards the Teacher lists: the digger may fall into his own pit, the quarryman be hurt by stones and the log-splitter by his logs.

Ecclesiastes 10:10 says more strength is needed, though skill brings success, when which tool is left blunt?

An axe with a dull edge is the Teacher's case for working smart: sharpen first and the job takes less effort. The saying follows warnings about quarrying stone and splitting logs, trades where a careless hand gets hurt.

What is the Hebrew title of Ecclesiastes, the word by which its central speaker refers to himself?

Kohelet comes from a Hebrew root for gathering people together, and the Greek translators matched it with their own word for a member of a public meeting, which gave the English title.

Ashkenazi synagogues traditionally read Ecclesiastes aloud on the Sabbath of which week-long Jewish festival?

Sukkot is a joyful harvest holiday, and the sober reading is meant to keep the festivities in proportion. Each of the Bible's five short scrolls has a day of its own, with Esther read at Purim.

Ecclesiastes is grouped with Psalms, Proverbs and Job in which division of the Hebrew Bible?

Ketuvim means 'Writings', the last of the three parts after the Law and the Prophets. Within it Ecclesiastes is one of five short scrolls, each read aloud on a set occasion in the Jewish year.

The Hebrew word hevel, the refrain of Ecclesiastes that some Bibles render as meaningless, literally means what?

Vapor or breath is something seen for a moment and gone before it can be grasped. The same Hebrew word is what Genesis calls Abel, whose life is cut short.

Which Edith Wharton novel about New York high society takes its title from Ecclesiastes 7:4?

The House of Mirth is where, the verse says, the heart of fools is found, while the wise keep to a place of mourning. Wharton aimed it at the frivolous set that ruins her heroine, Lily Bart.

Which late Henry James novel takes its title from an image of death in Ecclesiastes 12:6?

The Golden Bowl is crushed in the verse, one of four pictures of a life ending, beside a shattered pitcher and a wheel broken at the well. James rated the novel the solidest of all his fictions.

Loanwords from which language, such as pardes for orchard, help date Ecclesiastes centuries after King David?

Persian loanwords and Aramaic phrasing point to a date no earlier than about 450 BCE. The other limit is 180 BCE, when the Jewish writer Ben Sira quotes from the text.

Scholars link the advice in Ecclesiastes to enjoy life's simple pleasures with which school of Greek philosophy?

Epicureanism taught that happiness lies in quietly cultivating modest pleasures, much as the Teacher commends taking joy in food and work. Others hear Stoic fatalism in him as well.

Ecclesiastes 12:11 compares the words of the wise to firmly driven nails and to which herdsman's tools?

Goads are pointed sticks for prodding oxen, so the image is of sayings that sting a listener into moving. The same tool appears in Acts, where Paul is told it is hard to kick against them.

In the old-age poem of Ecclesiastes 12, which tree's blossom is traditionally read as a picture of white hair?

The almond tree flowers pale on bare winter branches, so most older commentators saw in it a head gone white. The same poem has a grasshopper dragging itself along and mourners in the streets.