Ecclesiastes has some things to say about COVID-19
The ancient wisdom text urges us to find joy in the limits of the present moment.
As a biblical scholar, whenever I’ve been asked in recent days what scripture has to say in our present time of crisis, I have tended to refer people to the treasure trove of the Psalms, those prayers of pain and grief and rage. I also point to the book of Amos, that brutal prophet of doom, which could have been written late last week.
But there’s another book of great moment for our present moment, in which we face the interconnected crises of global pandemic, economic disparity, and racial injustice. It’s the odd little book of Ecclesiastes, also known as Qoheleth, the Hebrew title, after its primary speaker.
One rarely hears Ecclesiastes in church these days, though the poem found in 3:1–8 is well known, due in part to “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” the Pete Seeger song that became a hit for the Byrds. The poem is a set of 14 opposed pairs of seasons: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to love and a time to hate, and so forth.
