The Bible in the News
compiled by Leonard Greenspoon

The Book of Ecclesiastes
In George W. Bush’s inaugural address, he quoted Ecclesiastes 9:11: "We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong." What would the Preacher (a common, if imprecise, rendering of the Hebrew title, Qoheleth, "Assembler") think of all this? As an experienced politician and astute observer of the world, he probably would not be surprised.

Nor should we be. Over the past decade or so, Ecclesiastes has earned an honorable place in the public rhetoric of the United States and beyond. The particular phrase Bush intoned has been deemed most ppropriate for lofty occasions, such as an inauguration, or sad ones, such as the funerals of Pamela Harriman, the American ambassador to France, in February 1997, and Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, in April 1996.

But this is not the most popular passage uttered by Qoheleth. That honor undoubtedly belongs to the poetic section in chapter three, introduced by the words, "For everything there is a season" (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). So, for example, in January 1991, when President George Bush wanted to buttress his moral arguments in support of the Persian Gulf War, he declared to the National "eligious Broadcasters Association: "We did not want war, but you all know the verse from Ecclesiastes: ‘There is a time for peace, a time for war.’ In August 1991 Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev quoted a neighboring verse while bidding goodbye to President Bush at the Kremlin: "To everything there is a season … a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together" (Ecclesiastes 3:5).

By far the most memorable—and moving—quotation of Ecclesiastes came during Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s address at the September 1993 signing of the Israel-PLO peace pact. He concluded his remarks by quoting Ecclesiastes 3:8: "A time to love, and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace." He then declared, "Ladies and gentleman, the time for peace has come."
[Greenspoon's text ends here in the print edition.]

Ecclesiastes has also found its way into more partisan political oratory. (One can't help thinking that the Preacher would have approved.) When asked repeatedly in 1997 whether he planned to run for the presidency in 2000, Vice President Al Gore characteristically replied, "For everything there is a season," adding, "Now is not the season for that." Five years before, Gore used another, less often quoted passage from Ecclesiastes ("Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might") during campaign rallies. In July 2000, Bill Clinton cited Ecclesiastes 11:25 ("in the day of prosperity, there is forgetfulness of affliction") in urging delegates at the annual meeting of the NAACP to continue to focus attention on the plight of the less fortunate. And on the Sunday before November's election, the pastor at Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Jamaica, Queens, New York, applied Ecclesiastes's "a time and a season" to "Sister Hillary," saying, "This is her season. Brother Bill had his season, and his season is almost ending. But God is raising up another woman of God in the Clinton family." In early December, with the outcome of the presidential election still unclear, Hadassah Lieberman turned to Ecclesiastes to offer comfort to her fellow Americans: "We are going through a very difficult time, and our country is," she observed, "but I think 'this too will pass'—I quote Ecclesiastes."

When Bob Dole left the U.S. Senate in June 1996 to run for president, he also made reference to Ecclesiastes: "I think my season in the Senate is about to end." And among George Bush's last statements as president (in January 1993) was what appears to be an inspired combination of Ecclesiastes and Kenny Rogers: "There's a time to go, a time to stay, a time to fold 'em."