Bad experiences in life are something you want to block out. However, you cannot avoid bad experiences. You pass Everyone has their own troublesome experiences in life. The longer you are young, the more such negative experiences you have. What do we do with it?
It does not matter
How we live does matter. By that I don’t just mean emphasizing good experiences. Equally important is the way we deal with bad and difficult experiences. Do we succeed in affirming the good as well as the bad? Can we integrate both in our lives?
Of course, there are some pitfalls. You can get stuck in the negative experiences of the past. Then it will be difficult to move forward. Others have upright trouble with their own challenges and create strategies with which they can avoid their fear (fear avoidance strategies). Maybe you can not live alone and avoid the fear by always new relationships. Or one has been hurt in relationships and withdraws completely, not temporarily, but definitely. That would be a symptom control, but not a solution. How do we deal with things like this?
But then there are also people who manage to accept life as it is. They learn to integrate the good and the bad, to embrace the negative experiences as part of their own lives. Of course, this does not mean talking the bad good, but rather acknowledging the experience of the bad as part of one’s life. “This is painful and difficult, but it is part of my experience and therefore belongs to me.” Then it’s more about how to overcome the past, how to come out of it with gain, and how to face your own fear with courage. This is often not easy and usually cannot be solved alone.
This primordial human experience is not new. We also find you back in the Bible. We are talking about ordinary people. They have similar experiences as we know them. In the book of Ecclesiastes, which according to self-reporting was recorded by King Solomon (Eccl. 1:1), we read something remarkable about this.
A nasty business
The first chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes says the following:
“And I set my heart to search out and inquire in wisdom into all that is done under heaven. An evil business has God ⟨
da
⟩
given to the children of men to labor in it.”
Ecclesiastes 1:13 (Elberfelder Translation)
King Solomon observed the world and the people in it. He wrote down this observation. Right at the beginning it says, “An evil business hath God given unto the children of men.” We will deal with these words a bit here.
How one interprets this depends on how one translates. If you look at the verse as a whole information, then exploring things is a “nasty business”. Solomon speaks about his own experience, so to speak, and says that this research about the world is troublesome. God would have given him (and all people) this “longing for understanding” so that everyone discovers their own limitations.
However, it can likewise be a general statement. Then Solomon describes something he discovered while investigating about the world. He reports – first – this central insight, which he describes here.
Before we dive deeper into the meaning of the words, we can already tease out a relationship that Solomon outlines here. He speaks of this world as God’s world. God acts. God “gives.” He gives something to the people in this world. For Solomon, it was apparently natural to talk about God and the world in the same breath, as if they belonged together. Likewise it becomes clear that God is incomparably differently estimated than humans. That is why God gives something to people. This world and the experience in the world originate – in the last consequence – from Him.
If we listen carefully, the sentence goes further: “An evil business hath God given ⟨da⟩unto the children of men to labor therein.” There is a connection here. The evil business spoken of in the Elberfeld translation has an effect. People had to “toil in it.” One belongs to the other.
God gives an experience
In the aforementioned verse, an “evil business” is mentioned. This does not mean “doing business.” The expression must be understood in context. This is about our life and how Solomon recognizes this world. The word “business” speaks of an activity, of what we do in this life. It shapes our experience.
In Hebrew it says:
עִנְיַ֣ן רָ֗ע נָתַ֧ן אֱלֹהִ֛ים לִבְנֵ֥י הָאָדָ֖ם לַעֲנֹ֥ות בֹּֽו
A “nasty business” concerns the first two words of this sentence(עִנְיַ֣ן רָ֗ע). The word עִנְיַ֣ן(inyan), translated as “business,” derives from an idea of observing something with the eyes continuously(Jeff Benner, Ancient Hebrew Lexicon). So the word “business” is something that has to do with the “daily business,” the daily occupation and our experience in this world. Many words have a simple origin, which only over time acquired various derived meanings. The Concordant Old Testament translates here:
“It is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it.”
Interlinear PDF via scipture4all.org
In German: “It is an experience of evil that Elohim has given to the sons of men, to humble them through it”. The word used here(עִנְיַ֣ן, inyan) is found in this form exclusively in the book of Ecclesiastes, in the following places:
- Ecc 1:13; Ecc 2:23; Ecc 2:26; Ecc 3:10; Ecc 4:8; Ecc 5:2; Ecc 5:13; Ecc 8:16.
From these occurrences it can be deduced that it is the experience of man that is central in each case. Almost identical to the first chapter is the statement in Ecclesiastes 5:13, where again experience and evil are central:
“And is such wealth lost by an unfortunate event.”
Elberfelder
וְאָבַ֛ד הָעֹ֥שֶׁר הַה֖וּא
בְּעִנְיַ֣ן
רָ֑ע
וְהֹולִ֣יד בֵּ֔ן וְאֵ֥ין בְּיָדֹ֖ו מְאֽוּמָה
Hebrew
“Then these riches perish through some experience of evil.”
Concordant Old Testament
Experience of evil
Ecclesiastes has set his heart on “inquiring in wisdom into all things that are done under heaven” and then reports “It is an experience of evil which Elohim has given to the sons of men, to humble them thereby.”
What bad things befall man, Solomon said, humbles man. Of course, experienced evil can cry out for justice and redemption. But that is not what he is emphasizing here. He is concerned with demonstrating the nothingness and transience of this world. Already, the first verses of this book are particularly sobering: “Nothingness of nothingness! – says the preacher; nothingness of nothingness, everything is nothingness! What profit has man from all his toil with which he labors under the sun?” (Eccl 1:2-3).
These first sentences of the book could be considered a heading over the whole book. It is something like a summary. The rest of the book is just an elaboration of these sentences. This is also true for this statement about the experience of evil. This experience, too, shows how void and transient our existence is.
What does the experience of evil do to us?
What we should not do here is make a pious interpretation in the sense of “God wants me to be humble.” That is not the issue. We are not asked to be humble, but it is the experience of evil that makes us humble. We do not have to act “as if”, but are brought to the point that we “are”. With such statements, the Bible is extraordinarily sober. It describes what is going on.
The experience of evil leads to humility. The word translated here as experience has the same root as the word humble. It is one of the observations that we too can make in life. Those who have had more experiences – and have processed them well – become more humble and are also less likely to judge. Because Solomon wanted to understand “what is done under heaven,” his observation concerns man. Where do we stand in the world? Why does it actually work?
The sober inventory of Solomon considers all our activities as “nothingness”. We are busy, but what is the benefit of being busy? Wealth? Good or bad experience? What is it? These are the questions he was thinking about.
From what relationship do we live?
Here is the question worth thinking about: out of what relationship do we live? That defines how we recognize the experience and also shape it ourselves. What is the larger context in which we stand? For Solomon, while speaking on the one hand about his observation of people, also speaks of God, who is above all. He is the giver of the gift. We are receivers. He is God. We are and remain human.
The experience of evil makes us humble, makes us realize who we are, that not we have everything in our hands. Fatalism cannot be seen in Solomon, but sobriety in view of this world.
