Advent 2019, day four

When Qohelet speaks of the approach of death as ‘the days of evil come,’ he does not mean moral evil, but something akin to Colin Dexter naming the novel in which Inspector Morse dies The Remorseful Day (itself taken from a poem by A E Houseman). Death comes to us all, leaving things undone that ought to have been done. But death is also a door, a frame, through which we step out of one thing and into another. Indeed, looking back over the years, it has been so our whole life, the threshold we cross back and forth in ten thousand-thousand rehearsals. Qohelet again:

Everything has a season, and a time for every

matter under the heavens.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to rip down and a time to build.

A time to weep and a time to laugh.

A time to mourn and a time to dance.

A time to fling stones and a time to gather stones in.

[In English, we might say, A time to sow your wild oats and a time for your chickens to come home to roost.]

A time to embrace and a time to pull back from embracing.

A time to seek and a time to lose.

A time to keep and a time to fling away.

A time to tear and a time to sew.

A time to keep silent and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace.

What gain is there for him who does in what he toils?

(Qohelet 3:1-9)

(Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, The Writings, pp. 685, 686)