THE NEW JPS COMMENTARY ON ECCLESIATES, by Michael V. Fox, is reviewed in this AP article:

Trying to make sense of Ecclesiastes

By Richard N. Ostling
The Associated Press
Posted July 16 2004

What is the Book of Ecclesiastes doing in the Bible? This astonishing little masterwork from ancient Israel struggles with concepts found elsewhere in the Scriptures.

The writer of Ecclesiastes is greatly perplexed that evil people often prosper while good ones suffer, and says that life sometimes seems to lack meaning or makes no sense. It asks, how do things fit together?

The issues are sifted, if not exactly answered, in Ecclesiastes, the latest of the Jewish Publication Society's commentaries on biblical books. The series is excellent in quality, but pricey (this 87-page book costs $34.95).

Ecclesiastes provides the Hebrew text, the JPS English translation, and an introduction and verse-by-verse comments from Michael V. Fox, professor of Hebrew at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.

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The book's speaker, known as Koheleth or "the Preacher," struggles with the shortness of life, the futility of effort, the triviality of material goods, the vulnerability of wisdom and the apparent violations of justice. But "the irrationality of the world is the fundamental grievance," Fox writes.


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