“Fear God and Keep his Commandments”: The Character of Man and the Judgment of God in the Epilogue of Ecclesiastes

In the book of Ecclesiastes, the motif of “fear of God” can be designated as the supreme
song and quintessence of biblical piety. This motif that appears seven times in the book
(3,14; 5,7; 7,18; 8,12, twice, 13; 12,13), finds in its epilogue its theological synthesis.
However, the passage in Ecclesiastes 12,13.14 has been commonly evaluated by book
scholars as a later textual addition by a second author or simply the intervention of a wise
commentator. In this article the text of Ecclesiastes 12,13-14 will be approached (with
special emphasis on verse 13), through an exegetical analysis according to its own textual
design within the book, examining its vocabulary both in its two final verses as well as
throughout chapter 12. Also will be analyzed the linguistic connections with the rest of
the book and how this passage turns out to be an elaborate conclusion of the wise writer.
In this study, some intertextual relations with sapiential, poetic, and prophetic literature
will be examined, with the purpose of demonstrating how this text offers us a rich
theology for the entire Hebrew Bible focused especially on the important relationship
between the moral character of the human being, the Decalogue as their fundamental life
norm, and the eschatological orientation of the last verses of Ecclesiastes. The Qohelet’s
epilogue can be considered a veritable master theological work and the present article will
seek to investigate in this passage and its truths for our time