Der ferne Gott als Richter? Zur theologischen Deutung weltlicher Ungerechtigkeit im Koheletbuch

For Qoheleth, oppression and perversion of justice are social realities that continue without any hope of justice being restored in this world or the next. The idea of God as a judge is alien to Qoheleth and it is only introduced in the course of an editorial reworking of the book in Qoh 3:17; 11:9b; 12:12-14. In this process, two motifs which are of central importance for Qoheleth's thinking are taken up and brought to a new synthesis: The divine determination of the seasons on the one hand and the fate of mortality indiscriminatingly shared by all humans on the other hand allow the editor to conclude that God had determined a time for the eschatological judgment of the righteous and the wicked.