wind”).26 This nuance can be seen in 2:11, where Qohelet assesses his works and judges them futile because they produced no profit. These two nuances together still do not cover all of Qohelet’s uses of הבל. For example, the situation described in 8:14, where righteous men receive what evil men should receive, and evil men receive what righteous men should receive, is not merely vain or futile, and surely Qohelet is not using הבל to show that the situation is fleeting or transitory. Instead, this
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