_The words of the Preacher_ For the title of the Book and the meaning of the word translated "Preacher" (better, DEBATER, or, perhaps, as the Hebrew noun has no article, Koheleth, as a proper name, carrying with it the meaning of DEBATER), see _Introduction_. The description "king in Jerusalem" is i... [ Continue Reading ]
_Vanity of vanities_ The form is the highest type (as in the "servant of servants" of Genesis 9:25, the "chief over the chief" of Numbers 3:32) of the Hebrew superlative. The word translated "vanity," identical with the name Abel or _Hebel_(Genesis 4:2) means primarily a "breath," or "vapour," and a... [ Continue Reading ]
_What profit hath a man_ The question is, it is obvious, as in the analogous question of Matthew 16:26, the most emphatic form of a negation. For "all his labour which he taketh" read ALL HIS TOIL WHICH HE TOILETH, the Hebrew giving the emphasis of the combination of the verb with its cognate substa... [ Continue Reading ]
_One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh_ The sentence loses in strength by the words inserted in italics. Better, GENERATION PASSETH AND GENERATION COMETH. This is, as it were, the first note of vanity. Man, in idea the lord of the earth, is but as a stranger tarrying for a day.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The sun also ariseth_ From the standpoint of modern thought the sun might seem even more than the earth to be the type of permanent existence, but with the Hebrew, who looked on it in its phenomenal aspect, it was not so, and the sun accordingly appears as presenting not a contrast, but a parallel,... [ Continue Reading ]
_The wind goeth toward the south_ This comes after the sun as exhibiting a like, though more irregular, law of mutability. "South and north" only are named, partly, perhaps, because east and west were implied in the sunrise and sunset of the previous verse, more probably because these were the preva... [ Continue Reading ]
_All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full_ The words express the wonder of the earliest observers of the phenomena of nature: as they observed, the poet described. So we have in Aristophanes (_Clouds_, 1248), αὕτη μὲν (ἡ θάλαττα) οὐδὲν γίγνεται ἐπιῤῥεοντων τῶν ποταμῶν, πλείων. "T... [ Continue Reading ]
_All things are full of labour_ The Hebrew _dabar_may mean either "word" or "thing," and so the sentence admits equally of this or the nearly equivalent rendering, ALL THINGS ARE WEARY WITH TOIL and ALL WORDS ARE FEEBLE, and each gives, it is obvious, a fairly tenable meaning. The first generalizes... [ Continue Reading ]
_The thing that hath been_ What has been affirmed of natural phenomena is now repeated of the events of human life. The writer reproduces or anticipates the Stoic doctrine of a recurring cycle of events which we find reproduced in Virgil: "Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo. Alter erit tum T... [ Continue Reading ]
_Is there any thing_ A man may challenge, the writer seems to say, the sweeping assertion just uttered. He may point to some new phenomenon, some new empire, some invention of art, or discovery of science. It is all to no purpose. It has been before in the vast æons (the Hebrew word for "of old time... [ Continue Reading ]
_There is no remembrance of former things_ Better, OF FORMER MEN, or OF THOSE OF OLD TIME, and so in the next clause OF THOSE THAT SHALL COME AFTER. The thought of the oblivion of the past, suggested in the previous verse, as explaining the fact that some things seem new to us which are not so, is r... [ Continue Reading ]
_I the Preacher was king over Israel_ Better, " I … HAVE BEEN king." It would, perhaps, be too much to say that this mode of introducing himself, is so artificial as to exclude, as some have thought, the authorship of the historical Solomon. Louis XIV."s way of speaking of himself "_Quand ĵ etois ro... [ Continue Reading ]
_I gave my heart_ The phrase, so expressive of the spirit of an earnest seeker, is eminently characteristic of this book and meets us again in Ecclesiastes 1:17, chaps. Ecclesiastes 7:25; Ecclesiastes 8:9; Ecclesiastes 8:16. Like forms are found in Isai. 41:42; Psalms 48:14. "Heart" with the Hebrews... [ Continue Reading ]
_all is vanity and vexation of spirit_ The familiar words, though they fall in with the DEBATER'S tone and have the support of the Vulg. "_afflictio spiritus_," hardly express the meaning of the Hebrew and we must read "VANITY AND FEEDING UPON WIND." The phrase has its parallel in Hosea 12:2 ("Ephra... [ Continue Reading ]
_That which is crooked_ The words are apparently a proverbial saying quoted as already current. The complaint is that the search after wisdom brings the seeker face to face with anomalies and defects, which yet he cannot rectify. The Hebrew words are not the same, but we may, perhaps, trace an allus... [ Continue Reading ]
_Lo, I am come to great estate_ The pronoun is used emphatically. The verb in the Hebrew is connected closely with what follows and speaks not of outward majesty but of "becoming great," in wisdom. So taken we may read, " I BECAME GREAT AND INCREASED IN WISDOM MORE THAN ALL. " We note again, as in E... [ Continue Reading ]
_And I gave my heart_ The apparent iteration of the phrase of Ecclesiastes 1:13 expresses the concentration of purpose. The writer adds that his search took a yet wider range. He sought to know wisdom through its opposite, to enlarge his experience of the diseases of human thought. He had fathomed t... [ Continue Reading ]
_in much wisdom is much grief_ The same sad sentence was written on the study of man's nature in its greatness and its littleness, its sanity and insanity. The words have passed into a proverb, and were, perhaps, proverbial when the DEBATER wrote them. The mere widening of the horizon, whether of et... [ Continue Reading ]