Ecclesiastes 1:15

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 allusive reference to the promise of Isaiah 40:4 that "the crooked shall be made straight," and the Debater in his present mood looks on this also as a delusive dream. There is nothing left but to take things as they are and "accept the inevitable." Comp. chap. Ecclesiastes 7:13, as expressing the same thought.

that which is wanting The second clause presents the negative aspect of the world's defects as "crooked" did the positive. Everywhere, if there is nothing absolutely evil, there is an "incompleteness" which we cannot remedy, any more than our skill in arithmetic can make up for a deficit which stares us in the face when we look into an account, and the seeker had not as yet attained to the faith which sees beyond that incompleteness the ultimate completeness of the Divine order.