Ecclesiastes 7:24

That which is far off and exceeding deep The English of the latter clause scarcely expresses the Hebrew more emphatic iteration and deep deep. By some interpreters a like iteration is supplied in the first clause, far off is that which is far, but there does not seem adequate ground for thus altering the text. Rather are the first words to be taken of substantial being, far off from us is that which is (the τὰ ὄντα of Greek thought, the sum total of things past and present). So in another and later Jewish book impregnated, like this, with Greek thought, wisdom is described as a τῶν ὄντων γνῶσις ἀψευδής ("a true knowledge of the things that are" Wis 7:17). Comp. Job 11:7-8; Romans 11:33, for like language as to the Divine Counsels.