_Who is as the wise man?_ The question comes in abruptly as from a teacher who calls the attention of his scholars to things that are φωνήεντα συνέτοισιν ("significant to those who understand") and remind us of the "He that hath ears to hear let him hear" in our Lord's teaching (Matthew 11:15; Matth... [ Continue Reading ]
_I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment_ The words in Italics "_counsel thee_," have nothing answering to them in the Hebrew, and the grammar of the sentence does not allow us to translate with the Vulgate, "I keep the king's commandment." The pronoun on the other hand is emphatic and it intr... [ Continue Reading ]
_Be not hasty to go out of his sight_ The phrase is explained by Genesis 4:16; Hosea 11:2 as implying flight or desertion. Such a flight the Teacher looks on as an act of impatient unwisdom. It is better to bear the yoke, than to seek an unattainable independence. So those who have grown grey in pol... [ Continue Reading ]
_Where the word of a king is, there is power_ Better, FORASMUCH AS THE WORD OF A KING IS POWER, or rather AUTHORITY. The latter word in the Hebrew text is used in Chaldee as meaning a ruler, or potentate. In the last clause, "Who may say unto him, What doest thou?" we have an echo of Job 34:13, wher... [ Continue Reading ]
_Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing_ The words are once again ambiguous. If the "commandment" is that of the king, they enjoin unhesitating servile obedience as in the interpretation (3) of Ecclesiastes 8:3. If, according to the all but invariable use of the word in the O. T., we... [ Continue Reading ]
_Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore_ The English conjunctions misrepresent the sequence of thought, and we should read " FOR to every purpose there is time and judgment, FOR the misery (or, better, _the wickedness_) of man …" The wise man waits for the time of judgment, f... [ Continue Reading ]
_For he knoweth not that which shall be_ The subject of the sentence is apparently the wicked and tyrannous ruler. He goes on with infatuated blindness to the doom that lies before him. The same thought appears in the mediæval proverb, "_Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat_," or, in our modern con... [ Continue Reading ]
_There is no man that hath power over the spirit_ The word for "spirit," may mean either "the wind" or the "spirit," the "breath of life" in man, and each sense has been adopted by many commentators. Taking the former, which seems preferable, the latter involving a repetition of the same thought in... [ Continue Reading ]
_All this have I seen_ The formula which had been used before (chs. Ecclesiastes 5:18; Ecclesiastes 7:23) to enforce the results of the DEBATER'S experience of life in general, is now employed to emphasize the wide range of the political induction on which the conclusions of the previous verses rest... [ Continue Reading ]
_And so I saw the wicked buried_ The English version is scarcely intelligible, and as far as it is so, goes altogether astray. We must therefore begin with a new translation, AND SO I HAVE SEEN THE WICKED BURIED AND THEY WENT THEIR WAY (_i. e._died a natural death and were carried to the grave); BUT... [ Continue Reading ]
_Because sentence against an evil work_ The word for "sentence" is only found here and in Esther 1:20, where it is translated "decree" and is probably of Persian origin. Its primary meaning seems to be "a thing sent" and so the king's missive or edict. The point of the reflection is that the anomaly... [ Continue Reading ]
_Though a sinner do evil an hundred times_ The definite number is used, of course, as in Proverbs 17:10; or the "hundred years" of Isaiah 65:20; or the "seventy times seven" of Matthew 18:22, for the indefinite. There is no adequate reason for inserting "years" instead of "times." By some grammarian... [ Continue Reading ]
_neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow_ The words seem at first in direct contradiction to the admission of the previous verse. But it is of the nature of the method of the book to teach by paradoxes, and to let the actual contradictions of the world reflect themselves in his teac... [ Continue Reading ]
_There is a vanity_ There is something almost painful in the iteration of the ever-recurring thought that after all there are disorders in the world. A modern writer, we feel, would have pruned, condensed, and avoided such a repetition of himself. We are dealing, however, with "Thoughts" like Pascal... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then I commended mirth_ As before in chs. Ecclesiastes 2:14; Ecclesiastes 3:12; Ecclesiastes 3:22; Ecclesiastes 5:18, the Epicurean element of thought mingles with the higher fear of God, to which the seeker had just risen. There, at least, in regulated enjoyment, free from vices, and not without t... [ Continue Reading ]
_When I applied mine heart to know wisdom_ The opening formula has met us before in ch. Ecclesiastes 1:13. The parenthetical clause expresses, with a familiar imagery, the sleepless meditation that had sought in vain the solution of the problem which the order and disorder of the world presented. So... [ Continue Reading ]
_then I beheld all the work of God_ The confession is like that which we have had before in chap. Ecclesiastes 7:23-24: perhaps, also, we may add, like that of a very different writer dealing with a very different question, "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out" (Romans... [ Continue Reading ]