_For all this I considered in my heart_ More literally, FOR TO ALL THIS I GAVE MY HEART TO DIG THROUGH, _i.e._to explain and penetrate to the secret of the great enigma of life. _that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God_ The words hover, as it were, between the thou... [ Continue Reading ]
_All things come alike to all_ As before, the seeker sees no order or purpose in the chances and changes of life. Earthquakes, pestilences, tempests make no discrimination between good and evil. As with the melancholy emphasis of iteration, the various forms of contrasted characters are grouped toge... [ Continue Reading ]
_This is an evil among all things_ The pessimism of the thinker returns once more upon him, and he falls into the strain which we have heard before in chs. Ecclesiastes 2:14-16; Ecclesiastes 3:19; Ecclesiastes 5:15; Ecclesiastes 6:12. The great leveller comes and sweeps away all distinctions, and th... [ Continue Reading ]
_For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope_ A different and preferable punctuation gives the rendering: FOR WHO IS SPECIALLY CHOSEN, _i.e._ WHO IS EXCEPTED from the common lot of death. TO ALL THE LIVING THERE IS HOPE. The passage has, however, received many conflicting interpretatio... [ Continue Reading ]
_For the living know that they shall die_ The writer in one of the strange paradoxes of the mood of pessimism finds that though life is vanity, it is yet better than the death which he looks upon as its only outcome. There is a greatness in the very consciousness of the coming doom. Man, knowing he... [ Continue Reading ]
_Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished_ The three passions are named as strongest and most vehement in their action. Even these are all hushed in the calm of the grave. There are no passions there, and the deadliest foes, rival statesmen and bitter controversialists, res... [ Continue Reading ]
_Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy_ The DEBATER falls back, as before, on the Epicurean rule of tranquil regulated enjoyment, as in chs. Ecclesiastes 2:24; Ecclesiastes 3:12; Ecclesiastes 3:22; Ecclesiastes 5:18. Life was after all liveable, if a man would but set himself to look at its brighter si... [ Continue Reading ]
_Let thy garments be always white_ In the symbolism of colours, so universal that we may almost call it natural, white garments, cool and refreshing in the heat of an Eastern climate, have always been associated with the idea of purity and joy (2 Chronicles 5:12; Esther 8:15). In the religious symbo... [ Continue Reading ]
_Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest_ The absence of the article from the Hebrew noun for "woman" has been wrongly pressed by interpreters who see in the DEBATER the advocate of sensuality, as indicating indifference to the marriage union ("live joyfully with _a_woman whom thou lovest, whet... [ Continue Reading ]
_Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do_ Here again men have interpreted the maxim according to their characters; some seeing in "whatsoever thy hand findeth" simply opportunities for enjoyment; others taking the precept as meaning practically, "do whatever thou hast strength to do, let might be right wi... [ Continue Reading ]
_that the race is not to the swift_ The sequence of thought is that while it is a man's wisdom to do the work which he finds ready to his hand, he must not reckon on immediate and visible results. The course of the world witnesses many apparent failures even where men fulfil the apparent conditions... [ Continue Reading ]
_as the fishes that are taken in an evil net_ The words paint vividly the suddenness of calamities which defeat all men's purposes and plans. The imagery was a natural one in any country, and meets us in Hosea 7; Ezekiel 12:13; Ezekiel 32:3; Proverbs 7:23; but it is interesting to note a parallel in... [ Continue Reading ]
_This wisdom have I seen also_ The DEBATER points the moral of his previous maxim by a special illustration and it can scarcely be doubted that it was one which his first readers would recognise, though the nature of his method led him to speak as in hints and dark sayings, eschewing the historical... [ Continue Reading ]
_there was a little city_ The city has been identified by one commentator (Hitzig) with Dora, which was besieged unsuccessfully by Antiochus the Great in b.c. 218 (Polyb. 9:66). Josephus describes it, in his narrative of its siege by Antiochus Sidetes (_Ant._xiii. 7, § 2), as "a city hard to be take... [ Continue Reading ]
_and he by his wisdom delivered the city_ The history of the siege of Abel-beth-Maachah in 2 Samuel 20:14-20 presents a suggestive parallel, but there the wisdom that delivered the city was that of a woman.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Wisdom is better than strength_ The maxim of ch. Ecclesiastes 7:19 is reproduced, but it is traversed by the fact that the wisdom must often be content to remain unrecognised. The power of the purse too often prevails against the wisdom of the poor. At the best, often, in words already quoted (Eccl... [ Continue Reading ]
_The words of wise men are heard in quiet_ The thought is like that of the "great cry and little wool" of the English proverb. That which tells on men, in the long run, is the wisdom whose words are wary, and calm, and few, not the declamation of the wind-bags of popular oratory. Comp. the descripti... [ Continue Reading ]
_Wisdom is better than weapons of war_ The maxim presents another illustration of the irony of history. The excellence of wisdom is acknowledged. Counsel is more than the _materiel_of war; the statesman more than the general, and yet one man by his guilt or folly, by the perversity which includes bo... [ Continue Reading ]