{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ECC","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Ecclesiastes","commonName":"Ecclesiastes","introduction":"The Book of Ecclesiastes\n\nIntroduction\n\nIf we look at the world without God, it appears what it is - a magnificent, graduated combination of diverse classes of beings, connected causes and effects, well-calculated means and ends. But thus contemplated, the world as a whole remains a mystery. If, with the atheist, we lay aside the idea of God, then, notwithstanding the law of causation, which is grounded in our mental nature, we abandon the question of the origin of the world. If, with the pantheist, we transfer the idea of God to the world itself, then the effect is made to be as one with the cause - not, however, without the conception of God, which is inalienable in man, reacting against it; for one cannot but distinguish between substance and its phenomena. The mysteries of the world which meet man as a moral being remain, under this view of the world, altogether without solution. For the moral order of the world presupposes an absolutely good Being, from whom it has proceeded, and who sustains it; it demands a Lawgiver and a Judge. Apart from the reference to this Being, the distinction between good and evil loses its depth and sharpness. Either there is no God, or all that is and happens is a moment in the being and life of God Himself, who is identical with the world: thus must the world-destructive power of sin remain unrecognised. The opinion as to the state of the world will, from a pantheistic point of view, rise to optimism; just as, on the other hand, from an atheistic point of view, it will sink to pessimism. The commanding power of goodness even the atheist may recognise by virtue of the inner law peculiar to man as a moral being, but the divine consecration is wanting to this goodness; and if human life is a journey from nothing to nothing, then this will be the best of all goodness: that man set himself free from the evil reality, and put his confidence in nothing. \"Him who views the world,\" says Buddhism, \"as a water-bubble, a phantom, the king of death does not terrify. What pleasure, what joy is in this world? Behold the changing form-it is undone by old age; the diseased body - it dissolves and corrupts! 'I have sons and treasures; here will I dwell in the season of the cold, and there in the time of the heat:' thus thinks the fool; and cares not for, and sees not, the hindrances thereto. Him who is concerned about sons and treasures - the man who has his heart so entangled - death tears away, as the torrent from the forest sweeps away the slumbering village.\" The view taken of the world, and the judgment formed regarding it, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, are wholly different. While in the Book of Esther faith in God remains so much in the background that there is nowhere in it express mention made of God, the name of God occurs in Ecclesiastes no fewer than thirty-seven times,\n\n(Note: האלהים, Ecc 2:24, Ecc 2:26; Ecc 3:11, Ecc 3:14 (twice), 15, 17, 18; Ecc 5:1, Ecc 5:5-6, Ecc 5:17-18 (Ecc 5:1, Ecc 5:2, Ecc 5:6-7, Ecc 5:18-19), 19 (20); Ecc 6:2 (twice); Ecc 7:13-14, Ecc 7:26, Ecc 7:29; Ecc 8:15, Ecc 8:17; Ecc 9:1, Ecc 9:7; Ecc 11:5, Ecc 11:9; Ecc 12:7, Ecc 12:13-14. אלהים, Ecc 3:10, Ecc 3:13; Ecc 5:3, Ecc 5:18; Ecc 7:18; Ecc 8:2, Ecc 8:13.)\n\nand that in such a way that the naming of Him is at the same time the confession of Him as the True God, the Exalted above the world, the Governor and the Ruler over all. And not only that: the book characterizes itself as a genuine product of the Israelitish Chokma by this, that, true to its motto, it places the command, \"Fear Thou God,\" Ecc 5:6, Ecc 5:7, Ecc 12:13, in the foremost rank as a fundamental moral duty; that it makes, Ecc 8:12, the happiness of man to be dependent thereon; that it makes, Ecc 7:18; Ecc 11:9; Ecc 12:14, his final destiny to be conditioned by his fearing God; and that it contemplates the world as one that was created by God very good, Ecc 3:11; Ecc 7:29, and as arranged, Ecc 3:14, and directed so that men should fear Him. These primary principles, to which the book again and again returns, are of special importance for a correct estimate of it.\n\nOf like decisive importance for the right estimate of the theistic, and at the same time also the pessimistic, view of the world presented by Koheleth is this, that he knows of no future life compensating for the troubles of the present life, and resolving its mystery. It is true that he says, Ecc 12:7, that the life-spirit of the man who dies returns to God who gave it, as the body returns to the dust of which it is formed; but the question asked in Ecc 3:21 shows that this preferring of the life-spirit of man to that of a beast was not, in his regard, raised above all doubt. And what does this return to God mean? By no means such a return unto God as amounts to the annihilation of the separate existence of the spirit of man; for, in the first place, there is the supposition of this separate existence running through the Bible; in the second place, נתנה, Ecc 12:7, does not point to an emanation; and in the third place, the idea of Hades prevailing in the consciousness of the ages before Christ, and which is also that of Koheleth, proves the contrary. Man exists also beyond the grave, but without the light and the force of thought and activity characterizing his present life, Ecc 9:5, Ecc 9:10. The future life is not better, but is worse than the present, a dense darkness enduring \"for ever,\" Ecc 9:6; Ecc 11:8; Ecc 12:5. It is true, indeed, that from the justice of God, and the experiences of the present life as standing in contradiction thereto, Ecc 8:14, the conclusion is drawn, Ecc 12:14; Ecc 11:9, that there is a last decisive judgment, bringing all to light; but this great thought, in which the interest of the book in the progress of religious knowledge comes to a climax, is as yet only an abstract postulate of faith, and not powerful enough to brighten the future; and therefore, also, not powerful enough to lift us above the miseries of the present.\n\nThat the author gives utterance to such thoughts of the future as Ecc 12:7 and Ecc 11:9; Ecc 12:14 - to which Wisd. 3:1 (\"The souls of the righteous are in God' hand, and no trouble moves them\") and Dan 12:2 (\"Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt\") are related, as being their expansion, - warrants the supposition that he disputes as little as Job does in chap. 14 the reality of a better future; but only that the knowledge of such a future was not yet given to him. In general, for the first time in the N.T. era, the hope of a better future becomes a common portion of the church's creed, resting on the basis of faith in the history of redemption warranting it; and is advanced beyond the isolated prophetic gleams of light, the mere postulates of faith that were ventured upon, and the unconfirmed opinions, of the times preceding Christ. The N.T. Scripture shows how altogether different this world of sin and of change appears to be since a world of recompense and of glory has been revealed as its background; since the Lord has pronounced as blessed those who weep, and not those who laugh; and since, with the apostle (Rom 8:18), we may be convinced that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to us. The goal of human life, with its labour and its sufferings, is now carried beyond the grave. That which is done under the sun appears only as a segment of the universal and everlasting operation, governed by the wisdom of God, the separate portions of which can only be understood in their connection with the whole. The estimate taken of this present world, apart from its connection with the future, must be one-sided. There are two worlds: the future is the solution of the mystery of the present.\n\nA N.T. believer would not be able to write such a book as that of Job, or even as that of Ecclesiastes, without sinning against revealed truth; without renouncing the better knowledge meanwhile made possible; without falling back to an O.T. standpoint. The author of the Book of Ecclesiastes is related to revealed religion in its O.T. manifestation, - he is a believer before the coming of Christ; but not such an one as all, or as most were, but of peculiar character and position. There are some natures that have a tendency to joyfulness, and others to sadness. The author of this book does not belong to the latter class; for if he did, the call to rejoice, Ecc 11:9, Ecc 8:15, etc., would not as it does pervade his book, as the χαίρετε, though in a deeper sense, pervades the Epistle to the Philippians. Neither does he belong to those superficial natures which see almost everything in a rosy light, which quickly and easily divest themselves of their own and of others' sorrows, and on which the stern earnestness of life can make no deep and lasting impressions. Nor is he a man of feeling, whom his own weakness makes a prophet of evil; not a predominatingly passive man, who, before he could fully know the world, withdrew from it, and now criticises it from his own retired corner in a careless, inattentive mood; but a man of action, with a penetrating understanding and a faculty of keen observation; a man of the world, who, from his own experience, knows the world on all its sides; a restless spirit, who has consumed himself in striving after that which truly satisfies. That this man, who was forced to confess that all science and art, all that table dainties, and the love of women, and riches, and honour yielded him, was at last but vanity and vexation of spirit, and who gained so deep an insight into the transitoriness and vanity of all earthly things, into the sorrows of this world of sin and death, and their perplexing mysteries, does not yet conclude by resigning himself to atheism, putting \"Nothing\" (Nirvna), or blind Fate, in the place of God, but firmly holds that the fear of God is the highest duty and the condition of all true prosperity, as it is the highest truth and the surest knowledge - that such is the case with him may well excite our astonishment; as well as this also, that he penetrates the known illusory character of earthly things in no overstrained manner, despising the world in itself, and also the gifts of God in it, but that he places his ultimatum as to the pure enjoyment of life within the limits of the fear of God, and extends it as widely as God permits. One might therefore call the Book of Koheleth, \"The Song of the Fear of God,\" rather than, as H. Heine does, \"The Song of Scepticism;\" for however great the sorrow of the world which is therein expressed, the religious conviction of the author remains in undiminished strength; and in the midst of all the disappointments in the present world, his faith in God, and in the rectitude of God, and in the victory of the good, stands firm as a rock, against which all the waves dash themselves into foam. \"This book,\" says another recent author,\n\n(Note: Hartmann's Das Lied vom Ewigen, St. Galle 1859, p. 12.)\n\n\"which contains almost as many contradictions as verses, may be regarded as the Breviary of the most modern materialism, and of extreme licentiousness.\" He who can thus speak has not read the book with intelligence. The appearance of materialism arises from this, that the author sees in the death of man an end similar to that of beasts; and that is certainly so far true, but it is not the whole truth. In the knowledge of the reverse side of the matter he does not come beyond the threshold, because His hand was not yet there - viz. the hand of the Arisen One - which could help him over it. And as for the supposed licentiousness, Ecc 9:7-9 shows, by way of example, how greatly the fear of God had guarded him from concluding his search into all earthly things with the disgust of a worn-out libertine.\n\nBut there are certainly self-contradictions in the Book of Ecclesiastes. They have a twofold ground. They are, on the one hand, the reflection of the self-contradicting facts which the author affirms. Thus, e.g., Ecc 3:11, he says that God has set eternity in the heart of man, but that man cannot find out from the beginning to the end the work which God maketh; Ecc 3:12-13, that the best thing in this world is for a man to enjoy life; but to be able to do this, is a gift of God; Ecc 8:12, Ecc 8:14, that it goes well with them that fear God, but ill with the godless. But there is also the contrary - which is just the ground-tone of the book, that everything has its But; only the fear of God, after all that appertains to the world is found to be as vanitas vanitatum, remains as the kernel without the shell, but the commandment of the fear of God as a categorical imperative, the knowledge that the fear of God is in itself the highest happiness, and fellowship with God the highest good, remain unexpressed; the fear of God is not combined with the love of God, as e.g., in Ps 73 it serves only for warning and not for comfort. On the other hand, the book also contains contradictions, which consists in contrasts which the author is not in a condition to explain and adjust. Thus, e.g., the question whether the spirit of a dying man, in contrast to that of a beast, takes its way upwards, Ecc 3:21, is proposed as one capable of a double answer; but Ecc 12:7 answers it directly in the affirmative; the author has good grounds for the affirmative, but yet no absolute proofs. And while he denies the light of consciousness and the energy of activity to those who have gone down to Hades, Ecc 9:10, he maintains that there is a final decisive judgment of a holy and righteous God of all human conduct, Ecc 11:9; Ecc 12:14, which, since there is frequently not a righteous requital given on earth, Ecc 8:14, and since generally the issue here does not bring to light, Ecc 9:2, the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, will take place in eternity; but it is difficult to comprehend how he has reconciled the possibility of such a final judgment with the shadowy nature of existence after death.\n\nThe Book of Koheleth is, on the one side, a proof of the power of revealed religion which has grounded faith in God, the One God, the All-wise Creator and Governor of the world, so deeply and firmly in the religious consciousness, that even the most dissonant and confused impressions of the present world are unable to shake it; and, on the other side, it is a proof of the inadequacy of revealed religion in its O.T. form, since the discontent and the grief which the monotony, the confusion, and the misery of this earth occasion, remain thus long without a counterbalance, till the facts of the history of redemption shall have disclosed and unveiled the heavens above the earth. In none of the O.T. books does the Old Covenant appear as it does in the Book of Koheleth, as \"that which decayeth and waxeth old, and is ready to vanish away\" (Heb 8:13). If the darkness of earth must be enlightened, then a New Covenant must be established; for heavenly love, which is at the same time heavenly wisdom, enters into human nature and overcomes sin, death, and Hades, and removes the turning-point of the existence of man from this to the future life. The finger of prophecy points to this new era. And Koheleth, from amid his heaps of ruins, shows how necessary it is that the heavens should now soon open above the earth.\n\nIt is a view of the world, dark, and only broken by scattered gleams of light, not disowning its sullenness even where it recommends the happy enjoyment of life, which runs through the book in a long series of dissonances, and gives to it a peculiar character. It is thus intentionally a homogeneous whole; but is it also divided into separate parts according to a plan? That we may be able to answer this question, we subject the contents of the book to a searching analysis, step by step, yet steadily keeping the whole in view. This will at the same time also serve as a preparation for the exposition of the book.\n\nHere below, all things under the sun are vanity. The labour of man effects nothing that is enduring, and all that is done is only a beginning and a vanishing away again, repeating itself in a never-ending circle: these are the thoughts of the book which stand as its motto, Ecc 1:2-11.\n\nKoheleth-Solomon, who had been king, then begins to set forth the vanity of all earthly things from his own experience. The striving after secular knowledge, Ecc 1:12., has proved to him unsatisfactory, as has also the striving after happiness in pleasure and in procuring the means of all imaginable gratifications, Ecc 2:1-11; wisdom is vanity, for the wise man falls under the stroke of death as well as the fool, and is forgotten, Ecc 2:12-17; the riches are vanity, for they become the inheritance, one knows not whether or a worthy or of an unworthy heir, Ecc 2:18-21; and, besides, pure enjoyment, like wisdom and knowledge, depends not merely on the will of man, but both are the gift of God, Ecc 2:22. Everything has its time appointed by God, but man is unable to survey either backwards or forwards the work of God, which fills eternity, notwithstanding the impulse to search into it which is implanted within him; his dependence in all things, even in pure enjoyment, must become to him a school in which to learn the fear of God, who maintains all things unchangeably, for forms the course of that which is done, Ecc 3:1-15. If he sees injustice prevailing in the place of justice, God's time for righteous interference has not yet come, Ecc 3:16-17. If God wishes to try men, they shall see that they are dependent like the beasts, and liable to death without any certain distinction from the beasts - there is nothing better than that this fleeting life should be enjoyed as well as may be, Ecc 3:18.\n\nKoheleth now further records the evils that are under the sun: oppression, in view of which death is better than life, and not to have been at all is better than both, Ecc 4:1-3; envy, Ecc 4:4; the restlessness of labour, from which only the fool sets himself free, Ecc 4:5-6; the aimless trouble and parsimony of him who stands alone, Ecc 4:7-12; the disappointment of the hopes placed on an upstart who has reached the throne, Ecc 4:13-16.\n\nUp to this point there is connection. There now follow rules, externally unconnected, for the relation of man to Him who is the Disposer of all things; regarding his frequenting the house of God, Ecc 5:1; prayer, Ecc 5:2; and praise, Ecc 5:3-6.\n\nThen a catalogue of vanities is set forth: the insatiable covetous plundering of the lowly by those who are above them in despotic states, whereat the author praises, Ecc 5:7-8, the patriarchal state based on agriculture; and the nothingness and uncertainty of riches, which do not make the rich happier than the labourer, Ecc 5:9-11; which sometimes are lost without any to inherit them, Ecc 5:12-14; and which their possessor, at all events, must leave behind him when he dies, Ecc 5:15-16. Riches have only a value when by means of them a purer enjoyment is realized as the gift of God, Ecc 5:17. For it happens that God gives to a man riches, but to a stranger the enjoyment thereof, Ecc 6:1-2. An untimely birth is better than a man who has an hundred children, a long life, and yet who has no enjoyment of life even to his death, Ecc 6:3-6. desire stretching on into the future is torment; only so much as a man truly enjoys has he of all his labour, Ecc 6:7-9; what man shall be is predestinated, all contendings against it are useless: the knowledge of that which is good for him, and of the future, is in the power of no man, Ecc 6:10.\n\nThere now follow, without a premeditated plan, rules for the practical conduct of life, loosely connecting themselves with the \"what is good,\" Ecc 6:12, by the catchword \"good:\" first six (probably originally seven) proverbs of two things each, whereof the one is better than the other, Ecc 7:1-9; then three with the same catch-word, but without comparison, Ecc 7:10-14.\n\nThis series of proverbs is connected as a whole, for their ultimatum is a counsel to joy regulated by the fear of God within the narrow limits of this life, constituted by God of good and bad days, and terminating in the darkness of death. But this joy is also itself limited, for the deep seriousness of the memento mori is mingled with it, and sorrow is declared to be morally better than laughter.\n\nWith Ecc 7:15, the I, speaking from personal experience, again comes into the foreground; but counsels and observations also here follow each other aphoristically, without any close connection with each other. Koheleth warns against an extreme tendency to the side of good as well as to that of evil: he who fears God knows how to avoid extremes, Ecc 7:15-18. Nothing affords a stronger protection than wisdom, for (?) with all his righteousness a man makes false steps, Ecc 7:19-20. Thou shalt not always listen, lest thou hear something about thyself, - also thou thyself hast often spoken harshly regarding others, Ecc 7:21-22. He has tried everything, but in his strivings after wisdom, and in his observation of the distinction between wisdom and folly, he has found nothing more dangerous than the snares of women; among a thousand men he found one man; but one woman such as she ought to be, he found not; he found in general that God made men upright, but that they have devised many kinds of by-ways, Ecc 7:23.\n\nAs the wise man considers women and men in general, wisdom teaches him obedience to the king to whom he has sworn fealty, and, under despotic oppression, patient waiting for the time of God's righteous interference, Ecc 8:1-9. In the time of despotic domination, it occurs that the godless are buried with honour, while the righteous are driven away and forgotten, Ecc 8:10. God's sentence is to be waited for, the more deliberately men give themselves to evil; God is just, but, in contradiction to His justice, it is with the righteous as with the wicked, and with the wicked as with the righteous, here on earth, Ecc 8:11-14. In view of these vanities, then, it is the most desirable thing for a man to eat and drink, and enjoy himself, for that abides with him of his labour during the day of his life God has given him, Ecc 8:15. Restless labour here leads to nothing; all the efforts of man to comprehend the government of God are in vain, Ecc 8:16. For on closer consideration, it appears that the righteous also, with all their actions, are ruled by God, and generally that in nothing, not even in his affections, is man his own master; and, which is the worst thing of all, because it impels men to a wicked, mad abuse of life, to the righteous and the unrighteous, death at last comes alike; it is also the will of God towards man that he should spend this transient life in cheerful enjoyment and in vigorous activity before it sinks down into the night of Hades, Ecc 9:1-10. The fruits of one's labour are not to be gained by force, even the best ability warrants it not, an incomprehensible fate finally frustrates all, Ecc 9:11-12.\n\nThere now follows, but in loose connection as to thought with the preceding, a section relating to wisdom and folly, and the discordances as to the estimate of both here below, along with diverse kinds of experiences and proverbs, Eccl 9:13-10:15. Only one proverb is out of harmony with the general theme, viz., Ecc 10:4, which commends resignation under the abullition of the wrath of the ruler. The following proverb, Ecc 10:5-6, returns to the theme, but connecting itself with the preceding; the relation of rulers and the ruled to each other is kept principally in view by Koheleth.\n\nWith a proverb relating to kings and princes, good and bad, a new departure is made. Riotous living leads to slothfulness; and in contrast to this (but not without the intervention of a warning not to curse the king) follow exhortations to provident, and, at the same time, bold, and all-attempting activity; for the future is God's, and not to be reckoned on, Eccl 10:16-11:6. The light is sweet; and life, however long it may last, in view of the uncertain dark future, is worthy of being enjoyed, Ecc 11:7-8. Thus Koheleth, at the end of this last series of proverbs, has again reached his Ceterum censeo; he formulates it, in an exhortation to a young man to enjoy his life - but without forgetting God, to whom he owes it, and to whom he has to render an account - before grey-haired old age and death overtake him, into a full-toned finale, 11:9-12:7. The last word of the book, Ecc 12:8, is parallel with the first (Ecc 1:1): \"O! vanity of vanities; All is vain!\"\n\nAn epilogue, from the same hand as the book seals its truth: it is written as from the very soul of Solomon; it issues from the same fountain of wisdom. The reader must not lose himself in reading many books, for the sum of all knowledge that is of value to man is comprehended in one sentence: \"Fear God, for He shall bring every work into judgment,\" Ecc 12:9.\n\nIf we look back on this compendious reproduction of the contents and of the course of thought of the book, there appears everywhere the same view of the world, along with the same ultimatum; and as a pictorial overture opens the book, a pictorial finale closes it. But a gradual development, a progressive demonstration, is wanting, and so far the grouping together of the parts is not fully carried out; the connection of the thoughts if more frequently determined by that which is external and accidental, and not unfrequently an incongruous element is introduced into the connected course of kindred matters. The Solomonic stamp impressed on chap. 1 and 2 begins afterwards to be effaced. The connection of the confessions that are made becomes aphoristic in chap. 3; and the proverbs that are introduced do not appropriately fall into their place. The grounds, occasions, and views which determine the author to place confessions and moral proverbs in such an order after one another, for the most part withdraw themselves from observation. All attempts to show, in the whole, not only oneness of spirit, but also a genetic progress, an all-embracing plan, and an organic connection, have hitherto failed, and must fail.\n\n(Note: \"Ajunt Hebraei, quum inter cetera scripta Salomonis, quae antiquata sunt nec in memoria duraverunt, et hic liber obliterandus videretur, et quod vanas assereret Dei creaturas et totum putaret esse pro nihilo, et potum et cibum et delicias transeuntes praeferret omnibus, ex hoc uno capitulo (Ecc 12:13) meruisse auctoritatem, ut in divinorum voluminum numero poneretur.\" - Jerome.)\n\nIn presenting this view of the spirit and plan of the Book of Koheleth, we have proceeded on the supposition that it is a post-exilian book, that it is one of the most recent of the books of the O.T. It is true, indeed, that tradition regards it as Solomonic. According to Bathra 15a, the Hezekiah-Collegium vid., Del. on Proverbs, p. 5] must have \"written\" - that is, collected into a written form - the Book of Isaiah, as also the Proverbs, the Song, and Koheleth. The Midrash regards it as Solomon's, and as written in the evening of his days; while the Song was written in his youth, and the Proverbs when he was in middle age (Jalkut, under Pro 1:1). If in Rosch haschana 21b it is said that Koheleth sought to be a second Moses, and to open the one of the fifty gates of knowledge which was unopened by Moses, but that this was denied to him, it is thereby assumed that he was the incomparable king, as Moses was the incomparable prophet. And Bloch, in his work on the origin and era of the Book of Koheleth (1872), is right in saying that all objections against the canonicity of the book leave the Solomonic authorship untouched. In the first Christian century, the Book of Koheleth was an antilegomenon. In the Introduction to the Song we have traced to their sources the two collections of legal authorities according to which the question of the canonicity of the Book of Koheleth is decided. The Synod of Jabne (Jamnia), about 90, decided the canonicity of the book against the school of Shammai. The reasons advanced by the latter against the canonicity are seen from Shabbath 30b, and Megilla 7a. From the former we learn that they regarded the words of the book, particularly Ecc 2:2 (where they must have read מהוּלּל, \"worthy to be praised\"), cf. Ecc 7:3, and Ecc 8:15, 22, as contradictory (cf. Proverbs, p. 31); and from the latter, that they hence did not recognise its inspiration. According to the Midrash Koheleth, under Ecc 11:9, they were stumbled also by the call to the enjoyment of pleasure, and to walk in the way of the desire of the heart, which appeared to stand in contradiction to the Tra (cf. Ecc 11:9 with Num 15:39), and to savour of heresy. But belief in the Solomonic authorship remained, notwithstanding, uninjured; and the admonitions to the fear of God, with reference to the future judgment, carried them over the tendency of these observations. Already, at the time of Herod the Great (Bathra 4a), and afterwards, in the time of R. Gamaliel (Shabbath 30b), the book was cited as Holy Scripture; and when, instead of the book, the author was named, the formula of citation mentioned the name of Solomon; or the book was treated as equally Solomonic with Proverbs and the Song (Erubin 21b).\n\nEven the doubtfulness of its contents could give rise to no manner of doubt as to the author. Down till the new era beginning with Christianity, and, in the main, even till the Reformation-century, no attention was paid to the inner and historico-literary marks which determine the time of the origin of a book. The Reformation first called into existence, along with the criticism of dogmatic traditions, at the same time also biblical criticism, which it raised to the place of an essential part of the science of Scripture. Luther, in his Tischreden (Table-Talk), is the first who explained the Preacher as one of the most recent books of the O.T.: he supposed that the book had not reached us in its completed form; that it was written by Sirach rather than by Solomon; and that it might be, \"as a Talmud, collected from many books, perhaps from the library of King Ptolemy Euergetes, in Egypt.\"\n\n(Note: Tischreden, ed. Frstemann-Bindseil, p. 400f. The expression here almost appears as if Luther had confounded Ecclesiastes (Koheleth) with Ecclesiasticus (Sirach). At a later period he maintained that the book contained a collection of Solomonic sayings, not executed, however, by Solomon himself.)\n\nThese are only passing utterances, which have no scientific value; among his contemporaries, and till the middle of the century following, they found no acceptance. Hugo Grotius (1644) is the first who, like Luther, rejects its Solomonic authorship, erroneously supposing, with him, that it is a collection of diverse sayings of the wise, περὶ τῆς εὐδαιμονίας; but on one point he excellently hits the nail on the head: Argumentum ejus rei habeo multa vocabula, quae non alibi quam in Daniele, Esdra et Chaldaeis interpretibus reperias. This observation is warranted. If the Book of Koheleth were of old Solomonic origin, then there is no history of the Hebrew language. But Bernstein (Quaestiones nonnullae Kohelethanae, 1854) is right in saying that the history of the Hebrew language and literature is certainly divided into two epochs by the Babylonish exile, and that the Book of Koheleth bears the stamp of the post-exilian form of the language.\n\nWords in Koheleth (Eccelsiastes)\n\nList of the Hapaxlegomena, and of the Words and Forms in the Book of Koheleth belonging to a more recent Period of the Language\n\nAviyonah, 12:5; cf. Ma'seroth 4:6, Berachoth 36a.\n\nAdam, opp. ishah, only at 7:28.\n\nIzzen, Pi., only 12:9; not Talm.\n\nאי, Ecc 10:16; אילו, Ecc 4:10, instead of the older אוי; cf. הי, Eze 2:10; like אי ל, Shemoth rabba, c. 46; אי ם, \"Alas, now bad!\" Targ. Jer 2; Lev 26:29; אי ע, \"Alas for the meek!\" Berachoth 6b; cf. Sanhedrin 11a.\n\nIllu, \"if,\" Ecc 6:6; Est 7:4, of אם (אין) and לוּ (לא, read לא, Eze 3:6); Targ. Deu 32:29 = Heb. לוּ, common in the Mishna, e.g., Maccoth i. 10.\n\nAsurim, only Ecc 7:26; cf. Jdg 15:14; Seder olam rabba, c. 25; cf. at Ecc 4:14.\n\nBaale asupoth, only Ecc 12:11; cf. Sanhedrin 12a, Jer. Sanhedrin x. 1.\n\nBihel, only Ecc 5:1; Ecc 7:9; as Hiph. Est 6:14; cf. the transitive use of the Pih. Est 2:9, like Targ. bahel (= ithbehel) and behilu, haste.\n\nBur, only Ecc 9:1; cf. the Talm. al buriv, altogether free from error and sin.\n\nBehuroth, only Ecc 11:9; Ecc 12:1; cf. Mibehurav, Num 11:28.\n\nBatel, Ecc 12:3; elsewhere only in the Chald. of Ezra; common in the Mishna, e.g., Aboth i. 5.\n\nBeth olam (","order":21,"numberOfChapters":12,"sha256":"b928013738abbef3cf31cbe0a9bafa8c77f93b7ca5dbef84242b4ac433bead41","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ECC/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ECC","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":12,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ECC/12.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ECC","chapter":12},"totalNumberOfVerses":181},"chapter":{"number":3,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["\"Everything has its time, and every purpose under the heavens its hour.\" The Germ. language is poor in synonyms of time. Zckler translates: Everything has its Frist ..., but by Frist we think only of a fixed term of duration, not of a period of beginning, which, though not exclusively, is yet here primarily meant; we have therefore adopted Luther's excellent translation. Certainly זמן (from זמן, cogn. סמן, signare), belonging to the more modern Heb., means a Frist (e.g., Dan 2:16) as well as a Zeitpunkt, point of time; in the Semit. (also Assyr. simmu, simanu, with ס) it is the most common designation of the idea of time. עת is abbreviated either from ענת (ועד, to determine) or from ענת (from ענה, cogn. אנה, to go towards, to meet). In the first case it stands connected with מועד on the one side, and with עדּן (from עדד, to count) on the other; in the latter case, with עונה, Exo 21:10 (perhaps also ען and ענת in כען, כּענת). It is difficult to decide this point; proportionally more, however, can be said for the original ענת (Palest.-Aram. ענתּא), as also the prep. of participation את is derived from אנת (meeting, coming together). \n(Note: Vid., Orelli's work on the Heb. Synon. der Zeit u. Ewigkeit, 1871. He decides for the derivation from ועד morf ; Fleischer (Levy's Chald. W.B. II. 572) for the derivation from ענה, the higher power of אנה, whence (Arab.) inan, right time. We have, under Job 24:1, maintained the former derivation.)\nThe author means to say, if we have regard to the root signification of the second conception of time - (1) that everything has its fore-determined time, in which there lies both a determined point of time when it happens, and a determined period of time during which it shall continue; and (2) that every matter has a time appointed for it, or one appropriate, suitable for it. The Greeks were guided by the right feeling when they rendered זמן by χρόνος , and עת by καιρός.\nOlympiodorus distinguishes too sharply when he understands the former of duration of time, and the latter of a point of time; while the state of the matter is this, that by χρόνος the idea comprehends the termini a quo and ad quem, while by καιρός it is limited to the terminus a quo. Regarding חפץ, which proceeds from the ground-idea of being inclined to, and intention, and thus, like πρᾶγμα and χρῆμα, to the general signification of design, undertaking, res gesta, res.\nThe illustration commences with the beginning and the ending of the life of man and (in near-lying connection of thought) of plants. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["(Note: These seven verses, 2-8, are in Codd and Edd., like Jos 12:9., and Est 9:7., arranged in the form of a song, so that one עת (time) always stands under another, after the scheme described in Megilla 16b, Massecheth Sofrim xiii. 3, but without any express reference to this passage in Koheleth. J has a different manner of arranging the words, the first four lines of which we here adduce: - \n\n'ēth lāmoth veeth lalěděth 'ēth 'ēth nathu'ǎ lǎ'ǎqor veeth lathǎ'ǎth 'ēth lirpō veeth lǎhǎrog 'ēth livnoth veeth liphrots) \n\"To be born has its time, and to die has its time; to plant has its time, and to root up that which is planted has its time.\" The inf. ללדת signifies nothing else than to bring forth; but when that which is brought forth comes more into view than she who brings forth, it is used in the sense of being born (cf. Jer 25:34, לט = להטּבח); ledah, Hos 9:11, is the birth; and in the Assyr., li-id-tu, li-i-tu, li-da-a-tu, designates posterity, progenies. Since now lālǎděth has here lāmuth as contrast, and thus does not denote the birth-throes of the mother, but the child's beginning of life, the translation, \"to be born has its time,\" is more appropriate to what is designed than \"to bring forth has its time.\" What Zckler, after Hitzig, objects that by lěděth a הפץ an undertaking, and thus a conscious, intended act must be named, is not applicable; for לכּל standing at the beginning comprehends doing and suffering, and death also (apart from suicide) is certainly not an intended act, frequently even an unconscious suffering. Instead of לטעת (for which the form לטּעת \n(Note: This Abulwalid found in a correct Damascus ms., Michlol 81b.)\nis found, cf. למּוט, Psa 66:9), the older language uses לנטע, Jer 1:10. In still more modern Heb. the expression used would be ליטע, i.e., לטּע (Shebith ii. 1). עקד has here its nearest signification: to root up (denom. of עקּד, root), like עקר, Kg2 3:25, where it is the Targ. word for הפּיל (to fell trees).\nFrom out-rooting, which puts an end to the life of plants, the transition is now made to putting to death. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["\"To put to death has its time, and to heal has its time; to pull down has its time, and to build has its time.\" That harog (to kill) is placed over against \"to heal,\" Hitzig explains by the remark that harog does not here include the full consequences of the act, and is fitly rendered by \"to wound.\" But \"to put to death\" is nowhere = \"nearly to put to death,\" - one who is harug is not otherwise to be healed than by resurrection from the dead, Eze 37:6. The contrast has no need for such ingenuity to justify it. The striking down of a sound life stands in contrast to the salvation of an endangered life by healing, and this in many situations of life, particularly in war, in the administration of justice, and in the defence of innocence against murder or injury, may be fitting. Since the author does not present these details from a moral point of view, the time here is not that which is morally right, but that which, be it morally right or not, has been determined by God, the Governor of the world and Former of history, who makes even that which is evil subservient to His plan. With the two pairs of γένεσις καὶ φθορά there are two others associated in Ecc 3:3; with that, having reference, 2b, to the vegetable world, there here corresponds one referring to buildings; to פּרוץ (synon. הרוס, Jer 1:10) stands opposed בּנות (which is more than גּדור), as at Ch2 32:5.\nThese contrasts between existence and non-existence are followed by contrasts within the limits of existence itself: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["\"To weep has its time, and to laugh has its time; to mourn has its time, and to dance has its time.\" It is possible that the author was led by the consonance from livnoth to livkoth, which immediately follows it; but the sequence of the thoughts is at the same time inwardly mediated, for sorrow kills and joy enlivens, Sir. 32:21-24. ספוד is particularly lamentation for the dead, Zac 12:10; and רקוד, dancing (in the more modern language the usual word for hholēl, kirkēr, hhāgǎg) at a marriage festival and on other festal occasions.\nIt is more difficult to say what leads the author to the two following pairs of contrasts: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["\"To throw stones has its time, and to gather together stones has its time; to embrace has its time, and to refrain from embracing has its time.\" Did the old Jewish custom exist at the time of the author, of throwing three shovelfuls of earth into the grave, and did this lead him to use the phrase השׁ אבּ? But we do not need so incidental a connection of the thought, for the first pair accords with the specific idea of life and death; by the throwing of stones a field is destroyed, Kg2 3:25, or as expressed at Kg2 3:19 is marred; and by gathering the stones together and removing them (which is called סקּל), it is brought under cultivation. Does לה, to embrace, now follow because it is done with the arms and hands? Scarcely; but the loving action of embracing stands beside the hostile, purposely injurious throwing of stones into a field, not exclusively (Kg2 4:16), but yet chiefly (as e.g., at Pro 5:20) as referring to love for women; the intensive in the second member is introduced perhaps only for the purpose of avoiding the paronomasia lirhhoq mahhavoq.\nThe following pair of contrasts is connected with the avoiding or refraining from the embrace of love: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["\"To seek has its time, and to lose has its time; to lay up has its time, and to throw away has its time.\" Vaihinger and others translate לאבּד, to give up as lost, which the Pih. signifies first as the expression of a conscious act. The older language knows it only in the stronger sense of bringing to ruin, making to perish, wasting (Pro 29:3). But in the more modern language, אבד, like the Lat. perdere, in the sense of \"to lose,\" is the trans. to the intrans. אבד, e.g., Tahoroth; viii. 3, \"if one loses (המאבּד) anything,\" etc.; Sifri, at Deu 24:19, \"he who has lost (מאבּד) a shekel,\" etc. In this sense the Palest.-Aram. uses the Aphel אובד, e.g., Jer. Meza ii. 5, \"the queen had lost (אובדת) her ornament.\" The intentional giving up, throwing away from oneself, finds its expression in להשׁ.\nThe following pair of contrasts refers the abandoning and preserving to articles of clothing: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["7a. \"To rend has its time, and to sew has its time.\" When evil tidings come, when the tidings of death come, then is the time for rending the garments (Sa2 13:31), whether as a spontaneous outbreak of sorrow, or merely as a traditionary custom. - The tempest of the affections, however, passes by, and that which was torn is again sewed together.\nPerhaps it is the recollection of great calamities which leads to the following contrasts: - \n7b. \"To keep silence has its time, and to speak has its time.\" Severe strokes of adversity turn the mind in quietness back upon itself; and the demeanour most befitting such adversity is silent resignation (cf. Kg2 2:3, Kg2 2:5). This mediation of the thought is so much the more probable, as in all these contrasts it is not so much the spontaneity of man that comes into view, as the pre-determination and providence of God.\nThe following contrasts proceed on the view that God has placed us in relations in which it is permitted to us to love, or in which our hatred is stirred up: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["\"To love has its time, and to hate has its time; war has its time, and peace has its time.\" In the two pairs of contrasts here, the contents of the first are, not exclusively indeed (Psa 120:7), but yet chiefly referred to the mutual relations of peoples. It is the result of thoughtful intention that the quodlibet of 2 x 7 pairs terminates this for and against in \"peace;\" and, besides, the author has made the termination emphatic by this, that here \"instead of infinitives, he introduces proper nouns\" (Hitz.). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["Since, then, everything has its time depending not on human influence, but on the determination and providence of God, the question arises: \"What gain hath he that worketh in that wherewith he wearieth himself?\" It is the complaint of Ecc 1:3 which is here repeated. From all the labour there comes forth nothing which carries in it the security of its continuance; but in all he does man is conditioned by the change of times and circumstances and relations over which he has no control. And the converse of this his weakness is short-sightedness. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["\"I saw the travail, which God gave to the children of men to fatigue themselves with it - : He hath well arranged everything beautiful in its appointed time; He hath also put eternity in their heart, so that man cannot indeed wholly search through from beginning to end the work which God accomplisheth.\" As at Ecc 1:14, ראיתי is here seeing in the way of research, as elsewhere, e.g., at Ecc 2:24, it is as the result of research. In Ecc 3:10 the author says that he closely considered the labour of men, and in Ecc 3:11 he states the result. It is impossible to render the word ענין everywhere by the same German (or English) word: Ecc 1:13, wearisome trouble; Ecc 2:26, business; here: Geschftigkeit, the idea is in all the three places the same, viz., an occupation which causes trouble, costs effort. What presented itself to the beholder was (1) that He (viz., God, cf. Ecc 3:10 and Ecc 3:11) has made everything beautiful in its time. The author uses יפה as synon. of טוב (Ecc 3:17); also in other languages the idea of the beautiful is gradually more and more generalized. The suffix in בּעתּו does not refer to God, but to that which is in the time; this word is = ἐν καιρῷ ιδίῳ (Symm.), at its proper time (vid., Psa 1:3; Psa 104:27; Jer 5:24, etc.), since, as with יחדּו (together with) and כּלּו (every one), the suffix is no longer thought of as such. Like יפה, בעתו as pred. conception belongs to the verb: He has made everything beautiful; He has made everything (falling out) at its appointed time. - The beauty consists in this, that what is done is not done sooner or later than it ought to be, so as to connect itself as a constituent part to the whole of God's work. The pret. עשׂה is to be also interpreted as such: He \"has made,\" viz., in His world-plan, all things beautiful, falling out at the appointed time; for that which acquires an actual form in the course of history has a previous ideal existence in the knowledge and will of God (vid., under Isa 22:11; Isa 37:26).\nThat which presented itself to the beholder was - (2) the fact that He (God) had put את־העלם in their hearts (i.e., the hearts of men). Gaab and Spohn interpret 'olam in the sense of the Arab. 'ilam, knowledge, understanding; and Hitz., pointing the word accordingly עלם, translates: \"He has also placed understanding in their heart, without which man,\" etc. The translation of אשׁר אשׁלי is not to be objected to; מבּ is, however, only seldom a conjunction, and is then to be translated by eo quod, Exo 14:11; Kg2 1:3, Kg2 1:6, Kg2 1:16, which is not appropriate here; it will thus be here also a prep., and with asher following may mean \"without which,\" as well as \"without this, that\" = \"besides that\" (Venet. ἄνευ τοῦ ὃτι, \"except that\"), as frequently כּי אפס, e.g., at Amo 9:8. But that Arab. 'ilam is quite foreign to the Heb., which has no word עלם in the sense of \"to rise up, to be visible, knowable,\" which is now also referred \n(Note: Vid., Fried. Delitzsch's Assyr. Stud. (1874), p. 39. Otherwise Fleischer, who connects 'alima, \"to know,\" with 'alam, \"to conceal,\" so that to know = to be concealed, sunk deep, initiated in something (with ba of the obj., as sh'ar, whence shâ'ir, the poet as \"one who marks\").)\nto for the Assyr. as the stem-word of עילם = highland. It is true Hitzig believes that he has found the Heb. עלם = wisdom, in Sir. 6:21, where there is a play on the word with נעלם, \"concealed:\" σοφία γὰρ κατὰ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῆς ἐστί, καὶοὐ πολλοῖς ἐστὶ φανερά. Drusius and Eichhorn have here already taken notice of the Arab. 'ilam; but Fritzsche with right asks, \"Shall this word as Heb. be regarded as traceable only here and falsely pointed only at Ecc 3:11, and shall no trace of it whatever be found in the Chald., Syr., and Rabbin.?\" We have also no need of it. That Ben-Sira has etymologically investigated the word חכמה as going back to חכם, R. chap, \"to be firm, shut up, dark\" (vid., at Psa 10:8), is certainly very improbable, but so much the more probable (as already suggested by Drusius) that he has introduced \n(Note: Grtz translates eth-ha'olam by \"ignorance\" (vid., Orelli, p. 83). R. Achwa in the Midrash has added here the scriptio defectiva with the remark, שהועלם וגו, \"for the mysterious name of God is concealed from them.\")\ninto חכמה, after the Aram. אכם, nigrescere, the idea of making dark. Does eth-ha'olam in this passage before us then mean \"the world\" (Jerome, Luther, Ewald), or \"desire after the knowledge of the world\" (Rashi), or \"worldly-mindedness\" (Gesen., Knobel)? The answer to this has been already given in my Psychol. p. 406 (2nd ed.): \"In post-bibl. Heb. 'olam denotes not only 'eternity' backwards and forwards as infinite duration, but also 'the world' as that which endures for ever (αἰών, seculum); the world in this latter sense is, however, not yet known \n(Note: In the Phoen. also, 'olam, down to a late period, denotes not the world, but eternity: melek 'olam, βασιλεὺς αἰώνος (αἰώνιος), seculo frugifero on a coin = the fruit-bringing 'olam (Αἰών).)\nto the bibl. language, and we will thus not be able to interpret the words of Koheleth of the impulse of man to reflect on the whole world.\" In itself, the thought that God has placed the whole world in man's heart is not untrue: man is, indeed, a micro-cosmos, in which the macrocosmos mirrors itself (Elster), but the connection does not favour it; for the discussion does not proceed from this, that man is only a member in the great universe, and that God has given to each being its appointed place, but that in all his experience he is conditioned by time, and that in the course of history all that comes to him, according to God's world-plan, happens at its appointed time. But the idea by which that of time, את (זמן), is surpassed is not the world, but eternity, to which time is related as part is to the whole (Cicero, Inv. i. 26. 39, tempus est pars quaedam aeternitatis). The Mishna language contains, along with the meaning of world, also this older meaning of 'olam, and has formed from it an adv. עולמית, aeterne. The author means to say that God has not only assigned to each individually his appointed place in history, thereby bringing to the consciousness of man the fact of his being conditioned, but that He has also established in man an impulse leading him beyond that which is temporal toward the eternal: it lies in his nature not to be contented with the temporal, but to break through the limits which it draws around him, to escape from the bondage and the disquietude within which he is held, and amid the ceaseless changes of time to console himself by directing his thoughts to eternity.\nThis saying regarding the desiderium aeternitatis being planted in the heart of man, is one of the profoundest utterances of Koheleth. In fact, the impulse of man shows that his innermost wants cannot be satisfied by that which is temporal. He is a being limited by time, but as to his innermost nature he is related to eternity. That which is transient yields him no support, it carries him on like a rushing stream, and constrains him to save himself by laying hold on eternity. But it is not so much the practical as the intellectual side of this endowment and this peculiar dignity of human nature which Koheleth brings her to view.\nIt is not enough for man to know that everything that happens has its divinely-ordained time. There is an instinct peculiar to his nature impelling him to pass beyond this fragmentary knowledge and to comprehend eternity; but his effort is in vain, for (3) \"man is unable to reach unto the work which God accomplisheth from the beginning to the end.\" The work of God is that which is completing itself in the history of the world, of which the life of individual men is a fragment. Of this work he says, that God has wrought it עשׂה; because, before it is wrought out in its separate \"time,\" it is already completed in God's plan. Eternity and this work are related to each other as the accomplished and the being accomplished, they are interchangeably the πλήρωμα to each other. ימצא is potential, and the same in conception as at Ecc 8:17; Job 11:7; Job 37:23; a knowledge is meant which reaches to the object, and lays hold of it. A laying hold of this work is an impossibility, because eternity, as its name 'olam denotes, is the concealed, i.e., is both forwards and backwards immeasurable. The desiderium aeternitatis inherent in man thus remains under the sun unappeased. He would raise himself above the limits within which he is confined, and instead of being under the necessity of limiting his attention to isolated matters, gain a view of the whole of God's work which becomes manifest in time; but this all-embracing view is for him unattainable.\nIf Koheleth had known of a future life - which proves that as no instinct in the natural world is an allusion, so also the impulse toward the eternal, which is natural to man, is no illusion-he would have reached a better ultimatum than the following: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["\"Thus I then perceived that among them (men) there is nothing better than to enjoy themselves, and indulge themselves in their life.\" The resignation would acquire a reality if לע טוב meant \"to do good,\" i.e., right (lxx, Targ., Syr., Jer., Venet.); and this appears of necessity to be its meaning according to Ecc 7:20. But, with right, Ginsburg remarks that nowhere else - neither at Ecc 2:24, nor Ecc 3:22; Ecc 5:17; Ecc 8:15; Ecc 9:7 - is this moral rendering given to the ultimatum; also טוב ור, 13a, presupposes for לע טוב a eudemonistic sense. On the other hand, Zckler is right in saying that for the meaning of עשות תוב, in the sense of \"to be of good cheer\" (Luth.), there is no example. Zirkel compares εὖ πράττειν, and regards it as a Graecism. But it either stands ellipt. for לע לו טוב (= להיטיב לו), or, with Grtz, we have to read טוב לראות; in any case, an ethical signification is here excluded by the nearest connection, as well as by the parallels; it is not contrary to the view of Koheleth, but this is not the place to express it. Bam is to be understood after baadam, Ecc 2:24. The plur., comprehending men, here, as at Ecc 3:11, wholly passes over into the individualizing sing.\nBut this enjoyment of life also, Koheleth continues, this advisedly the best portion in the limited and restrained condition of man, is placed beyond his control: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["\"But also that he should eat and drink, and see good in all his labour, is for every man a gift of God.\" The inverted and yet anacoluthistic formation of the sentence is quite like that at Ecc 5:18. כּל־הא signifies, properly, the totality of men = all men, e.g., Psa 116:11; but here and at 5:18; 12:13, the author uses the two words so that the determ. second member of the st. constr. does not determine the first (which elsewhere sometimes occurs, as bethulath Israel, a virgin of Israel, Deu 22:19): every one of men (cf. πᾶς τις βροτῶν). The subst. clause col-haadam is subject: every one of men, in this that he eats ... is dependent on God. Instead of מיּד the word מתּת (abbrev. from מתּנת) is here used, as at Ecc 5:18. The connection by vegam is related to the preceding adversat.: and (= but) also (= notwithstanding that), as at Ecc 6:7, Neh 5:8, cf. Jer 3:10, where gam is strengthened by becol-zoth. As for the rest, it follows from Ecc 3:13, in connection with Ecc 2:24-26, that for Koheleth εὐποΐ́α and εὐθυμία reciprocally condition each other, without, however, a conclusion following therefrom justifying the translation \"to do good,\" Ecc 3:12. Men's being conditioned in the enjoyment of life, and, generally, their being conditioned by God the Absolute, has certainly an ethical end in view, as is expressed in the conclusion which Koheleth now reaches: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["\"Thus I discerned it then, that all that God will do exists for ever; nothing is to be added to it, and nothing taken from it: God has thus directed it, that men should fear before Him.\" This is a conclusion derived from the facts of experience, a truth that is valid for the present and for the time to come. We may with equal correctness render by quidquid facit and quidquid faciet. But the pred. shows that the fut. expression is also thought of as fut.; for הוּ יה לע does not mean: that is for ever (Hitz.), which would be expressed by the subst. clause הוּא לעולם; but: that shall be for ever (Zck.), i.e., will always assert its validity. That which is affirmed here is true of God's directing and guiding events in the natural world, as well as of the announcements of His will and His controlling and directing providence in the history of human affairs. All this is removed beyond the power of the creature to alter it. The meaning is not that one ought not to add to or to take from it (Deu 13:1; Pro 30:6), but that such a thing cannot be done (vid., Sir. 18:5). And this unchangeableness characterizing the arrangements of God has this as its aim, that men should fear Him who is the All-conditioning and is Himself unconditioned: he has done it that they (men) should fear before Him, אשׂה שׁ, fecit ut; cf. Eze 36:27. ποιεῖν ἳνα, Rev 13:15; and \"fear before Him,\" as at Ecc 8:12.; cf. Ch1 16:30 with Psa 96:9. The unchangeableness of God's action shows itself in this, that in the course of history similar phenomena repeat themselves; for the fundamental principles, the causal connections, the norms of God's government, remain always the same. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["\"That which is now hath been long ago; and that which will be hath already been: God seeketh after that which was crowded out.\" The words: \"hath been long ago\" (הוּא כּבר), are used of that which the present represents as something that hath been, as the fruit of a development; the words: \"hath already been\" (היה כּבר), are used of the future (ל אשׁר, τὸ μέλλον, vid., Gesen. 132. 1), as denying to it the right of being regarded as something new. The government of God is not to be changed, and does not change; His creative as well as His moral ordering of the world produces with the same laws the same phenomena (the ו corresponds to this line of thought here, as at Ecc 3:14) - God seeks את־ן (cf. Ecc 7:7; Ewald, 277d). Hengstenberg renders: God seeks the persecuted (lxx, Symm., Targ., Syr.), i.e., visits them with consolation and comfort. Nirdaph here denotes that which is followed, hunted, pressed, by which we may think of that which is already driven into the past; that God seeks, seeks it purposely, and brings it back again into the present; for His government remains always, and brings thus always up again that which hath been. Thus Jerome: Deut instaurat quod abiit; the Venet.: ὃ τηεὸς ζητήσει τὸ ἀπεληλαμένον; and thus Geier, among the post-Reform. interpreters: praestat ut quae propulsa sunt ac praeterierunt iterum innoventur ac redeant; and this is now the prevailing exposition, after Knobel, Ewald, and Hitzig. The thought is the same as if we were to translate: God seeks after the analogue. In the Arab., one word in relation to another is called muradif, if it is cogn. to it; and mutaradifat is the technical expression for a synonym. In Heb. the expression used is שׁמות נרדּפים, they who are followed the one by another, - one of which, as it were, treads on the heels of another. But this designation is mediated through the Arab. In evidence of the contrary, ancient examples are wanting. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["\"And, moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there.\" The structure of the verse is palindromic, like Ecc 1:6; Ecc 2:10; Ecc 4:1. We might also render מקום as the so-called casus absol., so that שׁם ... מק is an emphatic בּמקום (Hitz.), and the construction like Jer 46:5; but the accentuation does not require this (cf. Gen 1:1); and why should it not be at once the object to ראיתי, which in any case it virtually is? These two words שׁמה הרשׁע might be attribut. clauses: where wickedness (prevails), for the old scheme of the attributive clause (the tsfat) is not foreign to the style of this book (vid., Ecc 1:13, nathan = nethano; and Ecc 5:12, raithi = reithiha); but why not rather virtual pred. accus.: vidi locum juris (quod) ibi impietas? Cf. Neh 13:23 with Psa 37:25. The place of \"judgment\" is the place where justice should be ascertained and executed; and the place of \"righteousness,\" that where righteousness should ascertain and administer justice; for mishpat is the rule (of right), and the objective matter of fact; tsedek, a subjective property and manner of acting. רשׁע is in both cases the same: wickedness (see under Psa 1:1), which bends justice, and is the contrary of tsěděk, i.e., upright and moral sternness. רשׁע elsewhere, like mělěk̂ tsěděk, preserves in p. its e, but here it takes rank along with חסד, which in like manner fluctuates (cf. Psa 130:7 with Pro 21:21). שׁמּה is here = שׁם, as at Psa 122:5, etc.; the locative ah suits the question Where? as well as in the question Whither? - He now expresses how, in such a state of things, he arrived at satisfaction of mind. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["\"I said in mine heart: God shall judge the righteous as well as the wicked: for there is there a time for every purpose and for every work.\" Since \"the righteous\" stands first, the word ישׁפּט has here the double sense of judging [richtens = setting upright] = acting uprightly, justly by one, as in the shofteni of Psa 7:9; Psa 26:1, etc., and of judging = inflicting punishment. To the righteous, as well as to the wicked, \n(Note: The lxx (in Aquila's manner): σὺν τὸν δίκαιον καὶ σὺν τὸν ἀσεβῆ - according to the Talm. hermeneut. rule, that where the obj. is designated by את, with that which is expressly named, something else is associated, and is to be thought of along with it.)\nGod will administer that which of right belongs to them. But this does not immediately happen, and has to be waited for a long time, for there is a definite time for every undertaking (Ecc 3:1), and for (על, in the more modern form of the language, interchanges promiscue with אל ht and ל, e.g., Jer 19:15; Eze 22:3; Ewald, 217i) every work there is a \"time.\" This שׁם, defended by all the old interpreters, cannot have a temporal sense: tunc = in die judicii (Jerome, Targ.), cf. Psa 14:5; 36:13, for \"a time of judgment there is for all one day\" is not intended, since certainly the שׁם (day of judgment) is this time itself, and not the time of this time. Ewald renders שׁם as pointing to the past, for he thus construes: the righteous and the unrighteous God will judge (for there is a time for everything), and judge (vav thus explicat., \"and that too,\" \"and indeed\") every act there, i.e., everything done before. But this שׁם is not only heavy, but also ambiguous and purposeless; and besides, by this parenthesizing of the words וגו עת כּי for there is a time for everything, the principal thought, that with God everything, even His act of judgment, has its time, is robbed of its independence and of the place in the principal clause appropriate to it. But if שׁם is understood adverbially, it certainly has a local meaning connected with it: there, viz., with God, apud Deum; true, for this use of the word Gen 49:24 affords the only example, and it stands there in the midst of a very solemn and earnest address. Therefore it lies near to read, with Houbig., Dderl., Palm., and Hitz., שׁם, \"a definite time ... has He (God) ordained;\" שׂום (שׂים) is the usual word for the ordinances of God in the natural world and in human history (Pro 8:29; Exo 21:13; Num 24:23; Hab 1:12, etc.), and, as in the Assyr. simtuv, so the Heb. שׂימה (שׂוּמה), Sa2 13:32, signifies lot or fate, decree.\n(Note: Vid., Schrader's Keilsch. u. A. T. p. 105, simtu ubilsu, i.e., fate snatched him away (Heb. simah hovilathhu), cf. Fried. Delitzsch's Assyr. Stud. p. 66f.)\nWith this reading, Elster takes exception to the position of the words; but at Jdg 6:19 also the object goes before שׂם, and \"unto every purpose and for every work\" is certainly the complement of the object-conception, so that the position of the words is in reality no other than at Ecc 10:20; Dan 2:17. Quite untenable is Herzfeld's supposition (Frst, Vaih.), that שׁם has here the Talm. signification: aestimat, taxat, for (1) this שׁוּם = Arab. sham, has not על, but the accus. after it; (2) the thought referring to the tie on which Ecc 3:18 rests is thereby interrupted. Whether we read שׂם, or take שׁם in the sense of עמּו (Job 25:2; Job 23:14, etc.), the thought is the same, and equally congruous: God will judge the innocent and the guilty; it shall be done some time, although not so soon as one might wish it, and think necessary, for God has for every undertaking and for every work its fixed time, also its judicial decision (vid., at Psa 74:3); He permits wickedness, lets it develope itself, waits long before He interposes (vid., under Isa 18:4.).\nReflecting on God's delay to a time hidden from men, and known only to Himself, Koheleth explains the matter to himself in the following verse: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["\"Thus I said then in mine heart: (it happeneth) for the sake of the children of men that God might sift them, and that they might see that they are like the cattle, they in themselves.\" Regarding על־דּב for the sake of = on account of as at Ecc 8:2, vid., under Psa 110:4, where it signifies after (κατά) the state of the matter. The infin. לבּ is not derived from בּוּר. - לּבוּר, Ecc 9:1, is only the metaplastic form of לבר or לברר - but only from בּרר, whose infin. may take the form בּר, after the form רד, to tread down, Isa 45:1, שׁך, to bow, Jer 5:26; but nowhere else is this infin. form found connected with a suff.; קחם, Hos 11:3, would be in some measure to be compared, if it could be supposed that this = בּקחתּם, sumendo eos. The root בר proceeds, from the primary idea of cutting, on the one side to the idea of separating, winnowing, choosing out; and, on the other, to that of smoothing, polishing, purifying (vid., under Isa 49:2). Here, by the connection, the meaning of winnowing, i.e., of separating the good from the bad, is intended, with which, however, as in לברר, Dan 11:35, the meaning of making clear, making light, bringing forward into the light, easily connects itself (cf. Shabbath 138a, 74a), of which the meaning to winnow (cf. להבר, Jer 4:11) is only a particular form; \n(Note: Not \"to sift,\" for not בּרר but רקּד, means \"to sift\" (properly, \"to make to keep up,\" \"to agitate\"); cf. Shebith v. 9.)\ncf. Sanhedrin 7b: \"when a matter is clear, brwr, to thee (free from ambiguity) as the morning, speak it out; and if not, do not speak it.\"\nIn the expression לב האל, the word האל is, without doubt, the subject, according to Gesen. 133. 2. 3; Hitz. regards האל as genit., which, judged according to the Arab., is correct; it is true that for li-imti-ḥânihim allahi (with genit. of the subj.), also allahu (with nominat. of the subj.) may be used; but the former expression is the more regular and more common (vid., Ewald's Gramm. Arab. 649), but not always equally decisive with reference to the Heb. usus loq. That God delays His righteous interference till the time appointed beforehand, is for the sake of the children of men, with the intention, viz., that God may sift them, i.e., that, without breaking in upon the free development of their characters before the time, He may permit the distinction between the good and the bad to become manifest. Men, who are the obj. to לב, are the subject to לראותו to be supplied: et ut videant; it is unnecessary, with the lxx, Syr., and Jerome, to read ולראות (= וּלהר): ut ostenderet. It is a question whether המּה \n(Note: המּה שׁהם בּהמה thus accented rightly in F. Cf. Michlol 216a.)\nis the expression of the copula: sunt (sint), or whether hēmmah lahěm is a closer definition, co-ordinate with shehem behēmah. The remark of Hitzig, that lahěm throws back the action on the subject, is not clear. Does he suppose that lahem belongs to liroth? That is here impossible. If we look away from lahem, the needlessly circumstantial expression הם ... שה can still be easily understood: hemmah takes up, as an echo, behemah, and completes the comparison (compare the battology in Hos 13:2). This play upon words musically accompanying the thought remains also, when, according to the accentuation שׁה בהם ה לה, we take hemmah along with lahem, and the former as well as the latter of these two words is then better understood. The ל in להם is not that of the pure dat. (Aben Ezra: They are like beasts to themselves, i.e., in their own estimation), but that of reference, as at Gen 17:20, \"as for Ishmael;\" cf. Psa 3:3; Kg2 5:7; cf. אל, Sa1 1:27, etc. Men shall see that they are cattle (beasts), they in reference to themselves, i.e., either they in reference to themselves mutually (Luther: among themselves), or: they in reference to themselves. To interpret the reference as that of mutual relation, would, in looking back to Ecc 3:16, commend itself, for the condemnation and oppression of the innocent under the appearance of justice is an act of human brutishness. But the reason assigned in Ecc 3:19 does not accord with this reciprocal rendering of lahem. Thus lahem will be meant reflexively, but it is not on that account pleonastic (Knobel), nor does it ironically form a climax: ipsissimi = hchstselbst (Ewald, 315a); but \"they in reference to themselves\" is = they in and of themselves, i.e., viewed as men (viewed naturally). If one disregards the idea of God's interfering at a future time with the discordant human history, and, in general, if one loses sight of God, the distinction between the life of man and of beast disappears. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["\"For the children of men are a chance, and the beast a chance, and they both have once chance: as the death of the one, so that death of the other, and they have all one breath; and there is no advantage to a man over a beast, for all is vain.\" If in both instances the word is pointed מקרה (lxx), the three-membered sentence would then have the form of an emblematical proverb (as e.g., Pro 25:25): \"For as the chance of men, so (vav of comparison) the chance of the beast; they have both one chance.\" מקרה with segol cannot possibly be the connecting form (Luzz.), for in cases such as מע שׂ ם, Isa 3:24, the relation of the words is appositional, not genitival. This form מקר, thus found three times, is vindicated by the Targ. (also the Venet.) and by Mss.; Joseph Kimchi remarks that \"all three have segol, and are thus forms of the absolutus.\" The author means that men, like beasts, are in their existence and in their death influenced accidentally, i.e., not of necessity, and are wholly conditioned, not by their own individual energy, but by a power from without - are dependent beings, as Solon (Herod. i. 32) says to Croesus: \"Man is altogether συμφορή,\" i.e., the sport of accident. The first two sentences mean exclusively neither that men (apart from God) are, like beasts, the birth of a blind accident (Hitz.), nor that they are placed under the same law of transitoriness (Elst.); but of men, in the totality of their being, and doing, and suffering, it is first said that they are accidental beings; then, that which separates them from this, that they all, men like beasts, are finally exposed to one, i.e., to the same fate. As is the death of one, so is the death of the other; and they all have one breath, i.e., men and beasts alike die, for this breath of life (חיּים רוּח, which constitutes a beast - as well as a man a חיּה נפשׁ) departs from the body (Psa 104:29). In זה ... זה (as at Ecc 6:5; Exo 14:20, and frequently), להם (mas. as genus potius) is separately referred to men and beasts. With the Mishnic בּמות = bibl. כּמו (cf. Maaser Sheni, v. 2), the כּמות here used has manifestly nothing to do. The noun מותר, which in the Book of Proverbs (Pro 14:23; Pro 21:5, not elsewhere) occurs in the sense of profit, gain, is here in the Book of Koheleth found as a synon. of יתרון, \"preference,\" advantage which is exclusively peculiar to it. From this, that men and beasts fall under the same law of death, the author concludes that there is no preference of a man to a beast; he doubtless means that in respect of the end man has no superiority; but he expresses himself thus generally because, as the matter presented itself to him, all-absorbing death annulled every distinction. He looks only to the present time, without encumbering himself with the historical account of the matter found in the beginning of the Tra; and he adheres to the external phenomenon, without thinking, with the Psalmist in Ps 49, that although death is common to man with the beast, yet all men do not therefore die as the beast does. That the beast dies because it must, but that in the midst of this necessity of nature man can maintain his freedom, is for him out of view. הבל הכּל, the ματαιότης, which at last falls to man as well as to the beast, throws its long dark shadows across his mind, and wholly shrouds it. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["\"All goes hence to one place; all has sprung out of the dust, and all returns to the dust again.\" The \"one place\" is (as at Ecc 6:6) the earth, the great graveyard which finally receives all the living when dead. The art. of the first העפר is that denoting species; the art. of the second is retrospective: to the dust whence he sprang (cf. Psa 104:29; Psa 146:4); otherwise, Gen 3:19 (cf. Job 34:15), \"to dust shalt thou return,\" shalt become dust again. From dust to dust (Sir. 40:11; 41:10) is true of every living corporeal thing. It is true there exists the possibility that with the spirit of the dying man it may be different from what it is with the spirit of the dying beast, but yet that is open to question. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["\"Who knoweth with regard to the spirit of the children of men, whether it mounteth upward; and with regard to the spirit of a beast, whether it goeth downward to the earth?\" The interrogative meaning of העלה and הירדת is recognised by all the old translators: lxx, Targ., Syr., Jerome, Venet., Luther. Among the moderns, Heyder (vid., Psychol. p. 410), Hengst., Hahn, Dale, and Bullock take the h in both cases as the article: \"Who knoweth the spirit of the children of men, that which goeth upward ... ?\" But (1) thus rendered the question does not accord with the connection, which requires a sceptical question; (2) following \"who knoweth,\" after Ecc 2:19; Ecc 6:12, cf. Jos 2:14, an interrogative continuance of the sentence was to be expected; and (3) in both cases היא stands as designation of the subject only for the purpose of marking the interrogative clause (cf. Jer 2:14), and of making it observable that ha'olah and hayorěděth are not appos. belonging as objects to רוח and ורוח. It is questionable, indeed, whether the punctuation of these words, העלה and היּרדת, as they lie before us, proceeds from an interrogative rendering. Saadia in Emunoth c. vi., and Juda Halevi in the Kuzri ii. 80, deny this; and so also do Aben Ezra and Kimchi. And they may be right. For instead of העלה, the pointing ought to have been העלה (cf. העלה, Job 13:25) when used as interrog. an ascendens; even before א the compens. lengthening of the interrog. ha is nowhere certainly found \n(Note: For ה is to be read with a Pattach in Jdg 6:31; Jdg 12:5; Neh 6:11; cf. under Gen 19:9; Gen 27:21. In Num 16:22 the ה of האישׁ is the art., the question is not formally designated.\ninstead of the virtual reduplication; and thus also the parallel היּר is not to be judged after היּי, Lev 10:19, הדּ, Eze 18:29, - we must allow that the punctation seeks, by the removal of the two interrog. ha (ה), to place that which is here said in accord with Ecc 12:7. But there is no need for this. For יודע מי does not quite fall in with that which Lucretius says (Lib. I):\n\"Ignoratur enim quae sit natura animai,\nNata sit an contra nascentibus insinuetur?\nAn simul intereat nobiscum morte diremta?\"\nIt may certainly be said of mi yode'a, as of ignoratur, that it does not exclude every kind of knowledge, but only a sure and certain knowledge resting on sufficient grounds; interire and ירד לם are also scarcely different, for neither of the two necessarily signifies annihilation, but both the discontinuance of independent individual existence. But the putting of the question by Koheleth is different, for it discloses more definitely than this by Lucretius, the possibility of a different end for the spirit of a man from that which awaits the spirit of a beast, and thus of a specific distinction between these two principles of life. In the formation even of the dilemma: Whether upwards or downwards, there lies an inquiring knowledge; and it cannot surprise us if Koheleth finally decides that the way of the spirit of a man is upwards, although it is not said that he rested this on the ground of demonstrative certainty. It is enough that, with the moral necessity of a final judgment beyond the sphere of this present life, at the same time also the continued existence of the spirit of man presented itself to him as a postulate of faith. One may conclude from the desiderium aeternitatis (Ecc 3:11) implanted in man by the Creator, that, like the instincts implanted in the beasts, it will be calculated not for deception, but for satisfaction; and from the למעלה, Pro 15:24 - i.e., the striving of a wise man rising above earthly, temporary, common things, - that death will not put an end to this striving, but will help it to reach its goal. But this is an indirect proof, which, however, is always inferior to the direct in force of argument. He presupposes that the Omnipotence and Wisdom which formed the world is also at the same time Love. Thus, though at last, it is faith which solves the dilemma, and we see from Ecc 12:7 that this faith held sway over Koheleth. In the Book of Sirach, also, the old conception of Hades shows itself as yet dominant; but after the οὐκ ἀτηάνατος υἱὸς ἀντηρώπου, 17:25, we read towards the end, where he speaks of Elias: καὶ τὰρ ἡμεῖς ζωῇ ζησόμεθα, 48:11. In the passage before us, Koheleth remains in doubt, without getting over it by the hand of faith. In a certain reference the question he here proposes is to the present day unanswered; for the soul, or, more correctly, according to the biblical mode of conception the spirit from which the soul-life of all corporeal beings proceeds, is a monas, and as such is indestructible. Do the future of the beast's soul and of man's soul not then stand in a solidaric mutual relation to each other? In fact, the future life presents to us mysteries the solution of which is beyond the power of human thought, and we need not wonder that Koheleth, this sober-minded, intelligent man, who was inaccessible to fantastic self-deception, arrives, by the line of thought commenced at Ecc 3:16, also again at the ultimatum. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["\"Thus I then saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works, for that is his portion; for who can bring him to this, that he gains an insight into that which shall be after him?\" Hengstenberg, who has decided against the interrog. signification of the twice-repeated ה in Ecc 3:21, now also explains אהריו ... בּמה, not: What shall become of him after it (his death)? but: What further shall be done after the state in which he now finds himself? Zckler, although rightly understanding both ה as well as אחריו (after him = when he will be separated, or separates from this life, Ecc 7:14; Ecc 9:3; cf. Gen 24:67), yet proceeds on that explanation of Hengstenberg's, and gives it the rendering: how things shall be on the earth after his departure. But (1) for this thought, as Ecc 6:12 shows, the author had a more suitable form of expression; (2) this thought, after the author has, Ecc 3:21, explained it as uncertain whether the spirit of a man in the act of death takes a different path from that of a beast, is altogether aside from the subject, and it is only an apologetic tendency not yet fully vanquished which here constrains him. The chain of thought is however this: How it will be with the spirit of a man when he dies, who knows? What will be after death is thus withdrawn from human knowledge. Thus it is best to enjoy the present, since we connect together (Ecc 2:24) labour and enjoyment mediated thereby. This joy of a man in his work - i.e., as Ecc 5:18 : which flows from his work as a fountain, and accompanies him in it (Ecc 8:15) - is his portion, i.e., the best which he has of life in this world. Instead of בּמה־שּׁ, the punctuation is בּמה, because שׁיהיה אחריו is a kindred idea; vid.' regarding מה under Ecc 2:22. And לראות בּ is sued, because it is not so much to be said of the living, that he cannot foresee how it shall be with him when he dies, as that he can gain no glimpse into that world because it is an object that has for him no fixity. \n"]}]},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ECC/3.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ECC","chapter":3},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ECC/4.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ECC","chapter":4},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ECC/2.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ECC","chapter":2},"numberOfVerses":21}