ON SOME VERSES OF ECCLESIASTES.

IN the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, there are two verses, viz. the eleventh and the eighteenth, which have given rise to much discussion these verses I proceed to consider, first of all transcribing nearly without variation from the Authorized Version the whole passage in which they stand, since the argument will depend in great measure upon the context.

iii. 1. To everything there is a season, and a time to every 2 purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; 9 &c. What advancement hath he that worketh in that1 he laboureth?

10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the 11 sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made everything

beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh 12 from the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good for them, but to rejoice and to make merry in one's life. 13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and see en14 joyment in all his labour, it is the gift of God. I know that,

whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, 15 that men should fear before him. That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.

16

And moreover I saw under the sun, that in the place of

1 'What good i.e. is there in labouring, seeing that every thing has its fixed time?' Here N is taken as an inseparable compound. Cp. ii. 16

(); vii. 2; viii. 4; and see v. 15,

מה יתרון לו שיעמל

2 Lit. in them. Cp. 7 1 18

(ii. 24).

judgement there was wickedness; and in the place of right17 cousness there was iniquity. I said in mine heart, God

shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a 18 time there for every purpose and for every work'. I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they 19 themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts: even one thing befalleth them as the one dieth, so dieth the other; and they have all one spirit; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all 20 is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and 21 all turn to dust again. Who knoweth that', The spirit

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of man, that is it which goeth upward; and the spirit of the beast, that is it which goeth downward to the earth? 22 Wherefore I perceived that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

Several points in this verse call for special notice:

[יפה

It is very generally taken for granted that this word means comely or good, both in the passage before us, and also in another much disputed verse, viz. Eccl. v. 17. Elsewhere how

1 The latter part of this verse is very obscure. I retain the Authorized Version, not knowing what is the true rendering.

2 Most commentators make the

priate meaning, thus:-'It may be said that the spirit of man goes upward and that of the beast downward; but who knoweth, who can be sure of this?' The rendering, 'who knoweth whether &c,' reads rather like an objection to ver. 20. The rendering of the text (no one KNOWS that there is any difference) leads more naturally to the conclusion in ver. 22.

,some, as Ewald] הַדֶּרֶדֶת and הָעֹלָה of

altering the points] obliquely interrogative. A minority take it as the article, the pointing being suitable; and this gives perhaps the more appro

ever the relative or subjective meaning of attractiveness seems appropriate. The word is most frequently descriptive of personal beauty: sometimes it stands alone, and even in such cases may be taken to mean 'fair,' sc. to look upon: in other cases a subjectivity of application seems to be directly implied, as in ', fair of aspect (Gen. xii. 11). In Cant. i. 16 occurs in close connexion with Dy, pleasant or agree

be taken as introducing an entirely new element into the

might נעים where however-הנך יפה דודי אף נעים,able, thus

הוצק חן is followed by יפיפית וג' 3 .description: in Ps. xlv .cpבשפתותיך

משוש and, in immediate sequence, as יפה נוף ,כל

הארץ

-cp. the expression 'to find favour,' which imports the giving of satisfaction: in Ps. xlviii. 3 the hill of Zion is described as

'the joy of the whole earth' in Jer. iv. 30 the hithpael is used of a woman striving to make herself attractive-In vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee:' in Ezek. xxxiii. 32 is used of sound, 'And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice.'

Now is it necessary to give an unprecedented meaning in the book of Ecclesiastes? It is indeed commonly done, thus Gesenius, s. v. 2) bonus, præstans, Kaλós (Eccl. iii. 11): Deus fecit omnia, kaλŵs, v. 17'—but is the meaning, pleasant, attractive, agreeable, so clearly unsuited to these contexts? The former passage is one of the most controverted in the whole book, and there is a conspicuous absence of agreement about the construction of that portion of the latter in which occurs, viz.

הנה אשר ראיתי אני טוב אשר יפה לאכול ולשתות

Here (1) the accentuation requires that we should pause on 'N and take the following word as beginning the statement of that which the writer had 'seen'-' Behold that which I have seen, viz. ''-the same form of expression (sc. with a pause on ') occurs in ii. 13, 24.

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Cp. 2) (ix. 16).

1 But for more on see P. S.

And (2) must mean, 'It is good that,' if it is to be rendered analogously to the same formula in ver. 4 and in vii. 18. Cp. ii. 3, 24; iii. 22. (3) If now be taken with what seems to be a not unusual meaning, viz. attractive or pleasant, the verse in question may be rendered :

Behold what I have seen :

It is a good thing that it is pleasant to eat and drink, &c.—

since a man cannot rise out of the common concerns of life it is well that he can take pleasure in them: moreover (ver. 18) it is by the gift of God that any man is enabled to find satisfaction therein. [See iii. 12, 13.] Whether this rendering be satisfactory or not, it certainly is not proved that ought to be rendered 'comely,' good, excellent, in Eccl. v. 17; neither can it be granted as a thing obvious that any such meaning is required in iii. 11. I shall therefore render the first clause of that verse as follows:

He hath made it1 all pleasant in its season.

עלם The great controversy is about the meaning of [העלם

a word which in the later Hebrew is used in the sense mundus, but in Biblical Hebrew-if the passage in question be excepted -is used only in the sense eternity (lit. the hidden or sealed past or future). But the a priori objection to the sense mundus in this passage is nevertheless a slight one, for (1) the LXX. render it by alŵva in the required sense, and (2) the style of Ecclesiastes has very strongly marked peculiarities, and the book contains expressions which are not found elsewhere in the Bible. "Long ago Luther remarked that this book has singularem quandam phrasin quæ a communis linguæ usu sæpe recedit et a nostra consuetudine valde aliena est. This (writes Professor Moses Stuart) is entirely correct and true as to diction and peculiarity of phraseology"-an admission which is valuable as proceeding from one who, in contending for the antiquity of the book, labours to reduce its modernisms to a minimum. "The general result (he adds) is that the book, for so short a one, partakes after all somewhat largely of the two

1 Viz. 'the travail, &c.' (ver. 10).

elements of later Hebrew and Chaldee, at least of what we are forced to regard as such. That its coloring throughout resembles most of all the later books, viz. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel, every reader familiar with these books must feel. That he is moving in an element greatly diverse from that of the earlier books, becomes a matter of immediate consciousness when one reads Coheleth." This consideration makes it a priori not very improbable that should stand for mundus in Eccl. iii. 11, while the authority of LXX, which gives that meaning, is assuredly not to be despised in such a

matter.

D] Also, moreover, even, yea. The word introduces something additional, but to render it by yea involves no departure from its primitive meaning, for the thing additional may be a confirmation or explanation of what precedes, and not entirely distinct from and unconnected therewith. In this verse I shall use the word yea as its equivalent; but the question at issue is, To what does apply and what does it emphasize? It is taken for granted on all sides that its whole stress is on the words which immediately follow, thus,

Also the world hath he put into their hearts.

But it is by no means necessary to make this assumption; indeed the accentuation points to a directly opposite conclusion'. In in (ch. iv. 14), where the accents are

, the emphasis of is restricted to the word next following: but in iii. 11 the has, and then follow

The very same sequence of accents .זקף קטון (מונח פשטא

occurs two verses later (iii. 13), and there the emphasis of is not on the clause which contains it but on the concluding It had been concluded in ver. 12 that man must fall back upon the present and find his satisfac

מתת אלהים היא words

1 Some persons may be inclined to reject a priori any argument which thus depends upon the accents. But it may be remarked (1) that-accents apart-there is nothing to prevent us from entertaining the view given in

the text; and (2) that the accents have in fact here suggested a construction which even on other grounds alone seems specially appropriate.

2 See also x. 20.