The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 154

supplied (comp. l Se.m. ii. 5; Jer. xv. 9). The lot of the rioh mnn in question is pro- 'l.'o have e. large family was 1·egarded as a claimed with ever-increasing misery. Ho grent blessing. The "hundred" is e. roui:id cannot enjoy his possessions; he 'has none number, though we read of some fathers who to whom to leave them; Lis niemory perishes; hR<l nearly this 'number of children; thus ha hns 110 honoured bul'ial. I eay, that an Ahab had seventy sons (2 Kings x. ]), untimely birth is _better than he (comp. eh. Rehoboam eighty-eight children 1(2 Chron. iv. 3). The abo1·tion or still-born child is xi. 21). Plnmptre follows some commen- preferable to oue whose destiny is so miser- tat.ors in seeing here an allusion to Arta- able (see Job iii. 16; Ps. lviii. 8). It is xerxes M:nemon, who is said to have ha.d preferable because, although it has missed e. hundred and fifteen children, and died of all the plea.sures of life, H has 11.t least grief at the e.ge of ninety-four at the suicide escaped all suffering. Tile next two verses of one son and the murder of another. illustrate this position. Wordsworth opines that Solomon, in the pre- Ver. 4.-For he oometh in with vanity; Yious verse, was thinking of Jeroboam, who, rather, /or it came into nothingness. The it was revealed unto him, should, stranger reference is to the fmtus, or still-born child', e.s he was, seize and enjoy his inheritance. not to the rich man, as is implied by th~ But these historical references are the Authorized Version. This, when it a.ppeare~ merest guesswork, -and rest upon no substan- had no independent life or being, was a mere tial basis. Plainly the author's statement is nothing. And departeth in darkness; aml: general, and there is no need to ransack goeth into the darkness. It is ta.ken away history to find its parallel. And live many and put out of sight. And his (its) name years, so that the days of his years be many ; shall be oovered with darkness. It is a Et vixerit multos annos, et plures dies .etatis nameless thing, unrecorded, unremembered. hobuerit (Vulgate). These versions seem to Ve1·. 5.-It has seen nothing of the world, be simply tautological. The sec:ind clause known nothing of life, its joys and its suffer- is climacteric, as Ginsburg renders, " Yea, ings, and is speedily forgotten. To " see the numerous as may be the days of his years." sun" is e. metaphor for to "live," as eh. vii. The whole extent of years is summed up in 11; x:i. 7; Jobiii.16, a.ndimpliesa.ctivityil.nd days. So Ps. xc. 10, "The days of our years work, the contrary of rest. This hath more are three score years and ten," etc. Long rest than the other; literally, there is rest to life, again, was deemed a special blessing, e.s this more than to that. The rest that belongs we see in the commandment with promise to the abortion is better than that whicb (Exod. xx. 12). And (yet if) his soul be not belongs to the rich man. Others take the :filled with good; i.e. he does not satisfy clause to say simply," It is better with this himself with the enjoyment of all the good than the other." So the Revised ·version things which he possesses. Septullgint, Ka.I margin and Delitzsch, the idea of ''rest" 'f"X~ tLV'TOU ov 71"A1J<T8tj<TE'Tat a1rb 'T,is lr:ya0w- being thus generalized, and taken to signify (TIRl1JS, "And his sonl shall not be satisfied a preferable choice. Septuagint, Kai ouit with his good." And also thllt he have no ~""' b.va,,ra,6uetr 'T06T'f' lnr~p 'ToVTov, "And bnrial. This is the climax of the evil that hllth not known rest for this more . tha.u befalls him. Some critics, not entering into that "-which reproduoes the diffi.oulty of Koheleth's view of the severity of ihis the Hebrew; Vulgate, Neque cognovit dis- calamity, translate, "and even if the grave tantiam boni et mali, which is e. pa.re.phrase did not wait for him," i.e. "if he were never unsuppol'ted by the present acoentue.tion of to die," if he were immortal. But there is tile text. Rest, in the conception of; an no parallel to show that the clause can have Oriental, is the most desirable of all things; this meaning; and we know, without havin,g compared with the busy, careworn life of the recourse to Greek precedents, that the want rich man, whose very moments of leisure of burial was reckoned a grievous loss and and sleep a.re troubled .o.nd disturbed, the dishonour. Hence comes the common allu- dreamless nothingness of the still-born child sion to dead carcases being left to be. de- is happiness. This may be a. rhetorice.l voured by beasts and birds, instead of meet. exaggeration, but we have its parallel in :wg with honourable burial in the ancestral Job's lamentable cry in eh. iii. w_hen :he graves (1 Kings xiii 22; Isa. xiv. lS-20). "cnrsed his day," Thus David li8YS to his giant foe, "I will Ver. 6.-Yea, though he live a thousa:iui give the carcases of the host of the Philis- years twioe told, yet hath he ,seen no good,. tines this day unto the fowls of the air, nnd What has been snid would still be true even tu the wild bee.ate of the earth" (1 Sam. if the man lived two tho1,1se.nd years. Tjie xvii. 46); and about Jehoiakim it was <le- second clause is uot the a.podosis. (as the nuunced that he should not be lamented Authorized Version makes it), but the con- when he died:'' He shall be buried with the tinuation of the protasis: if he live.cl the burial 01' an8.88,dre.wnand caBt forth beyond longest life, "a.nrl saw not good;" the oon- tl1e gates of Jerus2.lem" (Jei. JI.xii. 18, 19). clusion is given iu the form of e. q uestiou, OH, VI. 1-12.] ECOLESIASTES; OR, THE PREACHER. 139