The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 179

stances: he wants a philosophy or theosophy. here implies that he gave up himself with Hie desire is expressed by his imitator in the all earnestness to the investigation. Un- Book of Wisdom (ix,), "0 God of my fathers, ee.tiafe.ctory e.s his quest had been hitherto, •.. give me Wisdom, that eitteth by thy he did not relinquish the pursuit, but rather throne., .. 0 send her out of thy holy heavens, turned it in another direction, where he and from the throne of thy glory, that being could hope to meet with useful results. The present she may labour with me." But it Septuagint has, "I and my heart travelled wo.s far from me. It remained in the far round (l1<61<JHorra) .to know;" the Vulge.te, distance, out of reach. Job's experience Lustravi uni1'ersa animo meo ut scirem. And (xxviii.) we.a his. Pre.ctice.l rules of life he to search, and to seek out wisdom. The might go.in, and had mastered, but essential, e.ccumnlation of synonymous verbs is meant absolute wisdom was beyond mortal grasp. to emphasize the anthor's devotion to his Man's knowledge and co.po.city are limited. self-imposed task and his return from profit- Ver. 24.-The.t which is far off, and ex- less theoretical investigation to practical ceeding deep, who oe.n find it out l The inquiry. And the reason of things. Cheshbon broken, interjectional style of the original (ver. 27; eh. ix. 10) is rather "account," in this pe.sse.ge, as Professor Taylor Lewis "reckoning," than "reason "-the summing- terms it, is better brought out by translat- up of all the fact.a and circumstances rather ing, "Far off is that which is, and deep, than the elucidation of their canses. Vulge.te, deep: who can find it out?" Professor f'ationem; Septuagint, >/,jjd>ov. The next Lewis renders, "Fo.r off! the past, what is clause ought to be rendered, And to knOID it? Deep-a deep-oh, who can find?" and wickedne88 as (or, to be) folly, and foolishness explains "the past" to mean, not merely as (to be) madness. His investigation led him the earthly past historically unknown, but to this conclusion, that all infringement of the great past before the creation of the God's laws is a misjudging aberration-a univerde, the kingdom of all eternities with wilful desertion of the req airements of right its ages of ages, its worlds of worlds, its ree.son-and that mental and moral obtuse- mighty evolutions, its infinite variety. We ness is a physical malady which may be prefer to reto.in the rendering, "that which co.lied madness (comp. oh. i. 17; ii. 12; is," and to refer the expression to the phe- x. 13). nomenal world. It is not the essence of Ver. 26.-One practical result of his quest wisdom that is spoken of, but the facts of Koheleth cannot avoid mentioning, though man's life and the circumstances in which it comes with a sutl<lenness which is some- he finds himself, the course of the world, what et11rtling. And I find more bitter than the phenomena of nature, etc. These things death the woman. Tracing men's folly and -their causes, connection, interdependence madness to their source, he finds that they -we cannot explain satisfactorily (comp. arise generally from the secl uctions of the eh. iii. 11; vii i. 17). In the Book of Wisdom female sex. Beginning with Adam, womnn (vii. 17-21) Solomon is supposed to have he.a continued to work mischief in the world. arrirnd at this abstruse knowledge, "for," "Of the woman co.me the beginning of sin," he says, "God bath given me certain know- says Siracides, "and through her we o.11 die" ledgo of the things that are (,rwv /iv-row (Ecolus. x.xv. 24); it was owing to her tho.t .,,,,.,,11v ci,i,•u6ij)," and he proceeds to enume- the punishment of death wii.s indioted on rate the various departments which this the human race. If Solomon himself were "universito.s literarum" has opened to him. spe,iking, he had indeed a bitter experience The Septuagint (and virtually the Vulgate) of the sin o.nd misery into which women connects this verse with the preceding, thus: lead their victims (see l Kings xi. 1, 4, 11). "l so.id, I will be wise, and it (al/.,.,1) was far It may be thought that Koheleth rofere here from mo, far beyond what was (µa,cp/1.v 61r~p especially to "the strange woman" of Prov. ~ ;jv), and deep depth: who shall find it ii. 16, eto. ; v. 3, etc.; but in vor. 28 he out?" (For the epithet "deep" applied to speaks of the whole sex without qualifi- what is recondite or what is beyond human cation; so that we must conclude that he comprehension, comp. Prov. x.x. 5; Job had a vory low opinion of them. It is no ;x:i. 8.) ideal personage whom he is introducing; it Ver. 25.-1 applied mine heart to know; is not o. personification of vice or folly; but more literally, I turned myself, and my woman in her totality, such 11s he knew her heart was [set] to know. We ho.ve the ex- to be in Oriental courts o.nd homes, denied pression, "turned myself," referring to a her proper position, degraded, uneduco.ted, new investigation in eh. ii. 20 e.ncl elsewhere; 11.ll natural e.ffcctionecrushed or undeveloped. but the distinguishing the heart or soul the plaything of her lord, to be flung aside from the man himself is not common in at any moment. It is not surprising that Scripture (see on eh. xi_. 9), tho~gh the so~l Koheleth's impression of the female sex is sometimes apostrophized, o.e ID Luke xu. should be unfavourable. He is not singular 19 (comp. Pe. ciii. 1; oxlvi. 1). The writer in such nn opinion. Ooe might fill a large  166 ECCLESIASTES; OR, 'l'HE PREACHER. [ell, Vil, 1-29.