The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 215

time wherein one msn ruloth over another to following clause, " they went away from the hi.a own hurt. This version is certainly holy place," as one generation coming o.nd incorrect. A new sentence is not commenced another going, in constant sucoession. Hut here, but the clause is closely connect.ad with whnt precedes; 11nd "his own hurt" should Iif, as we suppose, the pare.graph applies to the despot, such an interpretation is unsuit- be" his [equivocally] hurt," Thus Wright able. Cox's idea, that oppressive despots· and Volek: "All this have I seen, e,·en by "come again'' in the persons of their wicked npplying my heart to all the work thst is children, is wholly unsupported by the done under the sun, at a time when man text. The verse admits and has received a ruleth over man to his hurt." Most modern dozen explanations differing more or less commentators consider that the hurt is that from one another. A good deal depends of the oppressed subject; but it is possible upon the manner in which the succeeding thut the sense is intentionally ambiguous, clause is translated, And they were forgotten and the injury may be that which the despot in the oity where they had so done. As the. inflicts, and that which he bas t.o suffer. particle rendered "so" (ken) may also mean Both these have been signified above. There "well," "rightly," we get the rendering, is no 'l'alid reason for making, as Cox does, " even such as acted justly," and thus intro- this last clause commence ver. 10, nud duce a contrast between the fate of the rendering, " But there is e. time when a wicked man who is honoured with e. sump- man ruleth over men to their hurt." tuous funeral, and that of the righteous Yers. 10-15.-Section 6. Kobeleth is whose name is cast out as pollution antl soon forgotten. So Cheyne(' Job and Solomon') troubled by apparent anomalies in God's gives, "And in nccorde.nce with this I have moral government. He notes the prosperity seen ungodly men honoured, antl that too in of the godless and the misery of the righteoWJ, the holy place (the temple, Isa.. xviii. 7), but God's abstention and the seeming impunity those who had acted rightly had to de.part, of sinners mnke men incredulous of Provi- and were forgotten in the city." Against this interpretation, which has been adopted dence ; but God is just in reward and by many, it may reasonably be urged thnt punishment, as the end will prove. Mean- in the ea.me verse ken would hardly be time, returning to his old maxim, he advises used in two different senses, and that there meu patiently to acquiesce in things as they is nothing in· the text to indicate a, change·· are, and to wake the best of life. of subject. It seems to me that the whole verse applies to the wicked man. He dies in Ver. 10.-And so (J;i 71); then, in like peace, he leaves the holy pla.ce; the evil that • manner, under the same circumstances he has done is forgotten in the very city (Esth. i'I'. 16). The writer notes some ap- where he had so done, i.e. done wickedly.· parent exce1,tions to the law of retribution " The place of the holy" is J crusalem (Isa. of which he has just been speaking, the xlviii. 2; Matt. xxvii. 53) or the temple double particle at the beginning of the verse (Matt. xxiv. 15). He is removed by death iwplying ihe connection with the preceding from that spot, the very name of which ought statement. I saw the wicked buried. "The to have cried shame on his crimes and im- wicked" are especially the despots (ver. 9). piety. The expression seems to picture e. These are carried to their graves with every great procession of priests and Levites • outward honour and respect, like the rich accompanying the co1·pse of the deceased man in the parable, who "died. and was tyrant to the place of burial, while the final buried" (Luke xvi. 22). Such men, if clause implies that no long lamentation was they had received their due reward, far from made over him, no monument erected to his having a pompous and magnificent funeral memory (see the opposite or this in the treat- (which would befit only a good and honoured ment of Josiah, 2 Chron. xxxv. 24, 25). life), would have been buried with the They who oonsider "the righteous " to ho burial of nn ass (comp. Isa. x_iv. 19; Jer. the ,11ubject of the le.et clauses see in the xxii. 19). So for the Authorized Version is words, "from the holy pln.ce they departed," undeniably correct. What follows is as cer- an intimation that these were excommuni- tainly inaccurote oe it ie unintelligible. cated from the synagogue or templo, or Who had come and gone from ihe place of banished from the pl'omised laud, on account the holy; literally, and they came, and of their opinions. I would tre.nsle.te the from the place of the holy they went. The pa.seage thus : In like manner have I see11 first verb sfems to mean, "they came to their the wiclced buried, and they oame to theit re;;t," they died a natural death. 'fhe words, rest, and they went from the 1,,oly place, and i11 themselves ambiguous, are explained by were forgotten in the oitg where they had so the connection in which they stand (comp. ( wickedly) aoted. The versions hav~ followed L!a. lvii. 2). Wright renders, "they ea.me various readings. Thus the Septungrnt: "And into being," 1>.nd explains it with the then I BRW the impious brought unto grnves, 011, vru. 1-17.] ECCLESIASTES; OR, THE PREACHER. 203