The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 285

keep it under proper control. "Look on casting aside all tormenting anxiety con- thia I" it wo.s cried; •1 drink, and enjoy tby- cerning an unknown future, one may, as it eelf; for when thou diest thou shaH be is callecl, enjoy life. Let thy heart oheer such." The Roman poet hns many a pas- thee in the days of thy youth. Let th~ sage like this, though, of cour.c, of lower lightness of thy !mart show itself in thy bear. tendency. Thus Horace, '_Carm.,' ii. 3- ing and manner, even as it is said in Pro- verbs (xv. 13), "A merry heart maketh a " Preserve, 0 my Dellius, whatever. thy cheerful countenance." Walk in the wayf fortunes, • of thine heart (comp. Isa. !vii. 17). Where A mind unclistlll'bed, 'midst life's changes the impulses ancl thoughts of thy heart lead aurl ills; • thee. The wording looks as if the personal Not cast down by its sorrows, not too much identity, the "I," and the thought were elated distinct. We have a similar severance in If sudden' good fortune thy cup over- eh. vii. 25, only there the perwnality directs fills," etc. the thought, not the thought the" I." A.nd (Stanley.) in the sight of thine eyes. Follow after that (See also ' Carm.,' i. 4.) :For they shall be on which thy eyes fix their regard (eh. ii. many; rather, that they s11all be many. This 10); for, as Job says (xxxi. 7), "The heart is one of the things to remember. The time walketh after the eyes." The Septuagint, iu Sheol will be long. _How to be pe.ssed- in deference to the supposed requirements wheu, if ever, to end-he says not; he looks of strict morality, has (at least according to forwarJ to a dreary protracted period, when the text of some manuscripts) modified the re- joy shall be unattainable, and therefore he ceived reading, translating the passage thus : bids men to. use the present, which is all Kal 1r,pmd-r,i iv olioi's ,capli/ac trou 6.µwµos ,ea.I they can claim., AU, that cometh is vanity. µ~ ;,, opdf1'EI oq,9a.Aµw11 f1'ou, "And walk in the All that co1iles after this life is ended, the ways of thine heart blameless, and not in the great future, is nothingness; shadow, not sight of thine eyes." Batµ~ is omitted by substance; a state from which is absent all A, C, S 2 • Others besides the Seventy have that me.de life, and over which we have no felt doubts about the bearing of the passage, control. Koheleth had passed the sentence as though it recommended either unbridled of vanity on all the pursuits of the living licenco in youth, or at any rate an unhal- man; now he gives the same verdict upon lowed epicureanism. To counteract the the unknown condition of the departed soul supposed evil teaching, some have credited (comp.eh. ix. 5). Till the ~ospel had lnought Koheleth with stern iiony. He is not recom- life aud immortality to light, the view of the mending pleasure, say they, but warning future wns dark and gloomy. So we read in against it. "Go on your way," he cries, Job (x. 21, 22), "I go whence I shall not re- "do as you list, sow yonr wild oats, live dis- turn, even to the land of darkness and of the solately, but remember that retribution will shadow of deat!J ; o. land of thick darkness, some day overtnko you." But tlie counsel is BS darkness itself; a lo.nd of the shadow of seriously intended, and is quite consistent death, without any order, and where the with many other passa.ges which teach lhe light is_ as darkness." The Vulgate gives duty of enjoying life as man's lot and part quite o. <tifferent' turn to the clnusc, render- (see eh. ii. 24; iii. 12, 13, 22; v. IS; viii. 15, ing, .ll'feminisse debet teneln-osi temporis, et etc.). The seeming opposition between the dierum niultoru,n; qui cum venerint, vanitatis recommendation here and in Numb. xv. 39 arguentur pr.reterita, "He ought to remem- is ensily reconciled. The injunction in the ber . . . the m11ny days; and when these I'eutateuch, wl,ich was connected with 11 have come, things passed shall he chlll'ged ceremonh1l observance, rnn thus: "Remem- with vanity "-which implies, in accordance ber all the commandments of the Lord, and with an hagadic interp1·otation of the do them; and thnt yo go not !\bout afte1· passage, that ihe sinner sJiall suffer for his your own heart, a.nd your own eyes, after transgressions, and s!Jall then learn · to which ye used to go o.-whoriug." Here un- e.cknowleclge hie folly' in the past. It is lawful plensures, contr,1ry to the command- unnecessary to say that the present text is ments, ore forbidden; Ecclesiastes urges the ot variance with this rendering. pursuit of innocent pleas·uros, such as will Ver. 9.-Bejoice, 0 young man, in thy stand scrutiny. Hoclcmann, quoted by youth, Kobeleth continues to inculcate the Wright, observes that tl,faverse is tile origin duty of rational enjoyment. "In youth " is of e. famous student-song of Germany, a during youth; not in the exercise of, or by sto.nzo. or two of which we may cite- renson of, thy fresh, unimpaired powers. The author urges his hea.rere to begin be- " Gnudeamus igitur, jnvenes dum sumus; times to enjoy the blessings with which God Post exact.am juventutem, post molestam surrounds them. Youth is the season of eencctutcm, innocent, ~nalloyed pleasure; then, if ever, Nos habcbit humus . . . .  280 ECCLESIAS1.'E~ ; OR, THE PREACHER. [art. XI. 1-10.