Ecclesiastes 12 commentary

We should remember our sins against our Creator, repent, and seek forgiveness. We should remember our duties, and set about them, looking to him for grace and strength. This should be done early, while the body is strong, and the spirits active. When a man has the pain of reviewing a misspent life, his not having given up sin and worldly vanities till he is forced to say, I have no pleasure in them, renders his sincerity very questionable. Then follows a figurative description of old age and its infirmities, which has some difficulties; but the meaning is plain, to show how uncomfortable, generally, the days of old age are. As the four verses, 2-5, are a figurative description of the infirmities that usually accompany old age, 6 notices the circumstances which take place in the hour of death. If sin had not entered into the world, these infirmities would not have been known. Surely then the aged should reflect on the evil of sin.

Solomon repeats his text, VANITY OF VANITIES, ALL IS VANITY. These are the words of one that could speak by dear-bought experience of the vanity of the world, which can do nothing to ease men of the burden of sin. As he considered the worth of souls, he gave good heed to what he spake and wrote; words of truth will always be acceptable words. The truths of God are as goads to such as are dull and draw back, and nails to such as are wandering and draw aside; means to establish the heart, that we may never sit loose to our duty, nor be taken from it. The Shepherd of Israel is the Giver of inspired wisdom. Teachers and guides all receive their communications from him. The title is applied in Scripture to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The prophets sought diligently, what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. To write many books was not suited to the shortness of human life, and would be weariness to the writer, and to the reader; and then was much more so to both than it is now. All things would be vanity and vexation, except they led to this conclusion, That to fear God, and keep his commandments, is the whole of man. The fear of God includes in it all the affections of the soul towards him, which are produced by the Holy Spirit. There may be terror where there is no love, nay, where there is hatred. But this is different from the gracious fear of God, as the feelings of an affectionate child. The fear of God, is often put for the whole of true religion in the heart, and includes its practical results in the life. Let us attend to the one thing needful, and now come to him as a merciful Saviour, who will soon come as an almighty Judge, when he will bring to light the things of darkness, and manifest the counsels of all hearts. Why does God record in his word, that ALL IS VANITY, but to keep us from deceiving ourselves to our ruin? He makes our duty to be our interest. May it be graven in all our hearts. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is all that concerns man.

CHAPTER 12

Ec 12:1-14.

1. As Ec 11:9, 10 showed what youths are to shun, so this verse shows what they are to follow.

Creator--"Remember" that thou art not thine own, but God's property; for He has created thee (Psa 100:3). Therefore serve Him with thy "all" (Mr 12:30), and with thy best days, not with the dregs of them (Pr 8:17; 22:6; Jr 3:4; La 3:27). The Hebrew is "Creators," plural, implying the plurality of persons, as in Ge 1:26; so Hebrew, "Makers" (Is 54:5).

while ... not--that is, before that (Pr 8:26) the evil days come; namely, calamity and old age, when one can no longer serve God, as in youth (Ec 11:2, 8).

no pleasure--of a sensual kind (2Sa 19:35; Psa 90:10). Pleasure in God continues to the godly old (Is 46:4).

2. Illustrating "the evil days" (Jr 13:16). "Light," "sun," &c., express prosperity; "darkness," pain and calamity (Is 13:10; 30:26).

clouds ... after ... rain--After rain sunshine (comfort) might be looked for, but only a brief glimpse of it is given, and the gloomy clouds (pains) return.

3. keepers of the house--namely, the hands and arms which protected the body, as guards do a palace (Ge 49:24; Job 4:19; 2Co 5:1), are now palsied.

strong men ... bow--(Jud 16:25, 30). Like supporting pillars, the feet and knees (So 5:15); the strongest members (Psa 147:10).

grinders--the molar teeth.

cease--are idle.

those that look out of the windows--the eyes; the powers of vision, looking out from beneath the eyelids, which open and shut like the casement of a window.

4. doors--the lips, which are closely shut together as doors, by old men in eating, for, if they did not do so, the food would drop out (Job 41:14; Psa 141:3; Mi 7:5).

in the streets--that is, toward the street, "the outer doors" [Maurer and Weiss].

sound of ... grinding--The teeth being almost gone, and the lips "shut" in eating, the sound of mastication is scarcely heard.

the bird--the cock. In the East all mostly rise with the dawn. But the old are glad to rise from their sleepless couch, or painful slumbers still earlier, namely, when the cock crows, before dawn (Job 7:4) [Holden]. The least noise awakens them [Weiss].

daughters of music--the organs that produce and that enjoy music; the voice and ear.

5. that which is high--The old are afraid of ascending a hill.

fears ... in the way--Even on the level highway they are full of fears of falling, &c.

almond ... flourish--In the East the hair is mostly dark. The white head of the old among the dark-haired is like an almond tree, with its white blossoms, among the dark trees around [Holden]. The almond tree flowers on a leafless stock in winter (answering to old age, in which all the powers are dormant), while the other trees are flowerless. Gesenius takes the Hebrew for flourishes from a different root, casts off; when the old man loses his gray hairs, as the almond tree casts its white flowers.

grasshoppers--the dry, shrivelled, old man, his backbone sticking out, his knees projecting forwards, his arms backwards, his head down, and the apophyses enlarged, is like that insect. Hence arose the fable, that Tithonus in very old age was changed into a grasshopper [Parkhurst]. "The locust raises itself to fly"; the old man about to leave the body is like a locust when it is assuming its winged form, and is about to fly [Maurer].

a burden--namely, to himself.

desire shall fail--satisfaction shall be abolished. For "desire," Vulgate has "the caper tree," provocative of lust; not so well.

long home--(Job 16:22; 17:13).

mourners--(Jr 9:17-20), hired for the occasion (Mt 9:23).

6. A double image to represent death, as in Ec 12:1-5, old age: (1) A lamp of frail material, but gilded over, often in the East hung from roofs by a cord of silk and silver interwoven; as the lamp is dashed down and broken, when the cord breaks, so man at death; the golden bowl of the lamp answers to the skull, which, from the vital preciousness of its contents, may be called "golden"; "the silver cord" is the spinal marrow, which is white and precious as silver, and is attached to the brain. (2) A fountain, from which water is drawn by a pitcher let down by a rope wound round a wheel; as, when the pitcher and wheel are broken, water can no more be drawn, so life ceases when the vital energies are gone. The "fountain" may mean the right ventricle of the heart; the "cistern," the left; the pitcher, the veins; the wheel, the aorta, or great artery [Smith]. The circulation of the blood, whether known or not to Solomon, seems to be implied in the language put by the Holy Ghost into his mouth. This gloomy picture of old age applies to those who have not "remembered their Creator in youth." They have none of the consolations of God, which they might have obtained in youth; it is now too late to seek them. A good old age is a blessing to the godly (Ge 15:15; Job 5:26; Pr 16:31; 20:29).

7. dust--the dust-formed body.

spirit--surviving the body; implying its immortality (Ec 3:11).

8-12. A summary of the first part.

Vanity, &c.--Resumption of the sentiment with which the book began (Ec 1:2; 1Jo 2:17).

13. The grand inference of the whole book.

Fear God--The antidote to following creature idols, and "vanities," whether self-righteousness (Ec 7:16, 18), or wicked oppression and other evils (Ec 8:12, 13), or mad mirth (Ec 2:2; 7:2-5), or self-mortifying avarice (Ec 8:13, 17), or youth spent without God (Ec 11:9; 12:1).

this is the whole duty of man--literally, "this is the whole man," the full ideal of man, as originally contemplated, realized wholly by Jesus Christ alone; and, through Him, by saints now in part, hereafter perfectly (1Jo 3:22-24; Re 22:14).

14. For God shall bring every work into judgment--The future judgment is the test of what is "vanity," what solid, as regards the chief good, the grand subject of the book.

Remember thy Creator - בוראיך Boreeycha, thy Creators. The word is most certainly in the plural number in all our common Hebrew Bibles; but it is in the singular number, בוראך Borecha, in one hundred and seventy-six of Dr. Kennicott's MSS., and ninety-six of De Rossi's; in many ancient editions; and in all the ancient versions. There is no dependence on the plural form in most of the modern editions; though there are some editions of great worth which exhibit the word in this form, and among them the Complutensian, Antwerp, Paris, and London polyglots.

The evidence, therefore, that this text is supposed to give to the doctrine of the ever blessed Trinity, is but precarious, and on it little stress can be laid; and no man who loves truth would wish to support it by dubious witnesses. Injudicious men, by laying stress on texts dubious in themselves, and which may be interpreted a different way, greatly injure the true faith. Though such in their hearts may be friends to the orthodox faith, they are in fact its worst friends, and their assistance is such as helps their adversaries.

But what does the text say? It addresses the youth of both sexes throughout the creation; and says in effect: -

I. You are not your own, you have no right to yourselves. God made you; he is your Creator: he made you that you might be happy; but you can be happy only in him. And as he created you, so he preserves you; he feeds, clothes, upholds you. He has made you capable of knowing, loving, and serving him in this world, and of enjoying him in his own glory for ever. And when you had undone yourselves by sin, he sent his Son to redeem you by his blood; and he sends his Spirit to enlighten, convince, and draw you away from childishness, from vain and trifling, as well as from sinful, pursuits.

II. Remember him; consider that he is your Creator, your loving and affectionate Father. In youth memory is strong and tenacious; but, through the perversion of the heart by sin, young people can remember any thing better than God. If you get a kindness from a friend, you can remember that, and feel gratitude for it; and the person is therefore endeared to you. Have any ever given you such benefits as your Creator? Your body and soul came from him; he gave you your eyes, ears, tongue, hands, feet, etc. What blessings are these! how excellent! how useful! how necessary and will you forget Him?

III. Remember him in thy Youth, in order that you may have a long and blessed life, that you may be saved from the corruption and misery into which young people in general run; and the evils they entail upon themselves by giving way to the sinful propensities of their own hearts. As in youth all the powers are more active and vigorous, so they are capable of superior enjoyments. Faith, hope, and love, will be in their best tenor, their greatest vigor, and in their least encumbered state. And it will be easier for you to believe, hope, pray, love, obey, and bear your cross, than it can be in old age and decrepitude.

IV. Remember him Now, in this part of your youth - you have no certainty of life; now is yours, to-morrow may not be. You are young; but you may never be old. Now he waits to be gracious; tomorrow may be too late. God now calls; his Spirit now strives; his ministers now exhort. You have now health; sin has not now so much dominion over you as it will have, increasing by every future moment, if you do not give up your hearts to your Maker.

V. There is another consideration which should weigh with you: should you live to old age. it is a very disadvantageous time to begin to serve the Lord in. Infirmities press down both body and mind, and the oppressed nature has enough to do to bear its own infirmities; and as there is little time, so there is generally less inclination, to call upon the Lord. Evil habits are strengthened by long continuance; and every desire and appetite in the soul is a strong hold for Satan. There is little time for repentance, little for faith, none for obedience. The evil days are come, and the years in which you will feelingly be obliged to say, Alas! "we have no pleasure in them;" and, what is worse, the heart is hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened - i.e., in the Spring, prime, and prosperity of life.

Nor the clouds return - The infirmities of old age of which Winter is a proper emblem, as spring is of youth, in the former clause of this verse.

In the day when the keepers of the house - The Body of man is here compared to a House: - mark the metaphors and their propriety.

1. The keepers shall tremble - the hands become paralytic, as is constantly the case, less or more, in old age.

2. The strong men shall bow - The legs become feeble, and unable to support the weight of the body.

3. The grinders cease because they are few - The teeth decayed and mostly lost; the few that remain being incapable of properly masticating hard substances or animal food. And so they cease; for soft or pulpy substances, which are requisite then, require little or no mastication; and these aliments become their ordinary food.

4. Those that look out of the windows - The optic nerves, which receive impressions, through the medium of the different humours of the eye, from surrounding objects - they are darkened; the humours becoming thick, flat, and turbid, they are no longer capable of transmitting those images in that clear, distinct manner, as formerly. There may be an allusion here to the pupil of the eye. Look into it, and you will see your own image in extreme minature looking out upon you; and hence it has its name pupillus, a little child, from pupus, a baby, a doll; because the image in the eye resembles such. The optic nerve being seated at the bottom of the eye, has the images of surrounding objects painted upon it; it looks out through the different humors. The different membranes and humours which compose the eye, and serve for vision, are, the tunica conjunctiva, the tunica sclerotica, the cornea, the iris, the pupil, the choroides, and the retina. The iris is perforated to admit the rays of light, and is called the pupil; the retina is a diffusion of the optic nerve in the bottom of the eye, on which the images are painted or impressed that give us the sensation we term sight or vision. All these membranes, humours, and nerves, are more or less impaired, thickened, or rendered opaque, by old age, expressed by the metaphor, "Those that look out of the windows are darkened."

And the doors shall be shut in the streets -

5. The doors - the lips, which are the doors by which the mouth is closed.

6. Be shut in the streets - The cavities of the cheeks and jaws, through which the food may be said to travel before it is fitted by mastication or chewing to go down the aesophagus into the stomach. The doors or lips are shut to hinder the food in chewing from dropping out; as the teeth, which prevented that before, are now lost.

7. The sound of the grinding is low - Little noise is now made in eating, because the teeth are either lost, or become so infirm as not to nsuffer their being pressed close together; and the mouth being kept shut to hinder the food from dropping out, the sound in eating is scarcely heard. The teeth are divided into three kinds: -

1. The dentes incisores, or cutting teeth, in the front of the jaw.

2. The dentes canini, or dog teeth, those in the sides of the jaws, for gnawing, or tearing and separating hard or tough substances. And,

3. Dentes molares, or grinding teeth, the posterior or double teeth, in both jaws, generally termed the grinders; because their office is to grind down the substances that have been cut by the fore teeth, separated into their parts or fibres by the dog teeth, and thus prepare it for digestion in the stomach.

8. He shall rise up at the voice of the bird - His sleep is not sound as it used to be; he slumbers rather than sleeps; and the crowing of the cock awakes him. And so much difficulty does he find to respire while in bed, that he is glad of the dawn to rise up and get some relief. The chirping ot the sparrow is sufficient to awake him.

9. All the daughters of music shall be brought low - The Voice, that wonderful instrument, almost endless in the strength and variety of its tones, becomes feeble and squeaking, and merriment and pleasure are no more. The tones emitted are all of the querulous or mournful kind.

When they shall be afraid of that which is high -

10. Being so feeble, they are afraid to trust themselves to ascend steps, stairs, etc., without help. And when they look upwards, their heads turn giddy, and they are ready to fall.

11. Fears shall be in the way - They dare not walk out, lest they should meet some danger, which they have not strength to repel, nor agility to escape. A second childishness has taken place - apprehensions, fears, terrors, and weakness.

12. The almond tree shall flourish - ינאץ yenaets, not flourish, but fall off. The hair begins to change, first gray, then white; it having no longer that supply of nutritive juices which it once had, this animal vegetable withers and falls off. The almond tree, having white flowers, is a fit emblem of a hoary head; or as Hasselquist says, who observed the tree in full flower in Judea, "like an old man with his white locks."

13. The grasshopper shall be a burden - Even such an inconsiderable thing as a locust, or a very small insect, shall be deemed burdensome, their strength is so exceedingly diminished. In cases of the gout, especially in old men, the shadow of a person passing by puts them to acute pain! How much less can they bear the smallest pressure! But probably the words refer to the man himself, who, bent at the loins, and his arms hanging down, exhibits some caricature of the animal in question. The poor grasshopper has become a burden to himself. Another interpretation has been given of the grasshopper; but I pass it by as impertinent and contemptible; such commentators appear as if they wished to render the text ridiculous.

14. Desire shall fail - Both relish and appetite for food, even the most delicate, that to which they were formerly so much attached, now fails. The teeth are no longer able to masticate the food, or have all dropped out; the stomach no longer able to digest any thing; and, as the body is no longer capable of receiving nourishment, appetite and relish necessarily fail.

15. Because man goeth to his long home - אל בית עולמו el beith olamo, "to the house of his age;" the place destined to receive him, when the whole race or course of life shall be finished; for עולם olam takes in the whole course or duration of a thing; if applied to a dispensation, such as the Law, it takes in its whole duration; to the life of man, it takes in the whole life; to time, it includes its whole compass; to eternity, it expresses its infinite duration. So old age terminates the olam, the complete duration of human life; and when life is no longer desired, and nutrition ceases, the olam of man is terminated. My old MS. Bible translates it, The hous of his everlastingness.

16. He is just departing into the invisible world; and this is known by the mourners going abount the streets, the long hollow groans and throat rattlings which proceed from him; the sure prognostications of the extreme debility and speedy cessation of those essential animal functions next mentioned.

Or ever the silver cord be loosed - We have already had all the external evidences of old age, with all its attendant infirmities; next follow what takes place in the body, in order to produce what is called death, or the separation of body and soul.

1. The silver cord - The medulla oblongata or spinal marrow, from which all the nerves proceed, as itself does from the brain. This is termed a cord, from its exact similitude to one; and a silver cord, from its color, as it strikingly exhibits the silver gray; and from its preciousness. This is said to be loosed; as the nervous system became a little before, and at the article of death, wholly debilitated. The last loosing being the fall of the under jaw, the invariable and never-failing evidence of immediate death; a few struggles more, and the soul is dismissed from its clay tenement.

2. The golden bowl be broken - The brain contained in the cranium, or skull, and enveloped with the membranes called the dura and pia mater; here called a bowl, from its resemblance to such a vessel, the container being put for the contained; and golden because of its color, and because of its exceeding preciousness as has been noticed in the former case. Broken - be rendered unfit to perform its functions, neither supplying nor distributing any nervous energy.

3. Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain - The vena cava, which brings back the blood to the right ventricle of the heart, here called the fountain, המבוע hammabbua, the spring whence the water gushes up; properly applied here to the heart, which by its systole and diastole (contraction and expansion) sends out, and afterwards receives back, the blood; for all the blood flows from, and returns back to, the heart.

4. The wheel broken at the cistern - The great aorta, which receives the blood from the cistern, the left ventricle of the heart, and distributes it to the different parts of the system. These may be said, as in the case of the brain above, to bo broken, i.e., rendered useless; when, through the loosening of the silver cord, the total relaxation of the nervous system, the heart becomes incapable of dilatation and contraction, so that the blood, on its return to the right ventricle of the heart, is not recessed, nor that already contained in the ventricles propelled into the great aorta. The wheel is used in allusion to the Asiatic wheels, by which they raise water from their wells and tanks, and deep cisterns, for domestic purposes, or to irrigate the grounds. Thus, then, the blood becomes stagnate; the lungs cease to respire; the blood is no longer oxidized, all motion, voluntary and involuntary, ceases; the body, the house of the immortal spirit, is no longer tenantable, and the soul takes its flight into the eternal world. The man D-I-E-S! This is expressed in the following verse: -

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God -

5. Putrefaction and solution take place; the whole mass becomes decomposed, and in process of time is reduced to dust, from which it was originally made; while the spirit, הרוח haruach, that spirit, which God at first breathed into the nostrils of man, when he in consequence became a Living Soul, an intelligent, rational, discoursing animal, returns to God who gave it. Here the wise man makes a most evident distinction between the body and the soul: they are not the same; they are not both matter. The body, which is matter, returns to dust, its original; but the spirit, which is immaterial, returns to God. It is impossible that two natures can be more distinct, or more emphatically distinguished. The author of this book was not a materialist.

Thus ends this affecting, yet elegant and finished, picture of Old Age and Death. See a description of old age similar, but much inferior, to this, in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, 5:76-82.

It has been often remarked that the circulation of the blood, which has been deemed a modern discovery by our countryman Dr. Harvey, in 1616, was known to Solomon, or whoever was the author of this book: the fountains, cisterns, pitcher, and wheel, giving sufficient countenance to the conclusion.

This affecting and minute description of old age and death is concluded by the author with the same exclamation by which he began this book: O vanity of vanities, saith Koheleth, all is vanity. Now that man, the masterpiece of God's creation, the delegated sovereign of this lower world, is turned to dust, what is there stable or worthy of contemplation besides? All - All is Vanity!

Because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge - And in order to do this he took good heed - considered what would be most useful. He set in order - collected and arranged, many parables, probably alluding to the book over which we have already passed.

He sought to find out acceptable words - דברי חפץ dibrey chephets, words of desire, words of will; the best, the most suitable words; those which the people could best understand. But these words were not such as might merely please the people; they were words of truth; such as came from God, and might lead them to him.

The words of the wise - Doctrines of faith, illustrated by suitable language, are as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, בעלי אספות baaley asuphoth, the masters of collections, those who had made the best collections of this kind, the matter of which was of the most excellent nature; every saying sinking as deeply into the mind, by the force of the truth contained in it, as a nail well pointed does into a board, when impelled by the hammer's force. These masters of collections have been supposed to be public persons appointed by the prince himself, the sole shepherd, to see that nothing was put into the people's hands but what would be profitable for them to read; and that, when any wise man gave public instructions, a good scribe sat by to take down the words; and then the master examined what he had written, to see that it was upright, and that the words were doctrines of truth. These were something like our licensers of the press; but the existence of such is little more than conjecture.

After all, masters of assemblies may mean public teachers; that which was written, the oracles of God, out of which they instructed the people; the one Shepherd, God Almighty, from whom they received their authority and unction to preach the truth; and by the energy of whose Spirit the heavenly teaching was fastened in their hearts, as a well-driven nail in a sound piece of wood.

And farther, by these, my son, be admonished - Hear such teachers, and receive their admonitions; and do not receive the grace of God in vain.

Of making many books there is no end - Two thousand years have elapsed since this was written; and since that time some millions of treatises have been added, on all kinds of subjects, to those which have gone before. The press is still groaning under and teeming with books, books innumerable; and no one subject is yet exhausted, notwithstanding all that has been written on it. And we who live in these latter times are no nearer an end, in the investigation of Nature and its properties; of God, his attributes, his providence, his justice, and his mercy; of Man, his animal life, his mode of nutrition and existence, and his soul and its powers; of Jesus, and the redemption by him; of Eternity, and what it implies as exhibiting to us the pains of the cursed, and the glories of the blessed. Of several of these we know no more than they who have lived five thousand years before us; nor do we know any thing certainly by the endless books that have been published, except what bears the seal of the God of heaven, as published in that word which was declared by his Spirit.

And much study is a weariness of the flesh - O how true is this! Let the trembling knees, the palsied hands, the darkened eyes, the aching heart, and the puzzled mind of every real student declare! And should none more worthy of the name of student be within reach to consult, the writer of this work is a proof in point.

After all, the sum of the great business of human life is comprised in this short sentence, on which some millions of books have been already written!

Fear God, and Keep His Commandments

1. Know that He Is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

2. Reverence him; pay him adoration.

3. Love him, that you may be happy.

Keep his commandments - They are contained in two words:

1. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;"

2. "And thy neighbor as thyself."

Blessed be God, much reading and much study are not necessary to accomplish this, which is called כל האדם col haadam, the whole of Adam; the whole that God required of the first man and of all his posterity. But the gospel of Jesus Christ must be understood to comprehend the full force of this short saying.

The word duty, added here by our translators, spoils, if not Perverts, the sense.

The whole passage is rendered with great simplicity by Coverdale: - "The same preacher was not wyse alone: but taught the people knowledge also. He gave good hede, sought out the grounde, and set forth many parables. His diligence was to fynde out acceptable wordes, right scripture, and the wordes of trueth. For the wordes of the wyse are like prickes and nales that go thorow, wherewith men are kepte together: for they are geven of one Shepherd onely. Therefore be warre (my sonne) that above these thou make thee not many and innumerable bookes, nor take dyverse doctrynes in hande, to weery thy body withall. "Let us heare the conclusion of all thinges; Feare God, and kepe his comaundementes, for that toucheth all men; for God shall judge all workes and secrete thinges, whether they be good or evell."

I shall give the same from my old MS. Bible: -

And wan Ecclesiastes was most wiis he taght the peple, and told out what he had don, and enserchinge maade many parablis. He soght profitable wordis, and wrote most right sermons, and ful of trewth, The wordis of wismen as prickis and as nailis into herte pigt: that bi the counseyle of maisteris ben geven of oon scheperd. More thann thes sone myn, ne seche thou; of making many bokes is noon eend, and oft bethinking is tormenting of the flesche. Eend of spekinge alle togydir heere mee. Drede God, and his hestis kepe; that is eche man. Alle thingis that ben maad schal bringen into dome, for eche erid thinge, whithir good or evyl it be.

For God shall bring every work into judgment - This is the reason why we should "fear God and keep his commandments."

1. Because there will be a day of judgment.

2. Every soul of man shall stand at that bar.

3. God, the infinitely wise, the heart-searching God, will be judge.

4. He will bring to light every secret thing - all that has been done since the creation, by all men; whether forgotten or registered; whether done in secret or in public.

5. All the works of the godly, as well as all the works of the wicked, shall be judged in that day; the good which the godly strove to conceal, as well as the evil which the wicked endeavored to hide.

This, then, will be the conclusion of the whole mortal story. And although in this world all is vanity; yet there, "vanities will be vain no more." Every thing whether good or evil, will have its own proper stable, eternal result. O God! prepare the reader to give up his accounts with joy in that day! Amen.

Masoretic Notes

Number of verses, 222.

Middle verse, Ecc 6:10.

Sections, 4.

The Arabic subjoins this colophon: - "Praise be to God for ever and ever!" "By the assistance of the Most High God this book of Ecclesiastes, which is vanity of vanities, written by Solomon the son of David who reigned over the children of Israel, is completed."

The Syriac has, "The end of the book of Koheleth."

There are others, but they are of no importance.

Now - For now thou art most able to do it; and it will be most acceptable to God, and most comfortable to thyself, as the best evidence of thy sincerity, and the best provision for old age and death. Evil days - The time of old age, which is evil; burdensome in itself, and far more grievous when it is loaded with the sad remembrance of youthful follies, and with the dreadful prospect of approaching death and judgment. No pleasure - My life Is now bitter and burdensome to me: which is frequently the condition of old age.

Which - Heb. While the sun, and the light, and the moon, &c. That clause, and the light, seems to be added to signify that he speaks of the darkening of the sun, and moon, and stars; not in themselves, but only in respect of that light which they afford to men. And therefore the same clause which is expressed after the sun, is to be understood after the moon and stars. And those expressions may be understood of the outward parts of the body, and especially of the face, the beauty of the countenance, the pleasant complexion of the cheeks, the liveliness of the eyes, which are compared to the sun, and moon, and stars, and which are obscured in old age, as the Chaldee paraphrast understands it. Or of external things, of the change of their joy, which they had in their youth, into sorrow, and manifold calamities, which are usually the companions of old age. This interpretation agrees both with the foregoing verse, in which he describes the miseries of old age, and with the following clause, which is added to explain those otherwise ambiguous expressions; and with the scripture use of this phrase; for a state of comfort and happiness is often described by the light of the sun, and a state of trouble is set forth, by the darkening of the light of the sun. Nor the clouds - This phrase denotes a perpetual succession of rain, and clouds bringing rain, and then rain and clouds again. Whereby he expresses either the rheums or destructions which incessantly flow in old men; or the continual vicissitude of infirmities, diseases, and griefs; one deep calling upon another.

The house - Of the body: whose keepers are the hands and arms, which are man's best instruments to defend his body; and which in a special manner are subject to his trembling. The strong men - The thighs and legs, in which the main strength of the body consists. Grinders - The teeth, those especially which are commonly so called, because they grind the meat. Cease - To perform their office. And those, &c. - The eyes. By windows he understands either the eye - lids, which like windows, are either opened or shut: or, those humours and coats of the eyes, which are the chief instruments by which we see.

In - Or, towards the streets: which lead into the streets. This may be understood either of the outward senses, which, as doors, let in outward objects to the soul: or rather the mouth, the two lips, here expressed by a word of the dual number, which like a door, open or shut the way that leads into the streets or common passages of the body; which also are principal instruments both of speaking and eating. And these are said to be shut, not absolutely, but comparatively, because men in old age grow dull and listless, having little appetite to eat, and are very frequently indisposed for discourse. When the sound - When the teeth are loose and few, whereby both his speech is low, and the noise which he makes in eating is but small. Shall rise - From his bed, being weary with lying, and unable to get sleep. The bird - As soon as the birds begin to chirp, which is early in the morning, whereas young men, can lie and sleep long. The daughters - All those senses which are employed in music. Brought low - Shall be cast down from their former excellency, and become incapable either of making musick, or of delighting in it.

Afraid - The passion of fear is observed to be most incident to old men. High - When they walk abroad they dread to go up high or steep places. Fears - Lest as they are walking, they should stumble, or fall. The almond - tree - Their heads shall be as full of grey hairs, as the almond - tree is of white flowers. The grasshopper - They cannot endure the least burden, being indeed a burden to themselves. Desire - Of meats, and drinks, and music, and other delights, which are vehemently desired by men in their youth. Goeth - is travelling towards it, and every day nearer to it. Long home - From this place of his pilgrimage into the grave, from whence he must never return into this world, and into the state of the future life, which is unchangeable and everlasting. Mourners - Accompany the corpse thro' the streets to the grave.

The silver cord - By the silver cord he seems to understand the marrow of the back - bone, which comes from the brain, and goes down to the lowest end of it. And this is aptly compared to a cord, both for its figure, which is long and round, and for its use, which is to draw and move the parts of the body; and to silver, both for its excellency and colour, which is white and bright, in a dead, much more in a living body. This may properly be said to be loosed, or dissolved, because it is relaxed, or otherwise disabled for its proper service. And answerably hereto by the golden bowl we may understand, the membranes of the brain, and especially that inmost membrane which insinuates itself into all the parts of it, following it in its various windings, keeping each parcel of it in its proper place, and dividing one from another, to prevent disorder. This is not unfitly called a bowl, because It is round, and contains in it all the substance of the brain; and a golden bowl, partly for its great preciousness, partly for its ductility, being drawn out into a great thinness or fineness; and partly for its colour, which is some - what yellow, and comes nearer to that of gold than any other part of the body does. And this, upon the approach of death, is commonly shrivelled up, and many times broken. and as these clauses concern the brain, and the animal powers, so the two following respect the spring of the vital powers, and of the blood, the great instrument thereof is the heart. And so Solomon here describes the chief organs appointed for the production, distribution, and circulation of the blood. For tho' the circulation of the blood has been hid for many generations, yet it was well known to Solomon. According to this notion, the fountain is the right ventricle of the heart, which is now acknowledged to be the spring of life; and the pitcher is the veins which convey the blood from it to other parts, and especially that arterious vein by which it is transmitted to the lungs, and thence to the left ventricle, where it is better elaborated, and then thrust out into the great artery, called the Aorta, and by its branches dispersed into all the parts of the body. And the cistern is the left ventricle of the heart, and the wheel seems to be the great artery, which is fitly so called, because it is the great instrument of this circulation. The pitcher may be said to be broken at the fountain, when the veins do not return the blood to the heart, but suffer it to stand still and cool, whence comes that coldness of the outward parts, which is a near fore - runner of death. And the wheel may be said to be broken at the cistern, when the great arteries do not perform their office of conveying the blood into the left ventricle of the heart, and of thrusting it out thence into the lesser arteries, whence comes that ceasing of the pulse, which is a certain sign of approaching death.

Vanity - This sentence, wherewith he began this book, he here repeats in the end of it, as that which he had proved in all the foregoing discourse, and that which naturally followed from both the branches of the assertion laid down, ver.7.

Taught - As God gave him this wisdom, that he might be a teacher of others. So he used it to that end. Gave heed - He did not utter whatever came into his mind, but seriously pondered both his matter and words.

Acceptable - Such as would comfort and profit the readers.

Nails - Piercing into men's dull minds, which make powerful and abiding impressions in them. Masters - By the teachers of God's church, appointed of God for that work. Shepherd - From Christ, the great Shepherd of the church in all ages.

By these - By these wise men, and their writings.

The conclusion - The sum of all that hath been said or written by wise men. Fear God - Which is put here, for all the inward worship of God, reverence, and love, and trust, and a devotedness of heart to serve and please him. The whole - It is his whole work and business, his whole perfection and happiness; it is the sum of what he need either know, or do, or enjoy.

For - All men must give an account to God of all their works, and this alone will enable them to do that with joy. Every secret - Not only outward and visible actions, but even inward and secret thoughts.

1 REmember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth , while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them ;

To wit, practically, or so as to fear, and love, and faithfully serve and worship him, which when men do not, they are said to forget God, Psal. 9. 17. & 106. 21. and in many other places.

The first Author, and continual Preserver of thy Life and Being, and of all the perfections and enjoyments which accompany it, to whom thou hast the highest and strongest obligations to do so, and upon whom thou hast a constant and necessary dependance, and therefore to forget him is most unnatural, and inhumane, and disingenuous.

For then thou art most able to do it, and thou owest the best of thy Time and Strength to God; then thou hast opportunity to do it; and thou maist not live till Old-age: then it will be most acceptable to God, and most comfortable to thy self, as the best evidence of thy sincerity, and the best provision for Old-age and Death; and then it is most necessary for the conquering those impetuous Lusts and Passions which drown so many Thousands of young Men in perdition, both in this Life, and in tha[illegible: 1+ letters] to come.

The time of Old-age, which is evil, i. e. burdensome, and calamitous in itself, and far more grievous and terrible when it is loaded with the sad remembrance of a mans youthful Follies and Lusts, and with the dreadful prospect of approaching Death and Judgment, which makes him see that he cannot live, and yet dare not die, and with the consideration and experience of the hardness of his heart, which in that age is rarely brought to true Repentance, and so generally expires either in vain presumption, or in hellish desperation.

My Life is now bitter and burdensome to me, and worse than death: which is frequently the condition of Old-age.

Marginal references: Pro. 22. 6.; See 2 Sam. 19. 35.

2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkned , nor the clouds return after the rain :

Heb. While the sun, and the light, and the moon, &c. That clause, and the light, seems to be added to signifie that he speaks of the darkning of the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, not in themselves, or in their own Bodies, but only in respect of that light which they afford to men. And therefore the same clause which is expressed after the Sun, is to be understood after the Moon and Stars, as is very usual in Scripture in like cases. And those Expressions are to be understood either 1. Literally, of the dimsightedness of old men, by reason whereof the light of the Sun, &c. seems dark to them. Which seems not to agree with the Context, partly because the dimness of their sight is expressed in the next verse, and partly because both this and the following verses are wholly Allegorical. Or rather 2. Figuratively, and that either 1. Of the outward parts of the Body, and especially of the Face, the Beauty of the Countenance, the lightsom and pleasant complexion of the Cheeks, the liveliness of the Eyes, which are compared to the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, and which are obscured in Old-age, as the Chaldee Paraphrast understands it. Or 2. Of the inward parts of the mind, the Understanding, Phancy, Memory, which may not unfitly be resembled to the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, and all which are sensibly decayed in most old Men. For it may seem improbable, that Solomon in his description of the infirmities of Old-age should omit the decays of the most noble part of Man, which are commonly incident to Old▪age. And yet, with submission to those worthy persons who think otherwise, it seems not necessary that he should here speak of those inward decays, partly because they are not so general in old Men as the decays of the Body are; partly because he here directeth his Speech to sensual men who are more affected with corporal than with intellectual maladies; and partly because both the foregoing and following passages concern the state of Mens Bodies and their outward condition. Or rather 3. Of external things, and of the great change of their joy and prosperity, which they had in their youthful time, into sorrow, and manifold calamities, which are usually the companions of Old-age: For this interpretation seems best to agree both with the foregoing verse, in which he describes the miseries of Old-age, and with the following clause, which is added to explain and determine those otherwise ambiguous Expressions; and with the Scripture use of this Phrase, which is the best key for the understanding of Scripture; for a state of Comfort and Happiness is oft described by the Light of the Sun. &c. as Iudg. 5. 31. 2 Sam. 23. 4. Isa. 30. 26. & 60. 20. and a time and state of great trouble is set forth by the darkning of the Light of the Sun, &c. as Isa. 13. 9, &c. & 24. 23. Ioel 2. 10. & 3. 15. Mat. 24. 29. and oft elsewhere.

This Phrase notes a perpetual Succession, and Reciprocation of Rain, and Clouds bringing Rain, and then Rain and Clouds again, and so without end. Whereby he expresseth either 1. The Rheums or Defluxions which do abundantly and incessantly flow in and from old Men, for want of natural heat and strength to prevent or remove them. Or rather 2. The continual vicissitude of Infirmities, Diseases, and Grie[illegible: 1+ letters]s, in old Men, one deep calling upon another, and one Affliction beginning at the end of another; whereas in young Men after Rain the Clouds are dispersed, and fair weather succeeds.

3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few , and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

i. e. Of the Body, which is oft and fitly compared to an house, as Iob 4. 19. Psal. 119. 54. 2 Cor. 5. 1. Whose keepers here are either 1. The Ribs and Bones into which they are fastened, which are the Guardians of the inward and vital parts, which also are much weakned and shaken by Old-age. Or rather 2. The Hands and Arms, which are mans best instruments to defend his Body from the assaults of Men or Beasts, and which in a special manner are subject to this trembling, by paralitical or other like distempers, that are most incident to old Men.

Either the Back, or the Thighs and Legs, in which the main strength of the Body doth consist, which in old Men are very seeble, and unable both for the support of the Body, and for motion.

The Teeth, those especially which are commonly so called because they grind the Meat which we eat.

To wit, to perform their Office.

Heb. because they are diminished, either 1. In strength. Or 2. In number; being here one, and there another, and not united together, and one directly against another, and consequently unfit for their work.

The Eyes. By windows he understands either 1. The holes in which the Eyes are fixed, Zech. 14. 12. Or 2. The Eye-lids, which, like windows, are either opened or shut. Or 3. Those Humours and Coats of the Eyes, noted by Anatomists, which are the chief Instruments by which the Eye sees.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1+ letters] ders [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] they grind little.

4 And the doors be shut in the streets , when the sound of the grinding is low , and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird , and all the daughters of musick shall [illegible: 1+ letters]e brought low .

Or, toward[illegible: 1+ letters] the streets: which lead into the streets. This is understood either 1. Literally; because men, when they are very old, keep much at home, and have neither strength nor inclination to go abroad. Or rather 2. Allegorically, as all the other clauses are understood. And so the doors are either 1. The outward Senses, which, as doors, let in outward Objects to the Soul. Or rather 2. The Mouth, or the two Lips, here expressed by a word of the dual number, which are oft called a door, both in Scripture, as Psal. 141. 3. Mich. 7. 5. and in other Authors, which, like a door, open or shut the way which leads into the streets or common passages of the Body, such as the Gullet, and Stomach, and all the Bowels, as also the Wind-pipe, and Lungs; which also are principal instruments both of speaking and eating. And these are said to be shut, not simply and absolutely, as if they did never eat, or drink, or speak, but comparatively, because Men in extream Old-age grow dull and listless, having little or no appetite to eat, and are very much indisposed for discourse, and speak but seldom.

Or, because the sound, &c. So this may be added, not as a new Symptom of Old-age, but only as the reason of the foregoing Symptom. The sense is, When, or because the Teeth, called the grinders, v. 3. are loose and [illegible: 1+ letters]ew, whereby both his speech is low, and the noise which he makes in eating is but small. And this is one great cause of his indisposedness both to eating and to speaking. Some understand this of Concoction, which after a sort doth grind the Meat in the stomach, and in the other parts appointed by God for that work. But that is transacted inwardly, and without all noise or sound.

To wit, from his Bed, being weary with Lying, and unable to get sleep.

Either 1. Upon the smallest noise. Which doth not consist with that deafness incident to old Men, and described in the next words. Or rather 2. As soon as the Birds begin to chirp, which is early in the morning, whereas Children and Young Men, can lie and sleep long in the morning.

All those Senses or parts of the Body, which are employed in Musick and Song, as well those which make it, as the parts of and within the Mouth, as those which receive it, to wit, the Ears.

Shall be cast down from their former excellency; they are become incapable either of making musicit, or of delighting in it.

5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high , and fears shall be in the way , and the almond-tree shall flourish , and the grashopper shall be a burden , and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home , and the mourners go about the streets:

The passion of Fear is observed to be most incident to old Men, of which divers Reasons may be given.

Either 1. Of high things, lest they should fall upon them. Or rather 2. Of high places, of going up hills or stairs, which is very irksom to them, because of their weakness, and weariness, and giddiness, and danger, or dread of falling. And this clause, together with the next may be rendred thus, and that agreeably to the Hebrew Text, Also they shall be afraid and terrified (Two words expressing the same thing, which is very frequent in the Hebrew,) of that which is high in the way. When they walk abroad they will dread to go up any high or s[illegible: 1+ letters]eep places.

Lest as they are walking, they should stumble, or fall, or be thrust down, or some infirmity or mischief should befall them.

Their heads shall be as full of gray Hairs, as the Almond-Tree is of white Flowers. Such Metaphors are not unusual in other Authors. Hence Sophocles calls a gray or hoary Head flowry, and again, covered with white flowers.

If it doth accidentally hop up and rest upon them. They cannot endure the least burden, being indeed a burden to themselves. But the words may be, and are by others rendred, the locust (as the ancient Interpreters, and many others render it; or, as ours, and some others, the grashopper, which comes to the same thing; for these two sorts of insects are much of the same nature and shape,) shall be a burden to itself. And by the locust or grashopper may be understood either 1. The old Man himself, who bears some resemblance to it, in shape, by reason of the bones sticking out, in the constitution of the Body, which is drie and withering, and in the Legs and Arms which are slender, the flesh being consumed. Or 2. The Back, which fitly follows after the Head upon which the Almond-Tree flourished, in which the strength of the Body lay, and which formerly was able to bear great burdens, but now, through its weakness and crookedness, is a burden too heavy for itself. And some of the Jewish and other Interpreters understand this word, which others render locust or grashopper, to be some part of the Body, either the Back-bone, or the head of the Thigh-bone, or the Ankle-bone, any of which may well be said to be heavy or burdensome to itself, when it moves slowly and listlesly, and not without difficulty and trouble.

To wit, of Meats, and Drinks, and Musick, and other carnal Delights, which are vehemently desired by men in the heat of their Youth, but are unsavoury to old men; of which see an Instance, 2 Sam. 19. 35. It is true, the former Expressions are metaphorical, but the two next following are proper, and to be understood literally, and so may this clause also.

Is travelling towards it, & every day nearer to it than other.

From this place of his pilgrimage into the Grave, from whence he must never return into this world, and into the state and place of the future Life, which is unchangeable and everlasting.

Either such as were hired to that end, of whom see on Ier. 9. 17. Mat. 9. 23. & 11. 17. or true Mourners, near Relations, and dear Friends, accompany the dead Corps through the streets to the Grave.

6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern .

This verse is to be understood either 1. Literally, of the ornaments of Life, such as Chains, and Jewels, and vessels of Gold and Silver, and of the instruments by which the necessary Provisions and supports of Life are conveyed to us, such as fountains of water, and Pitchers, &c. which may be said to be loosed or broken because they are neglected as useless things to the dead man. Or rather 2. Allegorically, of those inward parts of Mans Body which are the chief Instruments of Life, or Sense and Motion, and of the vital or animal operations, whether such from which they first proceed, or in which they are first elaborated and contained, which may fitly be compared to a bowl, and fountain, or cistern; or such by which they are derived or conveyed to the several parts of the body, which are very conveniently designed by the cord, and pitcher, and wheel; all which are truly said to be loosed or broken, i. e. dissolved, or become useless and insufficient for the performance of their several functions. This in the general. But it seems most probable that Solomon, who was so profound a Philosopher, and doubtless had an accurate knowledge of all the parts of mans Body, and their several offices and operations, doth by these several Expressions describe so many particular parts and offices. By the silver cord it is generally and most probably conceived, that he understands the pith or marrow of the back-bone, which comes from the brain, and thence goeth down to the very lowest end of the Back-bone, together with the Nerves and Sinews, which, as Anatomists observe, are nothing else but the production & continuation of the marrow. And this is most aptly compared to a cord, both for its figure, which is very long and round, and for its use, which is to draw and move the parts of the Body, and to silver, both for its excellency and colour, which is white and bright, even in a dead, and much more in a living Body. And this may properly be said to be loosed, or dissolved, or broken, or removed, as others render the word, the sense of all these translations being the same, because it is relaxed, or obstructed, or otherwise disenabled for its proper service. And answerably hereunto by the golden bowl he understands the Membranes of the Brain, and especially that innermost Membrane which is called by Anatomists, the pious mother, because it doth with a motherly care defend the Brain, and assist and govern its actions, which insinuates itself into all the parts of the Brain, following it in its various windings and turnings, keeping each parcel of it in its proper place, and distinguishing and dividing one part from another, to prevent disorder and mischief. This is not unfitly called a bowl, partly because it is round, and partly because it receives and contains in it all the substance of the Brain; and a golden bowl, partly for its great preciousness and usefulness; partly for its ductility, being drawn out into a great thinness or fineness, as Gold is capable of being drawn forth into thinner plates than other metals can bear; and partly for its colour, which is somwhat yellow, and comes nearer to that of Gold than any other part of the Body doth. And this is well said to be broken, as for the reasons above noted, so because upon the approach of Death it is commonly shrivel'd up, and many times broken. And as these two former clauses concern the Brain, and the animal Powers, so the two following clauses of this verse respect the Spring and seat of the vital Powers and Operations, and of the blood, the great instrument thereof, which hath been commonly conceived, and consequently is here understood, to be the Liver, but more truly and certainly is the Heart, which is now known and confessed to be the source of the blood. And so Solomon here describes the chief Organs or Vessels appointed for the Production, and Distribution, and Circulation of the Blood in Man's Body. For although the Doctrine of the Circulation of the Blood hath lien hid and unknown for very many Generations together, and therefore the honour of the Invention of it is justly ascribed to a famous Physician of our Country, yet it is not improbably supposed by some, that it was well known to Solomon, although after his times it was lost, as doubtless many other things were, which he wrote concerning Plants, and other things. According to this motion the fountain here is the right Ventricle of the heart, which is now acknowledged to be the spring of Life, and of the vital Spirits, and the pitcher is the veins which convey the blood from it to other parts, and especially that arterious Vein, as Anatomists call it, by which it is transmitted to the Lungs, and thence to the left Ventricle of the Heart, where it is better elaborated, and then by the Pulse thrust out into the great Artery, called Art[illegible: 1+ letters]a [illegible: 1+ letters]orta, and by its branches dispersed into all the parts of the Body, to give them Life and Vigor, which being done, the residue of the Blood is carried back by the Veins into the right Ventricle of the Heart, whence it is disposed, as hath been now mentioned, and so runs in a perpetual round, unless it be obstructed by some disorder in the Body. And the cistern is the left Ventricle of the Heart, and the wheel seems to be that great Artery which is joined to it, which is very fitly so called, because it is the first and great instrument of this Rotation or Circulation of the Blood, which by its Pulse is forcibly thrust out into all the parts of the Body, whence, by various windings and turnings, it returns thither again, and so is sent again upon the same journey, which in like manner it performs again and again, as long as Life and Health continue; and when any of these parts are disenabled for the discharge of their Offices, then are they fitly said to be broken. The pitcher may be said to be broken at the fountain, when the veins do not return the blood to the Heart, but suffer it to stand still and cool within them, whence comes that coldness of the outward parts, which is a near forerunner of Death. And the w[illegible: 1+ letters]l may be said to be broken at the cistern, when the great Arteries do not perform their Office of conveying the Blood into the left Ventricle of the Heart, and of thrusting it out thence into the lesser Arteries, whence comes that ceasing of the pulse, which is a certain sign of approaching Death.

7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it .

The Body called dust, both for its original which was from the dust, and to signifie its vile and corruptible Nature, Iob. 4. 19. & 30. 19. Psal. [illegible: 1+ letters]3. 14.

Whence it was first taken. He alludes to that passage Gen. 3. 19.

The Soul of man frequently so called, as Gen 2 7. Psal 31. 5. &c. because it is of a spiritual or immaterial Nature.

Into his presence, and before his Tribunal, that there it may be sentenced to its everlasting habitations, either to abide with God for ever, if it be approved by him, or otherwise to be eternally shut out from his presence and favour.

To wit, in a peculiar manner, by his creating Power; for in a general sense God giveth to every seed his own body, 1 Cor. 15. 38. Hence he is called the father of Spirits, Heb. 12. 9.

Marginal references: Gen. 3. 19.; Num. 16. 22. & 27. 16. Job 34. 1[illegible: 1+ letters]. Isa. 57. 16. Zech. 12. 1.

8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity .

This sentence wherewith he began this Book he here repeateth in the end of it. Partly as that which he had proved in all the foregoing discourse, and partly as that which naturally and necessarily followed from both the branches of the assertion now laid down, v. 7.

Marginal references: Ch. 1. 2.

9 And moreover, because the preacher was wise , he still taught the people knowledge ; yea, he gave good heed , and sought out , and set in order many proverbs .

Which he affirmeth not out of vain ostentation, but partly to procure the more credit and acceptance to his Doctrine and Counsel here delivered; and partly to declare his Repentance for his former follies, and Gods great Mercy in restoring his Wisdom to him.

As God gave him this Wisdom, that he might be a teacher of others, so he used it to that end. Therefore despise not his Counsel.

He did not rashly and foolishly utter whatsoever came into his mind, or mouth, but seriously pondered both his matter and words.

Both by the exercise of his own mind, and by reading and learning from others.

Or, directed on fitted. He selected such as were most useful.

Excellent and wise sayings, which are oft called Proverbs, as was noted before upon the Book of Proverbs.

Marginal references: Or, the more wise the preacher was, &c.; 1 Kin. 4. 32.

10 The preacher sought to find out acceptable words , and that which was written was upright , even words of truth .

Heb. desirable or delightful, worthy of all acceptation, such as would minister comfort and profit to the hearers or Readers.

By the Preacher in this and his other Books.

Heb. right or streight, agreeable to the Mind or Will of God, which is the rule of right, not crooked or perverse.

Not fables cunningly devised to deceive the simple, but true and certain Doctrines which commend themselves to mens own Consciences or Reasons, wholsom and edifying Counsels.

Marginal references: Heb. words of delight.

11 The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies , which are given from one shepherd .

Not of secularly or politickly wise men, but of the spiritually wise and holy men of God; of which, and not of the former, this whole context treats.

Piercing into mens dull Minds, and hard Hearts, and quickening and provoking them to the practice of all their duties.

Which do not only amuse and startle men for the present, as the wise and grave Counsels of moral Philosophers frequently do, but make powerful and abiding impressions in them; which is the peculiar effect of Gods Word.

By the teachers of Gods Church and People, whether Prophets or others, appointed by God for that work.

From God, or from Jesus Christ, the great Shepheard and Teacher of the Church in all Ages, by whose Spirit the ancient Prophets, as well as other succeeding Teachers were inspired and taught, Ier. 3. 15. 1 Pet. 1. 11. & 2 Pet. 1. 21. And this clause seems to be added partly as the reason of that admirable Harmony and Agreement which is amongst all the men of God in all ages and places, because they are all taught by one Master, and guided by the same Hand; and partly to oblige us to the greater Attention and Reverence to all their Doctrines and Counsels, which we are to receive as the word of God, and not of Men only, as is said 1 Thes. 2. 13.

12 And further, by these , my son, be admonished : of making many books there is no end , and much study is a weariness to the flesh .

By these Wise Men, and their Words or W[illegible: 1+ letters]ings, of which he spake in the foregoing verse.

Take your Instructions from them, for their words are right and true, as he said v. 10. where▪ as the words of other men are false, or at best doubtful.

I could easily write many Books and large Volumes upon these matters, but that were an endless and needless work; seeing things necessary to be known and done, lie in a little compass, as he informs us in the next verse.

The reading of many Books written by learned Philosophers about these things; which it is more than probable were then extant, though since lost, which also Solomon, being so curious and inquisitive a person, would in all likelihood procure and peruse as far as he had opportunity.

It wasteth a mans strength and Spirits, and yet (which is implied) doth not satisfie the Mind, nor sufficiently recompence the trouble and inconvenience to which man is exposed by it.

Marginal references: Or, rea[illegible: 1+ letters]ing.

13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter , Fear God , and keep his commandments : for this is the whole duty of man.

The summ and substance of all that hath been said or written by wise men, so far as it is necessary for us to know.

Which is Synecdochically put here, as it is very frequently in Scripture, for all the inward Worship of God, Reverence, and Love, and Trust, and a Devotedness of Heart to serve and please God, and a Lothness to offend him, and an Aptness to tremble at his Word and Judgments.

This is fitly added as a necessary effect and certain Evidence of the Fear of God. Make Conscience of practising whatsoever God requires, how costly, or troublesom, or dangerous, soever it be

In the Hebrew it is only, the whole: it is his whole work and business, his whole Perfection and Happiness, it is the summ of what he need either know, or do, or enjoy.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word] e[illegible: 1+ letters]d of t[illegible: 1+ letters]e matter▪ [illegible: 1 word] all that hath been [illegible: 1 word].; Deut. 6. 2▪ & 10. 12.

14 For God shall bring every work into judgment , with every secret thing , whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

This is added either 1. As a reason of what he last said, this is the whole of man, because all men must give an account to God of all their works, and this alone will enable them to do that with joy, and not with grief: Or 2. As another Argument to press the foregoing Exhortation, Fear God, and keep his commandments, for you must be called to judgment about it, &c.

Not only outward and visible actions, but even inward and secret thoughts.

Marginal references: Rom. 2. 16. & 14. 1[illegible: 1+ letters]. 1 Cor. 4. 5. 2 Cor. 5. 10.

Ecc 12:1

With Ecc 12:1 (where, inappropriately, a new chapter begins, instead of beginning with Ecc 11:9) the call takes a new course, resting its argument on the transitoriness of youth: “And remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, ere the days of evil come, and the years draw nigh, of which thou shalt say: I have no pleasure in them.” The plur. majest. בּוראיך = עשׂים as a designation of the Creator, Job 35:10; Isa 54:5; Psa 149:2; in so recent a book it cannot surprise us, since it is also not altogether foreign to the post-bibl. language. The expression is warranted, and the Midrash ingeniously interprets the combination of its letters.It finds these things expressed in it, partly directly and partly indirectly: remember בארך, thy fountain (origin); בורך, thy grave; and בוראיך, thy Creator. Thus, Jer. Sota ii. 3, and Midrash under Ecc 12:1.

Regarding the words 'ad asher lo, commonly used in the Mishna (e.g., Horajoth iii. 3; Nedarim x. 4), or 'ad shello (Targ. 'ad delo), antequam. The days of evil (viz., at least, first, of bodily evil, cf. κακία, Mat 6:34) are those of feeble, helpless old age, perceptibly marking the failure of bodily and mental strength; parallel to these are the years of which (asher, as at Ecc 1:10) one has to say: I have no pleasure in them (bahěm for bahěn, as at Ecc 2:6, mehěm for mehěn). These evil days, adverse years, are now described symptomatically, and that in an allegorical manner, for the “ere” of Ecc 12:1 is brought to a grand unfolding.

Ecc 12:2 “Ere the sun becomes dark, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, and the clouds return after the rain.” Umbreit, Elster, and Ginsburg find here the thought: ere death overtakes thee; the figure under which the approach of death is described being that of a gathering storm. But apart from other objections (vid., Gurlitt, “zur Erlk. d. B. Koheleth,” in Sutd. u. Krit. 1865), this idea is opposed by the consideration that the author seeks to describe how man, having become old, goes forth (חלך, Ecc 12:5) to death, and that not till Ecc 12:7 does he reach it. Also Taylor’s view, that what precedes Ecc 12:5 is as a dirge expressing the feelings experienced on the day of a person’s death, is untenable; it is discredited already by this, that it confuses together the days of evil, Ecc 12:1, and the many days of darkness, i.e., the long night of Hades, Ecc 11:8; and besides, it leaves unanswered the question, what is the meaning of the clouds returning after the rain. Hahn replies: The rain is death, and the return is the entrance again into the nothingness which went before the entrance into this life. Knobel, as already Luther and also Winzer (who had made the exposition of the Book of Koheleth one of the labours of his life), sees in the darkening of the sun, etc., a figure of the decay of hitherto joyful prosperity; and in the clouds after the rain a figure of the cloudy days of sorrow which always anew visit those who are worn out by old age. Hitz., Ewald, Vaih., Zöckl., and Tyler, proceeding from thence, find the unity of the separate features of the figure in the comparison of advanced old age, as the winter of life to the rainy winter of the (Palestinian) year. That is right. But since in the sequel obviously the marasmus senilis of the separate parts of the body is set forth in allegorical enigmatic figures, it is asked whether this allegorical figurative discourse does not probably commence in Ecc 12:2. Certainly the sun, moon, and stars occur also in such pictures of the night of judgment, obscuring all the lights of the heavens, as at Isa 13:10; but that here, where the author thus ranks together in immediate sequence והךּ ... השּׁ, and as he joins the stars with the moon, so the light with the sun, he has not connected the idea of certain corresponding things in the nature and life of man with these four emblems of light, is yet very improbable. Even though it might be impossible to find out that which is represented, yet this would be no decisive argument against the significance of the figures; the canzones in Dante’s Convito, which he there himself interprets, are an example that the allegorical meaning which a poet attaches to his poetry may be present even where it cannot be easily understood or can only be conjectured.

The attempts at interpreting these figures have certainly been wholly or for the most part unfortunate. We satisfy ourselves by registering only the oldest: their glosses are in matter tasteless, but they are at least of linguistic interest. A Barajtha, Shabbath 151-152 a, seeking to interpret this closing picture of the Book of Koheleth, says of the sun and the light: “this is the brow and the nose;” of the moon: “this is the soul;” of the stars: “this the cheeks.” Similarly, but varying a little, the Midrash to Lev. c. 18 and to Koheleth: the sun = the brightness of the countenance; light = the brow; the moon = the nose; the stars = the upper part of the cheeks (which in an old man fall in). Otherwise, but following the Midrash more than the Talmud, the Targum: the sun = the stately brightness of thy countenance; light = the light of thine eyes; the moon = the ornament of thy cheeks; the stars = the apple of thine eye. All the three understand the rain of wine (Talm. בכי), and the clouds of the veil of the eyes (Targ.: “thy eye-lashes”), but without doing justice to אחר שׁוב; only one repulsive interpretation in the Midrash takes these words into account. In all these interpretations there is only one grain of truth, this, viz., that the moon in the Talm. is interpreted of the נשׁמה, anima, for which the more correct word would have been נפשׁ; but it has been shown, Psychol. p. 154, that the Jewish, like the Arab. psychology, reverses terminologically the relation between רוח (נשׁמה), spirit, and נפשׁ, soul.

The older Christian interpretations are also on the right track. Glassius (as also v. Meyer and Smith in “The portraiture of old age”) sees in the sun, light, etc., emblems of the interna microcosmi lumina mentis; and yet better, Chr. Friedr. Bauer (1732) sees in Ecc 12:2 a representation of the thought: “ere understanding and sense fail thee.” We have elsewhere shown that חיים רוח (נשׁמת) and חיּה נפשׁ (from which nowhere חיים נפשׁ) are related to each other as the principium principians and principium principatum of life (Psychol. p. 79), and as the root distinctions of the male and female, of the predominantly active and the receptive (Psychol. p. 103). Thus the figurative language of Ecc 12:3 is interpreted in the following manner. The sun is the male spirit רוח (which, like שׁמשׁ, is used in both genders) or נשׁמה, after Pro 20:27, a light of Jahve which penetrates with its light of self-examination and self-knowledge the innermost being of man, called by the Lord, Mat 6:23 (cf. 1Co 2:11), “the light that is in thee.” The light, viz., the clear light of day proceeding from the sun, is the activity of the spirit in its unweakened intensity: sharp apprehension, clear thought, faithful and serviceable memory. The moon is the soul; for, according to the Heb. idea, the moon, whether it is called ירח or לבנה is also in relation to the sun a figure of the female (cf. Gen 37:9., where the sun in Joseph’s dream = Jacob-Israel, the moon = Rachel); and that the soul, viz., the animal soul, by means of which the spirit becomes the principle of the life of the body (Gen 2:7), is related to the spirit as female σκεῦος ἀστηενέστερον, is evident from passages such as Psa 42:6, where the spirit supports the soul (animus animam) with its consolation. And the stars? We are permitted to suppose in the author of the book of Koheleth a knowledge, as SchraderVid., “Sterne” in Schenkel’s Bibl Lex.  and Stud. u. Krit. 1874. has shown, of the old Babyl.-Assyr. seven astral gods, which consisted of the sun, moon, and the five planets; and thus it will not be too much to understand the stars, as representing the five planets, of the five senses (Mish. הרגּשׁות,Thus the five senses are called, e.g., Bamidbar rabba, c. 14. later הוּשׁים, cf. the verb, Ecc 2:25) which mediate the receptive relation of the soul to the outer world (Psychol. p. 233). But we cannot see our way further to explain Ecc 12:2 patholo.-anatom., as Geier is disposed to do: Nonnulli haec accommodant ad crassos illos ac pituosos senum vapores ex debili ventriculo in cerebrum adscendentes continuo, ubi itidem imbres (נשׁם) h.e. destillationes creberrimae per oculos lippientes, per nares guttatim fluentes, per os subinde excreans cet., quae sane defluxiones, tussis ac catharri in juvenibus non ita sunt frequentia, quippe ubi calor multo adhuc fortior, consumens dissipansque humores. It is enough to understand עבים of cases of sickness and attacks of weakness which disturb the power of thought, obscure the consciousness, darken the mind, and which ahhar haggěshěm, after they have once overtaken him and then have ceased, quickly again return without permitting him long to experience health. A cloudy day is = a day of misfortune, Joe 2:2; Zep 1:15; an overflowing rain is a scourge of God, Eze 13:13; Eze 38:22; and one visited by misfortune after misfortune complains, Psa 42:7 : “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.”

Ecc 12:3

To the thought: Ere the mind and the senses begin to be darkened, and the winter of life with its clouds and storms approaches, the further details here following stand in a subordinate relation: “That day when the watchers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and the grinders rest, because they have become few, and the women looking out of the windows are darkened.” Regarding בּיּום with art.: eo (illo)tempore, vid., under Sol 8:8. What follows is regarded by Winzer, with Mich., Spohr, and partly Nachtigal, as a further description of the night to which old age, Ecc 12:2, is compared: Watchers then guard the house; labourers are wearied with the labours and cares of the day; the maids who have to grind at the mill have gone to rest; and almost all have already fallen asleep; the women who look out from the windows are unrecognisable, because it has become dark. But what kind of cowardly watchers are those who “tremble,” and what kind of (per antiphrasin) strong men who “bow themselves” at evening like children when they have belly-ache! Ginsburg regards Ecc 12:2-5 as a continuation of the description of the consequences of the storm under which human life comes to an end: the last consequence is this, that they who experience it lose the taste for almonds and the appetite for locusts. But what is the meaning of this quaint figure? it would certainly be a meaningless and aimless digression. Taylor hears in this verse the mourning for the dead from Ecc 12:2, where death is described: the watchers of the house tremble; the strong men bow themselves, viz., from sorrow, because of the blank death has made in the house, etc.; but even supposing that this picture had a connection in Ecc 12:2, how strange would it be! - the lookers out at the windows must be the “ladies,” who are fond of amusing themselves at windows, and who now - are darkened. Is there anything more comical than such little ladies having become darkened (whether externally or internally remains undetermined)? However one may judge of the figurative language of Ecc 12:2, Ecc 12:3 begins the allegorical description of hoary old age after its individual bodily symptoms; interpreters also, such as Knobel, Hitz., and Ewald, do not shrink from seeking out the significance of the individual figures after the old Haggadic manner. The Talm. says of shomrē habbayith: these are the loins and ribs; of the anshē hehhayil: these are the bones; of harooth baarǔbboth: these, the eyes. The Midrash understand the watchers of the house, of the knees of the aged man; the men of strength, of his ribs or arms; the women at the mill, of the digestive organs (המסס,This hamses is properly the second stomach of the ruminants, the cellular caul. the stomach, from omasum); those who have become few, of the teeth; the women looking out at the window, of the eyes; another interpretation, which by harooth thinks of the lungs, is not worth notice.

Here also the Targ. principally follows the Midrash: it translates the watchers of the house by “thy knees;” strong men by “thine arms;” the women at the mill by “the teeth of thy mouth;” the women who look out at the window by “thine eyes.” These interpretations for the most part are correct, only those referable to the internal organs are in bad taste; references to these must be excluded from the interpretation, for weakness of the stomach, emphysema of the lungs, etc., are not appropriate as poetical figures. The most common biblical figures of the relation of the spirit or the soul to the body is, as we have shown, Psychol. p. 227, that of the body as of the house of the inner man. This house, as that of an old man, is on all sides in a ruinous condition. The shomrē habbayith are the arms terminating in the hands, which bring to the house whatever is suitable for it, and keep away from it whatever threatens to do it injury; these protectors of the house have lost their vigour and elasticity (Gen 49:24), they tremble, are palsied (יזעוּ, from זוּע, Pilp. זעזע, bibl. and Mishn.: to move violently hither and thither, to tremble, to shake),Vid., Friedr. Delitzsch’s Indogerm.-Sem. Stud. p. 65f. so that they are able neither to grasp securely, to hold fast and use, nor actively to keep back and forcibly avert evil. Anshē hěhhayil designates the legs, for the shoqē haish are the seat of his strength, Psa 147:10; the legs of a man in the fulness of youthful strength are like marble pillars, Sol 5:15; but those of the old man hith'authu (Hithpa. only here) have bowed themselves, they have lost their tight form, they are shrunken (כּרעות, Job 4:4, etc.) and loose; 4 Macc. 4:5 calls this τὴν ἐκ τοῦ γήρως νωθρότητα ποδῶν ἐπικύφοον. To maidens who grind (cf. טח בר, Num 11:8 and Isa 47:2) the corn by means of a hand-mill are compared the teeth, the name of which in the old language is masc., but in the modern (cf. Pro 29:19), as also in the Syr. and Arab., is fem.; the reference of the figure to these instruments for grinding is not to be missed; the Arab. ṭḥinat and the Syr. ṭaḥonto signify dens molaris, and we now call 6 of the 32 teeth Mahlzähne (molar teeth, or grinders); the Greeks used for them the word μύλαι (Psa 57:7, lxx). Regarding בּטלוּ, lxx ἤργησαν (= ἀερτοὶ ἐγενήθησαν)We find a similar allegory in Shabbath 152 a. The emperor asked the Rabbi Joshua b. Chananja why he did not visit בי אבידן (a place where learned conversation, particularly on religious subjects, was carried on). He answered: “The mount is snow (= the hair of the head is white), ice surrounds me (= whiskers and beard on the chin white), its (of my body) dogs bark not (the voice fails), and its grinders (the teeth) grind not.” The proper meaning of בי אבידן, Levy has not been able clearly to bring to light in his Neuhebr. u. Chald. W.B.

The clause מעטוּ כּי (lxx ὃτι ὠλιγώθησαν) assigns the reason that the grinders rest, i.e., are not at work, that they have become few: they stand no longer in a row; they are isolated, and (as is to be supposed) are also in themselves defective. Taylor interprets mi'etu transitively: the women grinding rest when they have wrought a little, i.e., they interrupt their labour, because on account of the occurrence of death, guests are now no longer entertained; but the beautiful appropriate allegory maintains its place against this supposed lamentation for the dead; also מעט does not signify to accomplish a little (Targ.), but to take away, to become few (lxx, Syr., Jerome, Venet. Luther), as such as Pih. as Ecc 10:10, קהה, to become blunt. And by הראות בּא we are not to think, with Taylor, of women such as Sidera’s mother or Michal, who look out of the window, but of the eyes, more exactly the apples of the eyes, to which the orbita (lxx ἐν ταῖς ὀπαῖς; Symm. διὰ τῶν ὀπῶν) and the eyelids with the eye-lashes are related as a window is to those who look out; ארבּה (from ארב, R. רב, to entwine firmly and closely) is the window, consisting of a lattice of wood; the eyes are, as Cicero (Tusc. i. 20) calls them, quasi fenestrae animi; the soul-eyes, so to speak, without which it could not experience what sight is, look by means of the external eyes; and these soul-bodily eyes have become darkened in the old man, the power of seeing is weakened, and the experiences of sight are indistinct, the light of the eyes is extinguished (although not without exception, Deu 34:7).

Ecc 12:4

From the eyes the allegory proceeds to the mouth, and the repugnance of the old man to every noise disturbing his rest: “And the doors to the street are closed, when the mill sounds low; and he rises up at the voice of a bird; and all the daughters of song must lower themselves.” By the door toward the street the Talm. and Midrash understand the pores or the emptying members of the body, - a meaning so far from being ignoble, that even in the Jewish morning prayer a Beracha is found in these words: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the world, who hast wisely formed man, and made for him manifold apertures and cavities. It is manifest and well known before the throne of Thy Majesty, that if one of these cavities is opened, or one of these apertures closed, it is impossible for him to exist and to stand before Thee; blessed art Thou, O Lord, the Physician of the body, and who doest wondrous words!” The words which follow הטּ ... בּשׁ are accordingly to be regarded as assigning a reason for this closing: the non-appearance of excretion has its reason in defective digestion in this, that the stomach does not grind (Talm.: וגו בשרקבןCf. Berachoth 61 b: The stomach (קורקבן) grinds. As hamses is properly the caul of the ruminant, so this word קוּרקבן is the crop (bibl. מראה) of the bird. בשביל). But the dual דּלתים suggests a pair of similar and related members, and בּשּׁוּק a pair of members open before the eyes, and not such as modesty requires to be veiled. The Targum therefore understands the shutting of the doors properly; but the mills, after the indication lying in הטּ grinding maids, it understands of the organs of eating and tasting, for it translates: “thy feet will be fettered, so that thou canst not go out into the street; and appetite will fail thee.” But that is an awkward amalgamation of the literal with the allegorical, which condemns itself by this, that it separates the close connection of the two expressions required by בּשׁפל, which also may be said of the reference of dlt' to the ears, into which no sound, even from the noisy market, penetrates (Gurlitt, Grätz). We have for דלתים a key, already found by Aben Ezra, in Job 41:2, where the jaws of the leviathan are called פּניו דּלתי; and as Herzf. and Hitz. explain, so Samuel Aripol in his Commentary, which appeared in Constantinople, 1855, rightly: “He calls the jaws דלתים, to denote that not two דלתות in two places, but in one place, are meant, after the manner of a door opening out to the street, which is large, and consists of two folds or wings, דלתות, which, like the lips (השׂפתים, better: the jaws), form a whole in two parts; and the meaning is, that at the time of old age the lips are closed and drawn in, because the teeth have disappeared, or, as the text says, because the noise of the mill is low, just because he has no teeth to grind with.” The connection of סגּרוּ and בּשׁפל is, however, closer still: the jaws of an old man are closed externally, for the sound of the mill is low; i.e., since, when one masticates his food with the jaws of a toothless mouth, there is heard only a dull sound of this chewing (Mumpfelns, vid., Wiegand’s Deut. W.B.), i.e., laborious masticating. He cannot any more crack or crunch and break his food, one hears only a dull munching and sucking. - The voice of the mouth (Bauer, Hitz., Gurlitt, Zöckl.) cannot be the meaning of קול הט; the set of teeth (Gurlitt indeed substitutes, Ecc 12:3, the cavity of the mouth) is not the organ of voice, although it contributes to the formation of certain sounds of words, and is of importance for the full sound of the voice. בּשּׁוּק, “to the street,” is here = on the street side; שׁפל is, as at Pro 16:19, infin. (Symmachus: ἀχρειωθείσης τῆς φωνῆς; the Venet.: ἐν τῷ ταπεινῶσθαι τὴν φωνήν), and is to be understood after Isa 29:4; טחנה stands for רחים, as the vulgar Arab. tahûn and matḥana instead of the antiquated raḥâ. Winzer now supposes that the picture of the night is continued in 4 b: et subsistit (vox molae)ad cantum galli, et submissius canunt cantatrices (viz., molitrices). Elster, with Umbreit, supposes the description of a storm continued: the sparrow rises up to cry, and all the singing birds sink down (flutter restlessly on the ground). And Taylor supposes the lament for the dead continued, paraphrasing: But the bird of evil omen [owl, or raven] raises his dirge, and the merry voice of the singing girls is silent.

These three pictures, however, are mere fancies, and are also evidently here forced upon the text; for יקוט קול cannot mean subsistit vox, but, on the contrary (cf. Hos 10:14), surgit (tollitur) vox; and יקום לקול cannot mean: it (the bird) raises itself to cry, which would have required יקום לתת קולו, or at least לקּול, after למלחמה קום, etc.; besides, it is to be presumed that צפור is genit., like קול עוגב and the like, not nom. of the subj. It is natural, with Hitz., Ewald, Heiligst., Zöck., to refer qol tsippor to the peeping, whispering voice (“Childish treble” of Shakespeare) of the old man (cf. stiphtseph, Isa 29:4; Isa 38:14; Isa 10:14; Isa 8:19). But the translation: “And it (the voice) approaches a sparrow’s voice,” is inadmissible, since for ל קום the meaning, “to pass from one state to another,” cannot be proved from 1Sa 22:13; Mic 2:8; קום signifies there always “to rise up,” and besides, qol tahhanah is not the voice of the mouth supplied with teeth, but the sound of the chewing of a toothless mouth. If leqol is connected with a verb of external movement, or of that of the soul, it always denotes the occasion of this movement, Num 16:34; Eze 27:28; Job 21:12; Hab 3:16. Influenced by this inalienable sense of the language, the Talm. explains צף ... ויקום by “even a bird awakes him.” Thus also literally the Midrash, and accordingly the Targ. paraphrasing: “thou shalt awaken out of thy sleep for a bird, as for thieves breaking in at night.” That is correct, only it is unnecessary to limit ויקוּם (or rather ויקום,Vav with Cholem in H. F. Thus rightly, according to the Masora, which places it in the catalogue of those words which occur once with a higher (יקום) and once with a lower vowel (yקוּם), Mas. fin. 2a b, Ochlaweochla, No. 5; cf. also Aben Ezra’s Comm. under Psa 80:19; Zachoth 23 a, Safa berura 21 b (where Lipmann is uncertain as to the meaning). which accords with the still continued subordination of Ecc 12:4 to the eo die quo of Ecc 12:3) to rising up from sleep, as if it were synonymous with ויעור: the old man is weak (nervously weak) and easily frightened, and on account of the deadening of his senses (after the figure of Ecc 12:2, the darkening of the five stars) is so liable to mistake, that if even a bird chirps, he is frightened by it out of his rest (cf. hēkim, Isa 14:9).

Also in the interpretation of the clause haשׁיר ... וישּׁחוּ, the ancients are in the right track. The Talm. explains: even all music and song appear to him like common chattering (שׂוּחה or, according to other readings, שׂיחה); the proper meaning of ychsw is thus Haggad. twisted. Less correctly the Midrash: בנות השיר are his lips, or they are the reins which think, and the heart decides (on this curious psychol. conception, cf. Chullin 11 a, and particularly Berachoth 61 a, together with my Psychol. p. 269). The reference to the internal organs if à priori improbable throughout; the Targ. with the right tact decides in favour of the lips: “And thy lips are untuned, so that they can no more say (sing) songs.” In this translation of the Talm. there are compounded, as frequently, two different interpretations, viz., that interpretation of בן השׁ, which is proved by the כל going before to be incorrect, because impossible; and the interpretation of these “daughters of song” of “songs,” as if these were synonymous designations, as when in Arab. misfortunes are called banatu binasan, and the like (vid., Lane’s Lex. I p. 263); בּת קול, which in Mish. denotes a separate voice (the voice of heaven), but in Syr. the separate word, may be compared. But ישׁחוּ (fut. Niph. of שׁחח) will not accord with this interpretation. For that בן השׁ denotes songs (Hitz., Heiligst.), or the sound of singing (Böttch.), or the words (Ewald) of the old man himself, which are now softened down so as to be scarcely audible, is yet too improbable; it is an insipid idea that the old man gives forth these feeble “daughters of song” from his mouth. We explain ישׁחו of a being bowed down, which is external to the old man, and accordingly understand benoth hashshir not of pieces of music (Aq. πάντα τὰ τῆς ᾠδῆς) which must be lowered to pianissimo, but according to the parallel already rightly acknowledge by Desvoeux, 2Sa 19:36, where the aged Barzillai says that he has now no longer an ear for the voice of singing men and singing women, of singing birds (cf. בּר זמירא of a singing bird in the Syrian fables of Sophos, and banoth of the branches of a fruit tree, Gen 49:22), and, indeed, so that these are a figure of all creatures skilled in singing, and taking pleasure in it: all beings that are fond of singing, and to which it has become as a second nature, must lower themselves, viz., the voice of their song (Isa 29:4) (cf. the Kal, Psa 35:14, and to the modal sense of the fut. Ecc 10:10, יגּבּר, and Ecc 10:19, ישׂמּח), i.e., must timidly retire, they dare not make themselves heard, because the old man, who is terrified by the twittering of a little bird, cannot bear it.

Ecc 12:5

From this his repugnance to singing, and music, and all loud noises, progress in the description is made to the difficulty such aged men have in motion: “Also they are afraid of that which is high; and there are all kinds of fearful things in the way ... .” The description moves forward in a series of independent sentences; that שׁ בּיּום to which it was subordinate in Ecc 12:3, and still also in Ecc 12:4, is now lost sight of. In the main it is rightly explained by the Talm., and with it the Midrash: “Even a little hillock appears to him like a high mountain; and if he has to go on a journey, he meets something that terrifies him;” the Targ. has adopted the second part of this explanation. גּבהּ (falsely referred by the Targ. to the time lying far back in the past) is understood neut.; cf. 1Sa 16:7. Such decrepid old men are afraid of (ייראוּ, not videbunt, as the lxx, Symm., Ar., and the Venet. translate, who seem to have had before them the defective יראו) a height, - it alarms them as something unsurmountable, because their breath and their limbs fail them when they attempt it; and hathhhattim (plur. of the intensifying form of hat, consternatio, Job 41:25), i.e., all kinds of formidines (not formido, Ewald, §179 a, Böttch. §762, for the plur. is as in salsilloth, 'aph'appim, etc., thought of as such), meet them in the way. As the sluggard says: there is a lion in the way, and under this pretence remains slothfully at home, Pro 24:13; Pro 22:13, so old men do not venture out; for to them a damp road appears like a very morass; a gravelly path, as full of neck-breaking hillocks; an undulating path, as fearfully steep and precipitous; that which is not shaded, as oppressively hot and exhausting-they want strength and courage to overcome difficulties, and their anxiety pictures out dangers before them where there are none.

The allegory is now continued in individual independent figures: “And the almond tree is in blossom.” The Talm. explains וין הש of the haunch-bone projecting (from leanness); the Midrash, of the bones of the vertebral column, conceived of as incorruptible and as that round which will take place the future restoration of the human body, - probably the cross bone, os sacrum,The Jewish opinion of the incorruptible continuance of this bone may be connected with the designation os sacrum; the meaning of this is controverted, vid., Hyrtl’s Anatomie, §124. inserted between the two thigh bones of the pelvis as a pointed wedge; cf. Jerome in his Comm.: quidam sacram spinam interpretantur quod decrescentibus natium cornibus spina accrescat et floreat; לוּז is an Old Heb., Aram., and Arab. name of the almond tree and the almond nut (vid., under Gen 30:37), and this, perhaps, is the reason of this identification of the emblematic שׁקד with לוז (the os sacrum, or vertebra magna) of the spine. The Targ. follows the Midrash in translating: the רישׁ שׁז (the top of the spine) will protrude from leanness like an almond tree (viz., from which the leaves have been stripped). In these purely arbitrary interpretations nothing is correct but (1) that שׁקד is understood not of the almond fruit, but of the almond tree, as also at Jer 1:11 (the rod of an almond tree); (2) that ינאץ (notwithstanding that these interpreters had it before them unpointed) is interpreted, as also by the lxx, Syr., Jerome, and the Venet., in the sense of blossoming, or the bursting out of blossoms by means of the opening up of the buds. Many interpreters understand שׁקר of almond fruit (Winzer, Ewald, Ginsb., Rödiger, etc.), for they derive ינאץ from נאץ, as Aben Ezra had already done, and explain by: fastidit amygdalam (nucem), or fastidium creat amygdala. But (1) ינאץ for ינאץ (Hiph. of נאץ, to disdain, to treat scornfully) is a change of vowels unexampled; we must, with such an explanation, read either ינּאץ, fastiditur (Gaab), or ינאץ; (2) almond nuts, indeed, belong to the more noble productions of the land and the delicacies, Gen 43:11, but dainties, κατ ̓ ἐξ, at the same time they are not, so that it would be appropriate to exemplify the blunted sensation of taste in the old man, by saying that he no more cracks and eats almonds. The explanation of Hitzig, who reads ינאץ, and interprets the almond tree as at Sol 7:9 the palm, to denote a woman, for he translates: the almond tree refuses (viz., the old man), we set aside as too ingenious; and we leave to those interpreters who derive ינאץ from נאץ, and understand השקדAbulwalîd understands שקר and חגב sexually, and glosses the latter by jundub (the locust), which in Arab. is a figure of suffering and patience. of the glans penis (Böttch., Fürst, and several older interpreters), to follow their own foul and repulsive criticism. ינאץ is an incorrect reading for ינץ, as at Hos 10:14, קאם for קם, and, in Prov., ראשׁ for רשׁ (Gesen. §73. 4); and besides, as at Sol 6:11, הנצוּ, regular Hiph. of נצץ (נוּץ, Lam 4:15), to move tremblingly (vibrate), to glisten, blossom (cf. נוס, to flee, and ניסן, Assyr. nisannu, the flower-month). Thus deriving this verbal form, Ewald, and with him Heiligst., interprets the blossoming almond tree as a figure of the winter of life: “it is as if the almond tree blossomed, which in the midst of winter has already blossoms on its dry, leafless stem.” But the blossoms of the almond tree are rather, after Num 17:2-8, a figure of special life-strength, and we must thus, thrown back to ינאץ from נאץ (to flourish), rather explain, with Furrer (in Schenkel’s B. L.), as similarly Herzf.: the almond tree refuses, i.e., ceases, to blossom; the winter of old age is followed by no spring; or also, as Dale and Taylor: the almond tree repels, i.e., the old man has no longer a joyful welcome for this messenger of spring. But his general thought has already found expression in Ecc 12:2; the blossoming almond tree must be here an emblem of a more special relation. Hengst. supposes that “the juniper tree (for this is the proper meaning of שקד) is in bloom” is = sleeplessness in full blossom stands by the old man; but that would be a meaningless expression. Nothing is more natural than that the blossoming almond tree is intended to denote the same as is indicated by the phrase of the Latin poet: Intempestivi funduntur vertice cani (Luther, Geiger, Grot., Vaih., Luzz., Gurlitt, Tyler, Bullock, etc.).

It has been objected that the almond blossoms are not pure white, but according to the variety, they are pale-red, or also white; so that Thomson, in his beautiful Land and the Book, can with right say: “The almond tree is the type of old age whose hair is white;” and why? “The white blossoms completely cover the whole tree.” Besides, Bauer (1732) has already remarked that the almond blossoms, at first tinged with red, when they are ready to fall off become white as snow; with which may be compared a clause cited by Ewald from Bodenstedt’s A Thousand and One Days in the Orient: “The white blossoms fall from the almond trees like snow-flakes.” Accordingly, Dächsel is right when he explains, after the example of Zöckler: “the almond tree with its reddish flower in late winter, which strews the ground with its blossoms, which have gradually become white like snow-flakes, is an emblem of the winter of old age with its falling silvery hair.”

From the change in the colour of the hair, the allegory now proceeds to the impairing of the elasticity of the highs and of their power of bearing a load, the malum coxae senile (in a wider than the usual pathological sense): “And the grasshopper (i.e., locust, חגב, Samar. חרגבה = חרגּל, Lev 11:22) becomes a burden.” Many interpreters (Merc., Döderl., Gaab, Winz., Gesen., Winer, Dale) find in these words הח ויס the meaning that locust-food, or that the chirping of grasshoppers, is burdensome to him (the old man); but even supposing that it may at once be assumed that he was a keen aeridophagus (locusts, steeped in butter, are like crabs (shrimps) spread on slices of butter and bread), or that he had formerly a particular delight in the chirping of the τέττιξ, which the ancients number among singing birds (cf. Taylor, l.c.), and that he has now no longer any joy in the song of the τέττιξ, although it is regarded as soothing and tending to lull to rest, and an Anacreon could in his old days even sing his μακαρίζομέν σε τέττιξ, - yet these two interpretations are impossible, because הס may mean to burden and to move with difficulty, but not “to become burdensome.” For the same reason, nothing is more absurd than the explanation of Kimchi and Gurlitt: Even a grasshopper, this small insect, burdens him; for which Zöckl., more naturally: the hopping and chirping of the grasshopper is burdensome to him; as we say, The fly on the wall annoys him. Also Ewald and Heiligstedt’s interpretation: “it is as if the locust raised itself to fly, breaking and stripping off its old husk,” as inadmissible; for הסתבל can mean se portare laboriose, but not ad evolandum eniti; the comparison (Arab.) tahmmal gains the meaning of hurry onwards, to proceed on an even way, like the Hebr. השכים, to take upon the shoulder; it properly means, to burden oneself, i.e., to take on one’s back in order to get away; but the grasshopper coming out of its case carries away with it nothing but itself. For us, such interpretations - to which particularly, the advocates of the several hypotheses of a storm, night, and mourning, are constrained - are already set aside by this, that according to the allegory וין השׁ, הח ויס must also signify something characteristic of the body of an old man. The lxx, Jerome, and Ar. translate: the locust becomes fat; the Syr.: it grows. It is true, indeed, that great corpulence, or also a morbid dropsical swelling of the belly (ascites), is one of the symptoms of advanced old age; but supposing that the (voracious) locust might be en emblem of a corpulent man, yet הסתבל means neither to become fat nor to grow. But because the locust in reality suggests the idea of a corpulent man, the figure cannot at the same time be intended to mean that the old man is like a skeleton, consisting as it were of nothing but skin and bone (Lyra, Luther, Bauer, Dathe); the resemblance of a locust to the back-bone and its joints (Glassius, Köhler, Vaih.) is not in view; only the position of the locusts’s feet for leaping admits the comparison of the prominent scapulae (shoulder-blades); but shoulder-blades (scapulae alatae), angular and standing out from the chest, are characteristics of a consumptive, not of a senile habit. Also we must cease, with Hitz., Böttch., Luzz., and Gratz, to understand the figure as denoting the φαλλός to be now impotent; for relaxation and shrinking do not agree with hctbl, which suggests something burdensome by being weighty.

The Midrash interprets החגב by “ankles,” and the Targ. translates accordingly: the ankles (אסתּורי, from the Pers. ustuwâr, firm) of thy feet will swell-unsuitably, for “ankles” affords no point of comparison with locusts, and they have no resemblance to their springing feet. The Talm., glossing החגב by “these are the buttocks” (nates) (cf. Arab. 'ajab, the os coccygis, Syn. 'ajuz, as the Talm. עגבות interchanges with עבוז), is on the right track. There is nothing, indeed, more probably than that הגב is a figure of the coxa, the hinder region of the pelvis, where the lower part of the body balances itself in the hip-joint, and the motion of standing up and going receives its impulse and direction by the muscular strength there concentrated. This part of the body may be called the locust, because it includes in itself the mechanism which the two-membered foot for springing, placed at an acute angle, presents in the locust. Referred to this coxa, the loins, יסתבל has its most appropriate meaning: the marrow disappears from the bones, elasticity from the muscles, the cartilage and oily substance from the joints, and, as a consequence, the middle of the body drags itself along with difficulty; or: it is with difficulty moved along (Hithpa. as pass., like Ecc 8:10); it is stiff, particularly in the morning, and the old man is accustomed to swing his arms backwards, and to push himself on as it were from behind. In favour of this interpretation (but not deciding it) is the accord of חגב with עגב = κόκκυξ (by which the os coccygis is designated as the cuckoo’s bone). Also the verbal stem (Arab.) jaḥab supplies an analogous name: not jaḥab, which denotes the air passage (but not, as Knobel supposes, the breath itself; for the verb signifies to separate, to form a partition, Mish. מחיצח), but (Arab.) jaḥabat, already compared by Bochart, which denotes the point (dual), the two points or projections of the two hip-bones (vid., Lane’s Lex.), which, together with the os sacrum lying between, form the ring of the pelvis.

From the weakening of the power of motion, the allegory passes on to the decay of sensual desires, and of the organs appertaining thereto: “And the caper-berry fails ... .” The meaning “caper” for האב is evidence by the lxx (ἡ κάππαρις, Arab. alkabar), the Syr., and Jerome (capparis), and this rendering is confirmed by the Mishnic אביונות, which in contradistinction to תמרות, i.e., the tender branches, and קפריסין, i.e., the rind of fruit, signifies the berry-like flower-buds of the caper bush,The caper-bush is called in the Mish. צלף, and is celebrated, Beza 25 a, cf. Shabbath 30 b (where, according to J. S. Bloch’s supposition, the disciple who meets Gamaliel is the Apostle Paul), on account of its unconquerable life-power, its quick development of fruit, and manifold products. The caper-tree is planted, says Berachoth 36a, “with a view to its branches;” the eatable branches or twigs here meant are called שיתי (שותי). Another name for the caper-tree is נצפה, Demai i. 1, Berachoth 36 a, 40 b; and another name for the bud of the caper-blossom is פרחא רבוטיתא, Berachoth 36b (cf. Aruch, under the words aviyonoth and tselaph). according to Buxtorf. This Talm. word, it is true, is pointed אביונות; but that makes no difference, for אביּונה is related to אביונה merely as making the word emphatic, probably to distinguish the name of the caper from the fem. of the adj. אביון, which signifies avida, egena. But in the main they are both one; for that נביּונה may designate “desire” (Abulwalîd:In his Dictionary of Roots (kitâb el-utṣûl), edited by Neubauer, Oxford 1873-4. aliradat; Parchon: התאוה; Venet.: ἡ ὄρεξις; Luther: alle Lust), or “neediness,” “poverty” (the Syr. in its second translation of this clause), is impossible, because the form would be unexampled and incomprehensible; only the desiring soul, or the desiring, craving member (vid., Kimchi), could be so named. But now the caper is no named, which even to this day is used to give to food a more piquant taste (cf. Plutarch’s Sympos. vi. qu. 2). It is also said that the caper is a means of exciting sexual desire (aphrodisiacum); and there are examples of its use for this purpose from the Middle Ages, indeed, but none from the records of antiquity; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xx. 14 (59), knew nothing of it, although he speaks at length of the uses and effects of the capparis. The Talm. explains האבי by חמדה, the Midrash by תאוה, the Targ. by משכבא, interpreting the word directly without reference to the caper in this sense. If haaviyonah thus denotes the caper, we have not thence to conclude that it incites to sexual love, and still less are we, with the Jewish interpreters, whom Böttch. follows, to understand the word of the membrum virile itself; the Arab. name for the caper, 'itar, which is compared by Grätz, which has an obscene meaning, designates also other aromatic plants. We shall proceed so much the more securely if we turn away from the idea of sexual impulse and hold by the idea of the impulse of self-preservation, namely, appetite for food, since אביון (from אבה, the root-meaning of which, “to desire,” is undoubtedVid., Fried. Delitzsch’s Indogerman.-Sem. Stud. I p. 62f. Also the Arab. âby in the language of the Negd means nothing else.) denotes a poor man, as one who desires that which is indispensable to the support of life; the caper is accordingly called aviyonah, as being appetitiva, i.e., exciting to appetite for food, and the meaning will not be that the old man is like a caper-berry which, when fully ripe, bursts its husks and scatters its seed (Rosenm., Winer in his R. W., Ewald, Taylor, etc.), as also the lxx, Symm. (καὶ διαλυθῇ ἡ ἐπίπονος, i.e., as Jerome translates it,et dissolvetur spiritus fortitudo, perhaps ἐπίτονος, the strength or elasticity of the spirit), and Jerome understand the figure; but since it is to be presupposed that the name of the caper, in itself significant, will also be significant for the figure: capparis est irrita sive vim suam non exerit (ותפר as inwardly trans. Hiph. of פרר, to break in pieces, frustrate), i.e., even such means of excitement as capers, these appetite-berries, are unable to stimulate the dormant and phlegmatic stomach of the old man (thus e.g., Bullock). Hitzig, indeed, maintains that the cessation of the enjoyment of love in old age is not to be overlooked; but (1) the use of artificial means for stimulating this natural impulse in an old man, who is here described simply as such, without reference to his previous life and its moral state, would make him a sensualist; and (2) moral statistics show that with the decay of the body lust does not always (although this would be in accordance with nature, Gen 17:17; Rom 4:19) expire; moreover, the author of the Book of Koheleth is no Juvenal or Martial, to take pleasure, like many of his interpreters, in exhibiting theres venereae.

And in view of the clause following, the ceasing from nourishment as the last symptom of the certain approach of death is more appropriate than the cessation from sexual desire: “For,” thus the author continues after this description of the enfeebled condition of the hoary old man, “man goeth to his everlasting habitation, and the mourners go about the streets.” One has to observe that the antequam of the memento Creatoris tui in diebus junvetutis tuae is continued in Ecc 12:6 and Ecc 12:7. The words 'ad asher lo are thrice repeated. The chief group in the description is subordinated to the second 'ad asher lo; this relation is syntactically indicated also in Ecc 12:4 by the subjective form ויקום, and continues logically in Ecc 12:5, although without any grammatical sign, for ינאצו and ותפר are indicative. Accordingly the clause with כּי, Ecc 12:5, will not be definitive; considerately the accentuation does not begin a new verse with כּי: the symptoms of marasmus already spoken of are here explained by this, that man is on his way to the grave, and, as we say, has already one foot in it. The part. חלך is also here not so much the expression of the fut. instans (iturus est), like Ecc 9:10, as of the present (Venet.: ἄπεισι); cf. Gen 15:2, where also these two possible renderings stand in question. “Everlasting house” is the name for the grave of the dead, according to Diodorus Sic. i. 51, also among the Egyptians, and on old Lat. monuments also the expression domus aeterna is found (vid., Knobel); the comfortless designation, which correspondsThe Syr. renders beth 'olam by domus laboris sui, which is perhaps to be understood after Job 3:17. to the as yet darkened idea of Hades, remained with the Jews in spite of the hope of the resurrection they had meanwhile received; cf. Tob. 3:6; Sanhedrin 19 a, “the churchyard of Huṣal;” “to be a churchyard” (beth 'olam); “at the door of the churchyard” (beth 'olam), Vajikra rabba, c. 12. Cf. Assyr. bit 'idii = עד בּית of the under-world (Bab.-Assyr. Epic, “Höllenfahrt der Istar,” i. 4).

The clause following means that mourners already go about the streets (cf. סבב, Sol 3:3, and Pil. Sol 3:2; Psa 59:7) expecting the death of the dying. We would say: the undertaker tarries in the neighbourhood of the house to be at hand, and to offer his services. For hassophdim are here, as Knobel, Winz., and others rightly explain, the mourners, saphdanin (sophdanin), hired for the purpose of playing the mourning music (with the horn שיפורא, Moëd katan 27 b, or flute, חלילים, at the least with two, Kethuboth 46 b; cf. Lat. siticines) and of singing the lament for the dead, qui conducti plorant in funere (Horace, Poet. 433), along with whom were mourning women, מקוננות (Lat. praeficae) (cf. Buxtorf’s Lex. Talm. col. 1524 s.), - a custom which existed from remote antiquity, according to 2Sa 3:31; Jer 34:5. The Talm. contains several such lamentations for the dead, as e.g., that of a “mourner” (ההוא ספדנא) for R. Abina: “The palms wave their heads for the palm-like just man,” etc.; and of the famed “mourner” Bar-Kippuk on the same occasion: “If the fire falls upon the cedar, what shall the hyssop of the walls do?” etc. (Moëd katan 25 b)Given in full in Wiss. Kunst Judenth. p. 230ff. Regarding the lament for the dead among the Haurans, vid., Wetzstein’s treatise on the Syrian Threshing-Table in Bastian’s Zeitsch. für Ethnologie, 1873.  - many of the ספנים were accordingly elegiac poets. This section of Ecc 12:5 does not refer to the funeral itself, for the procession of the mourners about the bier ought in that case to have been more distinctly expressed; and that they walked about in the streets before the funeral (Isa 15:3) was not a custom, so far as we know. They formed a component part of the procession following the bier to the grave in Judea, as Shabbath 153 a remarks with reference to this passage, and in Galilee going before it; to mourn over the death, to reverse it, if possible, was not the business of these mourners, but of the relatives (Hitz.), who were thus not merely called הסופדים. The Targ. translates: “and the angels will go about, who demand an account of thee, like the mourning singers who go about the streets, to record what account of thee is to be given.” It is unnecessary to change כּסופד into כּספר (intar scribarum). According to the idea of the Targumist, the sophdim go about to collect materials for the lament for the dead. The dirge was not always very scrupulously formed; wherefore it is said in Berachoth 26 a, “as is the estimate of the dead that is given, so is the estimate of the mourners (singers and orators at the funeral), and of those who respond to their words.” It is most natural to see the object of the mourners going about in their desire to be on the spot when death takes place.The Arab. funeral dirge furnishes at once an illustration of “and the mourners go about the streets.” What Wetzstein wrote to me ought not, I believe, to be kept from the reader: “In Damascus the men certainly take part in the dirge; they go about the reservoir in the court of the house along with the mourning women, and behave themselves like women; but this does not take place in the villages. But whether the 'going about the streets’ might seem as an evidence that in old times in the towns, as now in the villages, the menaṣṣa (bed of state) was placed with the mourning tent in the open street without, is a question. If this were the case, the sôphdim might appear publicly; only I would then understand by the word not hired mourners, but the relatives of the dead.” But then מטּה, as at Psa 26:6 מזבח, ought to have been joined to סבב as the object of the going about.

Ecc 12:6-7

A third 'ad asher lo now follows (cf. Ecc 5:1-2); the first placed the old man in view, with his désagrément in general; the second described in detail his bodily weaknesses, presenting themselves as forerunners of death; the third brings to view the dissolution of the life of the body, by which the separation of the soul and the body, and the return of both to their original condition is completed. “Ere the silver cord is loosed, and the golden bowl is shattered, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel is shattered in the well, and the dust returns to the earth as that which it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” Before entering into the contents of these verses, we shall consider the form in which some of the words are presented. The Chethı̂b ירחק we readily let drop, for in any case it must be said that the silver cord is put out of action; and this word, whether we read it ירחק or ירחק (Venet. μακρυνθῇ), is too indefinite, and, supposing that by the silver cord a component part of the body is meant, even inappropriate, since the organs which cease to perform their functions are not removed away from the dead body, but remain in it when dead. But the Keri ירתק (“is unbound”) has also its difficulty. The verb רתק signifies to bind together, to chain; the bibl. Heb. uses it of the binding of prisoners, Nah 3:18, cf. Isa 40:19; the post-bibl. Heb. of binding = shutting up (contrast of פתח, Pesikta, ed. Buber, 176 a, whence Mezia 107 b, שורא וריתקא, a wall and enclosure); the Arab. of shutting up and closing a hole, rent, split (e.g., murtatiḳ, a plant with its flower-buds as yet shut up; rutûḳ, inaccessibleness). The TargumistSimilarly the lxx understands ונרץ, καὶ συντροχάσῃ (i.e., as Jerome in his Comm. explains: si fuerit in suo funiculo convoluta), which is impossible. accordingly understands ירתק of binding = lameness (palsy); Rashi and Aben Ezra, of shrivelling; this may be possible, however, for נרתּק, used of a “cord,” the meaning that first presents itself, is “to be firmly bound;” but this affords no appropriate sense, and we have therefore to give to the Niph. the contrasted meaning of setting free, discatenare (Parchon, Kimchi); this, however, is not justified by examples, for a privat. Niph. is unexampled, Ewald, §121 e; נלבּב, Job 11:12, does not mean to be deprived of heart (understanding), but to gain heart (understanding). Since, however, we still need here the idea of setting loose or tearing asunder (lxx ἀνατραπῇ; Symm. κοπῆναι; Syr. נתפסק, from פּסק, abscindere; Jerome, rumpatur), we have only the choice of interpreting yērathēq either, in spite of the appearance to the contrary, in the meaning of constingitur, of a violent drawing together of the cord stretched out lengthwise; or, with Pfannkuche, Gesen., Ewald, to read ינּתק (“is torn asunder”), which one expects, after Isa 33:20; cf. Jdg 16:9; Jer 10:20. Hitzig reaches the same, for he explains ירחק = יחרק, from (Arab.) kharaḳ, to tear asunder (of the sound of the tearing);Vid., my treatise, Psyciol. u. Musik, u.s.w., p. 31. and Böttcher, by adopting the reading יחרק; but without any support in Heb. and Chald. usus loq. נּלּה, which is applied to the second figure, is certainlyThe lxx, unsuitably, τὸ ἀνθέμιον, which, per synecdochen partis pro toto, signifies the capital (of a pillar). Thus, perhaps, also are meant Symm. τὸ περιφερές, Jerome vitta, Venet. τὸ στέφος, and the Syr. “apple.” Among the Arabs, this ornament on the capital is called tabaryz (“prominence”). a vessel of a round form (from גּלל, to roll, revolve round), like the נּלּה which received the oil and conducted it to the seven lamps of the candlestick in Zec 4:1-14; but to understand ותרץ of the running out of the oil not expressly named (Luther: “and the golden fountain runs out”) would be contrary to the usus loq.; it is the metapl. form for ותרץ, et confringitur, as ירוּץ, Isa 42:4, for ירץ, from רצץ, cogn. רעע, Psa 2:9, whence נרץ, Ecc 12:6, the regularly formed Niph. (the fut. of which, תּרוץ, Eze 29:7). We said that oil is not expressly named. But perhaps it is meant by הזּהב. The gullah above the candlestick which Zechariah saw was, according to Zec 4:12, provided with two golden pipes, in which were two olive trees standing on either side, which sunk therein the tuft-like end of their branches, of which it is said that they emptied out of themselves hazzahav into the oil vessels. Here it is manifest that hazzahav means, in the one instance, the precious metal of which the pipes are formed; and in the other, the fluid gold of the oil contained in the olive branches. Accordingly, Hitzig understands gullath hazzahav here also; for he takes gullah as a figure of the body, the golden oil as a figure of the soul, and the silver cord as a figure of vital energy.

Thus, with Hitz., understanding gullath hazzahav after the passage in Zechariah, I have correctly represented the meaning of the figures in my Psychol. p. 228, as follows: - “The silver cord = the soul directing and bearing the body as living; the lamp hanging by this silver cord = the body animated by the soul, and dependent on it; the golden oil = the spirit, of which it is said, Pro 20:27, that it is a lamp of God.” I think that this interpretation of the golden oil commends itself in preference to Zöckler’s interpretation, which is adopted by Dächsel, of the precious fluidum of the blood; for if hazzahav is a metaphorical designation of oil, we have to think of it as the material for burning and light; but the principle of bright life in man is the spirit (ruahh hhayim or nishmath hhayim); and in the passage in Zechariah also, oil, which makes the candlestick give light, is a figure of the spirit (Ecc 12:6, ki im-beruhhi). But, as one may also suppose, it is not probable that here, with the same genit. connection, הכסף is to be understood of the material and the quality; and hazzqahav, on the contrary, of the contents. A golden vessel is, according to its most natural meaning, a vessel which is made of gold, thus a vessel of a precious kind. A golden vessel cannot certainly be broken in pieces, but we need not therefore understand an earthenware vessel only gilded, as by a silver cord is to be understood only that which has a silver line running through it (Gesen. in the Thes.); רצוּץ may also denote that which is violently crushed or broken, Isa 42:3; cf. Jdg 9:53. If gullath hazzahav, however, designates a golden vessel, the reference of the figure to the body, and at the same time of the silver cord to the vital energy or the soul, is then excluded, - for that which animates stands yet above that which is animated, - the two metallic figures in this their distribution cannot be comprehended in this reference. We have thus to ask, since gullath hazzahav is not the body itself: What in the human body is compared to a silver cord and to a golden vessel? What, moreover, to a pitcher at the fountain, and to a wheel or a windlass? Winzer settles this question by finding in the two double figures only in general the thoughts represented: antequam vita ex tenui quasi filo suspensa pereat, and (which is essentially the same) antequam machina corporis destruatur.

Gurlitt also protests against the allegorical explanation of the details, but he cannot refrain from interpreting more specially than Winzer. Two momenta, he says, there are which, when a man dies, in the most impressive way present themselves to view: the extinction of consciousness, and the perfect cessation, complete ruin, of the bodily organism. The extinction of consciousness is figuratively represented by the golden lamp, which is hung up by a silver cord in the midst of a house or tent, and now, since the cord which holds it is broken, it falls down and is shattered to pieces, so that there is at once deep darkness; the destruction of the bodily organism, by a fountain, at which the essential parts of its machinery, the pitcher and windlass, are broken and rendered for ever useless. This interpretation of Gurlitt’s affords sufficient support to the expectation of the allegorical meaning with which we approached Ecc 12:6; and we would be satisfied therewith, if one of the figures did not oppose us, without seeking long for a more special allegorical meaning: the pitcher at the fountain or well (כּד, not הכּד, because determined by 'al-hammabu'a) is without doubt the heart which beats to the last breath of the dying man, which is likened to a pitcher which, without intermission, receives and again sends forth the blood. That the blood flows through the body like living water is a fact cognizable and perceptible without the knowledge of its course; fountain (מקור) and blood appear also elsewhere as associated ideas, Lev 12:7; and nishbar, as here vetishshaběr, into a state of death, or near to death, Jer 23:9; Psa 69:21. From this gullath hazzahav must also have a special allegorical sense; and if, as Gurlitt supposes, the golden vessel that is about to be destroyed is a figure of the perishing self-consciousness (whereby it is always doubtful that, with this interpretation, the characteristic feature of light in the figure is wanting), then it is natural to go further, and to understand the golden vessel directly of the head of a man, and to compare the breaking of the skull, Jdg 9:53, expressed by vataritz eth-gulgolto, with the words here before us, vatharutz gullath hazzahav; perhaps by gullath the author thought of the cogn. - both as to root and meaning - גלגלת; but, besides, the comparison of the head, the bones of which form an oval bowl, with gullath is of itself also natural. It is true that, according to the ancient view, not the head, but the heart, is the seat of the life of the spirit; “in the heart, Ephrem said (Opp. Syr. ii. 316), the thinking spirit (shuschobo) acts as in its palace;” and the understanding, the ArabiansVid., Noldeke’s Poesien d. alten Araber, p. 190. also say, sits in the heart, and thus between the ribs. Everything by which בשׂר and נפשׁ is affected - thus, briefly formulated, the older bibl. idea - comes in the לב into the light of consciousness. But the Book of Koheleth belongs to a time in which spiritual-psychical actions began to be placed in mediate causal relation with the head; the Book of Daniel represents this newer mode of conception, Dan 2:28; Dan 4:2; Dan 7:10, Dan 7:15. The image of the monarchies seen in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Dan 2:32, Dan 2:28, had a golden head; the head is described as golden, as it is the membrum praecipuum of the human body; it is compared to gold as to that which is most precious, as, on the other hand, ראשׁ is used as a metaphorical designation of that which is most precious. The breaking to pieces of the head, the death-blow which it receives, shows itself in this, that he who is sick unto death is unable to hold his head erect, that it sinks down against his will according to the law of gravity; as also in this, that the countenance assumes the aspect which we designate the facies hippocratica, and that feeling is gradually destroyed; but, above all, that is thought of which Ovid says of one who was dying: et resupinus humum moribundo vertice pulsat.

If we now further inquire regarding the meaning of the silver cord, nothing can obviously be meant by it which is locally above the golden bowl which would be hanging under it; also הכסף גלת itself certainly admits no such literal antitype, - the concavity of the גלגלת is below, and that of a גלה, on the other hand, is above. The silver cord will be found if a component part of the structure of the body is pointed to, which stands in a mutually related connection with the head and the brain, the rending asunder of which brings death with it. Now, as is well known, dying finally always depends on the brain and the upper spinal marrow; and the ancients already interpreted the silver cord of the spinal marrow, which is called by a figure terminologically related to the silver cord, חוּט השּׂדרה (the spinal cord), and as a cord-like lengthening of the brain into the spinal channel could not be more appropriately named; the centre is grey, but the external coating is white. We do not, however, maintain that hakkěsěph points to the white colour; but the spinal marrow is related, in the matter of its value for the life of man, to the brain as silver is to gold. Since not a violent but a natural death is the subject, the fatal stroke that falls on the spinal marrow is not some kind of mechanical injury, but, according as ירתק is unbound is explained or is changed into ינּתק is torn asunder, is to be thought of either as constriction = shrinking together, consuming away, exhaustion; or as unchanging = paralysis or disabling; or as tearing asunder = destruction of the connection of the individual parts. The emendation ינתק most commends itself; it remains, however, possible that ינתק is meant in the sense of morbid contraction (vid., Rashi); at any rate, the fate of the גלה is the consequence of the fate of the חבל, which carries and holds the gullah, and does not break without at the same time bringing destruction on it; as also the brain and the spinal marrow stand in a relation of solidarity to each other, and the head receivesMany interpreters (lately Ewald, Hengst., Zöckl., Taylor, and others) understand the silver cord of the thread of life; the spinal marrow is, without any figure, this thread of life itself. from the spinal marrow (as distinguished from the so-called prolonged marrow) the death-stroke. As the silver cord and the bowl, so the pitcher and the well and the wheel stand in interchangeable relation to each other.

We do not say: the wheel at the fountain, as is translated by Hitz., Ewald, and others; for (1) the fountain is called בּאר, not בּור (באר), which, according to the usage (vid., Hitz. under Jer 7:9), signifies a pit;, and particularly a hole, for holding water, a cistern, reservoir; but for this there was no need for a wheel, and it is also excluded by that which had to be represented; (2) the expression galgal ěl-habor is purposely not used, but hagalgal ěl-habor, that we may not take ěl-habor as virtual adj. to galgal (the wheel being at the בור), but as the designation of the place into which the wheel falls when it is shattered. Rightly, the lxx renders 'al-hammabu'a by ἐπὶ τῇ πηγῇ, and el-habor by ἐπὶ τὸν λάκκον. The figure of a well (mabbu'a) formed by means of digging, and thus deep, is artistically conceived; out of this the water is drawn by means of a pitcher (כּד, Gen 24:14, a word as curiously according with the Greek κάδος as those mentioned in pp. 505 and 552, whence Arab. kadd, to exhaust, to pitcher-out, as it were; syn. דּלי, a vessel for drawing out water; Assyr. di-lu, the zodiacal sign of the water-carrier), and to facilitate this there is a wheel or windlass placed above (Syr. gilgla devira), by which a rope is wound up and down (vid., Smith’s Bibl. Dict. under “well”).Wetzstein remarks, that it is translated by “cylinder” better than by “wheel,” since the galgal is here not at a river, but over a draw-well.

The Midrash refers to the deep draw-well of the hill town of Sepporis, which was supplied with such rollers serving as a pulley (polyspast). Wheel and pitcher stand in as close mutual relation as air and blood, which come into contact in the lungs. The wheel is the figure of the breathing organ, which expands and contracts (winds and unwinds) itself like a draw-rope by its inhaling and exhaling breath. The throat, as the organ of respiration and speech, is called גּרון (Psa 115:7) and גּרגּות (vid., under Pro 1:9), from גּרה or גּרר to draw, σπᾶν (τὸν ἀέρα, Wisd. 7:3). When this wheel makes its last laborious revolution, there is heard the death-rattle. There is a peculiar rattling sound, which they who once hear it never forget, when the wheel swings to an end-the so-called choking rheum, which consists in this, that the secretion which the dying cannot cough up moves up and down in the air-passage, and finally chokes him. When thus the breathings become always weaker, and sometimes are interrupted for a minute, and at last cease altogether, there takes place what is here designated as the breaking to pieces of the wheel in the pit within - the life is extinguished, he who has breathed his last will be laid as a corpse in the grave (בּור, Psa 28:1, and frequently), the σῶμα has become a πτῶμα (Mar 6:29; cf. Num 14:32). The dust, i.e., the dust of which the body was formed, goes back to the earth again like as it was (originally dust), and the spirit returns to God who gave it. וישׁב subordinates itself to the 'ad asher lo, also in the form as subjunct.; the interchange of the full and the abbreviated forms occurs, however, elsewhere is the indic. sense, e.g., Job 13:27; Ewald, §343 b. Shuv 'al occurs also at 2Ch 30:9; and אל and על interchange without distinction in the more modern language; but here, as also at Ecc 12:6, not without intention, the way downwards is to be distinguished from the way upwards (cf. Ecc 3:21). כּשׁהיה is = כּאשׁר היה, instar ejus quod fuit. The body returns to the dust from which it was taken, Gen 3:19, to the dust of its original material, Psa 104:29; and the spirit goes back to the God of its origin, to whom it belongs.

We have purposely not interrupted our interpretation of the enigmatical figures of Ecc 12:6 by the citation and criticism of diverging views, and content ourselves here with a specification of the oldest expositions. The interpretation of Shabbath 152 a does not extend to Ecc 12:6. The Midrash says of the silver cord: זו חוט השדרה (as later, Rashi, Aben Ezra, and many others), of the golden vessel: גלגלת זו (as we), and it now adds only more in jest: “the throat which swallows up the gold and lets the silver run through.” The pitcher becoming leaky must be כרס, the belly, which three days after death is wont to burst. And as for hagalgal, reference is made to the draw-wells of Sepporis; so for el havor, after Job 21:33, to the clods of Tiberias: he lies deep below, “like those clods of the deep-lying Tiberias.” The Targ takes its own way, without following the Midrash, and translates: “before thy tongue [this of חבל] is bound and thou art unable to speak any more, and the brain of thy head [this the גלה] is shattered, and thy gall [= כד] is broken with thy liver [= המבוע], and thy body [= הגלגל] hastens away [נרץ of רוץ] into the grave.” These interpretations have at least historical and linguistic value; they also contain separate correct renderings. A quodlibet of other interpretationsGeiger in the Deut. Morg. Zeitsch. xxvii. 800, translates Ecc 12:6 arbitrarily: and the stone-lid (גלגל in the sense of the Mish.-Targ. גולל) presses on the grave. is found in my Psychol. p. 229, and in Zöckler, ad loc. A principal error in these consists in this, that they read Koheleth as if he had been a disciple of Boerhaave, and Harvey, and other masters. Wunderbar in his Bibl.-Talm. medicin (1850) takes all in earnest, that the author knew already of the nervous system and the circulation of the blood; for, as he himself says, there is nothing new under the sun. As far as concerns my opinion, says Oetinger in his exposition (Sämmt. Schrift. herausg. von Ehmann, IV p. 254), I dare not affirm that Solomon had a knowledge systematis nervolymphatici, as also circuli sanguinis, such as learned physicians now possess; yet I believe that the Holy Spirit spake thus through Solomon, that what in subsequent times was discovered as to these matters might be found under these words. This judgment also goes too far; the figure of death which Koheleth presents contains no anticipation of modern discoveries; yet it is not without its value for the historical development of anthropology, for science and poetry combine in it; it is as true to fact as it is poetically beautiful.

The author has now reached the close. His Koheleth-Solomon has made all earthly things small, and at last remains seated on this dust-heap of vanitas vanitatum. The motto-like saying, Ecc 1:2, is here repeated as a quod erat demonstrandum, like a summary conclusion. The book, artistically constructed in whole and in its parts, comes to a close, rounding itself off as in a circle in the epiphonema:

Ecc 12:8 “O vanity of vanities, saith Koheleth, all is vain.” If we here look back to Ecc 12:7, that which is there said of the spirit can be no consolation. With right, Hofmann in his Schriftbeweis, I 490, says: “That it is the personal spirit of a man which returns to God; and that it returns to God without losing its consciousness, is an idea foreign to this proverb.” Also, Psychol. p. 410, it is willingly conceded that the author wished here to express, first, only the fact, in itself comfortless, that the component parts of the human body return whence they came. But the comfortless averse of the proverb is yet not without a consoling reverse. For what the author, Ecc 3:21, represents as an unsettled possibility, that the spirit of a dying man does not downwards like that of a beast, but upwards, he here affirms as an actual truth.In the Rig-Veda that which is immortal in man is called manas; the later language calls it âtman; vid., Muir in the Asiatic Journal, 1865, p. 305.

From this, that he thus finally decides the question as an advantage to a man above a beast, it follows of necessity that the return of the spirit to God cannot be thought of as a resumption of the spirit into the essence of God (resorption or emanation), as the cessation of his independent existence, although, as also at Job 34:14; Psa 104:29, the nearest object of the expression is directed to the ruin of the soul-corporeal life of man which directly follows the return of the spirit to God. The same conclusion arises from this, that the idea of the return of the spirit to God, in which the author at last finds rest, cannot yet stand in a subordinate place with reference to the idea of Hades, above which it raises itself; with the latter the spirit remains indestructible, although it has sunk into a silent, inactive life. And in the third place, that conclusion flows from the fact that the author is forced by the present contradiction between human experience and the righteousness of God to the postulate of a judgment finally settling these contradictions, Ecc 3:17; Ecc 11:9, cf. Ecc 12:14, whence it immediately follows that the continued existence of the spirit is thought of as a well-known truth (Psychol. p. 127). The Targ. translates, not against the spirit of the book: “the spirit will return to stand in judgment before God, who gave it to thee.” In this connection of thoughts Koheleth says more than what Lucretius says (ii. 998 ss.):Cedit item retro, de terra quod fuit ante, In terras, et quod missum est ex aetheris oris Id rursum caeli rellatum templa receptant.

A comforting thought lies in the words נתנהּ אשׁר. The gifts of God are on His side ἀμεταμέλητα (Rom 11:29). When He receives back that which was given, He receives it back to restore it again in another manner. Such thoughts connect themselves with the reference to God the Giv. Meanwhile the author next aims at showing the vanity of man, viz., of man as living here. Body and spirit are separated, and depart each in its own direction. Not only the world and the labours by which man is encompassed are “vain,” and not only is that which man has and does and experiences “vain,” but also man himself as such is vain, and thus - this is the facit - all is הבל, “vain.”

(C.) THE EPILOGUE. XII. 9-14.

In an unexpected manner there now follows a postscript. Since the book closes with the epiphonema xii. 8 as having reached the intended goal, the supposition that what follows xii. 8 is from another hand is more natural than the contrary. Of the question of genuineness there cannot be here properly anything said, for only that which is not what it professes to be and ought to be, is spurious ; the postscript is certainly according to tradition an integral part of the Book of Koheleth (Bullock), but not as an original organic formal part of it, and still less does it expressly bear self-evidence of this. At the least, those who regard Solomon as the author of the book ought to contend against the recognition in xii. 9 ff. of an appendix by a later hand. Hahn, however, regards the same Solomon who speaks in ver. 8 as continuing to speak in ver. 9, for he interprets אָמַ֥ר, which, however, only means inquit, as perf., looking back to the completed book, and regards this retrospect as continued in ver. 9 ff., without being hindered by the interchange of the I and of the following historical he, which is contained in “saith Koheleth.” Dale even ventures the assertion, that the Book of Koheleth could have closed with the unsatisfying pure negative, ver. 8, as little as the Gospel of Mark with “and they were afraid” (Mc. 16:8). As if ver. 13 f. expressed postulates not already contained in the book itself ! The epilogue has certainly manifestly the object of recommending the author of the book, Koheleth-Solomon, and of sealing the contents of the book. If Solomon himself were the author, the epilogue would stand in the same relation to the book as Joh 21:24 f. to the fourth Gospel, of the Johannean origin of which a voice from the apostolic church there bears witness.Hoelemann, in Abth. II. of his Bibel-Studien (1860), draws a parallel between these two epilogues; he regards them as original formal parts of the Solomonic Koheleth and of the Johannean Gospel, and seeks to prove that they stand in more than external and accidental relation to the two works respectively.

It is a serious anachronism when modern interpreters of Scripture occupy the standpoint of the old, who take the name of the man after whom the book is entitled, without more ado, as the name of its author from first to last.Thus John Miller, in his Commentary on the Proverbs (New York, 1872), regards Solomon as the author of the entire Book of Proverbs and also of Ecclesiastes. His interpretation of Scripture proceeds on the fundamental principle, in itself commendable, that the Scripture never expresses trivialities (“each text must be a brilliant”) ; but it is not to be forgotten that the 0. T., in relation to the high school of the New, is in reality a trivium, and that the depth of the words of Scripture is not everywhere the same, but varies according to the author and the times. To what childish puerilities a bigotry so uncritical descends is seen in the case of Christ. Fried. Bauer (1732). In this section, vers. 9-12, he says Solomon turns especially to his son Rehoboam, and delivers to him this Solennel-discourse or sermon as an instruction for his future life. He recommends it [the sermon] at once on account of the author, ver. 9, and of its contents, ver. 10, which accord, ver. 11, with his other writings, and from which altogether Rehoboam could find sufficient information, so that to write to him several books would be unnecessary. After this apostrophe to his son the preacher turns round to the entire auditorio, and addresses them in הַכֹּ֣ל נִשְׁמָ֑ע. But we are all permitted to hear what is the final aim and intention of this sermon : Fear thou God, and keep His commandments ; for such ought every man to be, etc.

A rationalism not less fruitful in wonderful conceits appeared over against this dreamy irrationalism. Döderlein (1784) says of Koheleth : “As it appears, so the author feigned, that this was a lecture or treatise which Solomon delivered before his literary academy for this academy I am inclined to understand under the name ‘Koheleth.’” The epilogue appears to him as an appendage by another hand. Such is the opinion also of J. E. Ch. Schmidt (1794), Bertholdt (in his Einleit. 1812- ff.), Umbreit (1818, 20), and Knobel (1836), who maintain that this appendage is aimless, in form as in doctrine, out of harmony with the book, revealing by the “endless book-making” a more recent time, and thus is an addition by a later author. This negative critical result Grätz (1871) has sought, following Krochmal (in his More nebuche hazeman, 1851, 54), to raise to a positive result. Vers. 9-11 are to him as an apology of the Book of Koheleth, and vers. 12-14 as a clause defining the collection of the Hagiographa, which is completed by the reception into it of the Book of Koheleth; and this bipartite epilogue as an addition belonging to the period of the Synod of Jabneh, about a.d. 90 (vid. above, p. 189). If, nevertheless, we regard this epilogue as a postscript by the author of the book himself, we have not only Herzfeld on our side, who has given his verdict against all Knobel’s arguments, but also Hitzig, who (Hilgenfeld's Zeitsch. 1872, p. 566) has rejected Grätz’ Herod-hypothesis, as well as also his introduction of the epilogue into the history of the canon, or, as Geiger (Jüd. Zeitsch. 1872, p. 123) has expressed himself, has dealt with it according to its merit. Also in Bloch’s monograph on the Book of Koheleth (1872) there are many striking arguments against placing the authorship of the book in the Herod-Mishn. period, although the view of this critic, that the book contains notes of Solomon's with interpolations, and an epilogue by the collector, who sought to soften the impression of the gloomy pessimism of these notes, is neither cold nor hot.

We have already (p. 206) shown that the epilogue is written quite in the same style as the book itself; its language is like that of the chronicler ; it approaches the idiom of the Mishna, but, with reference to it, is yet somewhat older. That the first part of the epilogue, vers. 9-11, serves an important end, is also proved (p. 206), — it establishes the book as a production of the Chokma, which had Solomon as its pattern; and the second part, vers. 12-14, bears on it the stamp of this Chokma, for it places all the teaching of the book under the double watchword : “Fear God,” and “There is a judgment” (Job 28:28, 19: 29 ; cf. Eccl. 5:6, 11:9). In the book, Koheleth-Solomon speaks, whose mask the author puts on ; here, he speaks, letting the mask fall off, of Koheleth. That in his time (the Persian) too much was done in the way of making books, we may well believe. In addition to authors by profession, there have always been amateurs ; the habit of much writing is old, although in the course of time it has always assumed greater dimensions. A complaint in reference to this sounds strange, at least from the mouth of an author who has contented himself with leaving to posterity a work so small, though important. We nowhere encounter any necessity for regarding the author of the book and of the epilogue as different persons. The spirit and tone of the book and of the epilogue are one. The epilogue seals only the distinction between the pessimism of the book and the modern pessimism, which is without God and without a future.

Ecc 12:9 In connection with Ecc 12:8, where Koheleth has spoken his last word, the author, who has introduced him as speaking thereto, continues: “And, moreover, because Koheleth was wise he taught the people knowledge; he applied and searched out and formed may proverbs.” The postscript begins with “and” because it is connected with the concluding words of the book - only externally, however; nothing is more unwarrantable than to make Ecc 12:8 the beginning of the postscript on account of the vav. The lxx translate καὶ περισσὸν (Venet. περιττὸν) ὃτι; as Hitz.: “it remains (to be said) that Koheleth was a wise man,” etc.; and Dale may be right, that ויתר is in this sense as subj., pointed with Zakeph gadhol (cf. Gen 16:16; Gen 20:4, and the obj. thus pointed, Exo 23:3). But that Koheleth was “a wise man” is nothing remaining to be said, for as such he certainly speaks in the whole book from beginning to end; the עוד, unconnected, following, shows that this his property is presupposed as needing no further testimony. But untenable also is the translation: So much the greater Koheleth was as a wise man so much the more, etc. (Heinem., Südfeld); עוד does not signify eo magis; the Heb. language has a different way of expressing such an intensification: כל הגדול מחברו יצרו גדול ממנו, i.e., the higher the position is which one assumes, so much the greater are the temptations to which he is exposed. Rightly, Luther: “This same preacher was not only wise, but,” etc. ויתר signifies, Ecc 7:11, “and an advance (benefit, gain);” here שׁ ויתר, “and something going beyond this, that,” etc. - thought of as accus.-adv.: “going beyond this, that = moreover, because” (Gesen., Knobel, Vaih., Ginsb., Grätz); vid. Thus 'od is in order, which introduces that which goes beyond the property and position of a “wise man” as such. That which goes beyond does not consist in this, that he taught the people knowledge, for that is just the meaning of the name Koheleth; the statement which 'od introduces is contained in the concluding member of the compound sentence; the after-word begins with this, that it designates the Koheleth who appears in the more esoteric book before us as חכם, as the very same person who also composed the comprehensive people’s book, the Mishle. He has taught the people knowledge; for he has placed, i.e., formed “stellen,” to place, as “Schriftsteller” = author; modern Heb. מחבּר; Arab. muṣannif),Cogn. in the meaning “verfassen” = to compose, is יסד; vid., Zunz' Aufs.: “To compose and to translate,” expressed in Heb. in Deut. Morg. Zeitsch. xxv. p. 435ff. many proverbs, as the fruit of nature reflection and diligent research. The obj. meshalim harbēh belongs only to tiqqēn, which ἀσυνδέτως (according to the style of the epilogue and of the book, as is shown above) follows the two preparative mental efforts, whose resultat it was. Rightly, as to the syntax, Zöckler, and, as to the matter, Hitzig: “Apparently the author has here not 1Ki 5:12, but the canonical Book of Proverbs in his eye.” The language is peculiar. Not only is תּקּן exclusively peculiar to the Book of Koheleth, but also אזן, perpendere (cf. Assyr. uzunu, reflection), to consider, and the Pih. חקּר. Regarding the position of harbeh,Harbeh běchěh, Ezr 10:1, which signifies “making much weeping,” makes not exception in favour of the scribe. Cf. hatsne'a lecheth, Mic 6:8; haphlē vaphělě, Isa 29:14.

Ecc 12:10

It is further said of Koheleth, that he put forth efforts not only to find words of a pleasant form, but, above all, of exact truth: “Koheleth strove to find words of pleasantness, and, written in sincerity, words of truth.” The unconnected beginning biqqesh Koheleth is like dibbarti ani, Ecc 1:16, etc., in the book itself. Three objects follow limtso. But Hitz. reads the inf. absol. וכתוב instead of וכתוּב, and translates: to find pleasing words, and correctly to write words of truth. Such a continuance of the inf. const. by the inf. absol. is possible; 1Sa 25:26, 1Sa 25:31. But why should וכתוב not be the continuance of the finite (Aq., Syr.), as e.g., at Ecc 8:9, and that in the nearest adverbial sense: et scribendo quidem sincere verba veritatis, i.e., he strove, according to his best knowledge and conscience, to write true words, at the same time also to find out pleasing words; thus sought to connect truth as to the matter with beauty as to the manner? Vechathuv needs no modification in its form. But it is not to be translated: and that which was right was written by him; for the ellipsis is inadmissible, and כתוב מן is not correct Heb. Rightly the lxx, καὶ γεγραμμένον εὐθύτητος. כּתוּב signifies “written,” and may also, as the name of the Hagiographa כּתוּבים shows, signify “a writing;” kakathuvah, 2Ch 30:5, is = “in accordance with the writing;” and belo kǎkathuv, 2Ch 30:18, “contrary to the writing;” in the post-bibl. the phrase אמר הכּתוּב = ἡ γραφὴ λέγει, is used. The objection made by Ginsburg, that kathuv never means, as kethav does, “a writing,” is thus nugatory. However, we do not at all here need this subst. meaning, וכתוב is neut. particip., and ישׁר certainly not the genit., as the lxx renders (reading וּכתוּב), but also not the nom. of the subj. (Hoelem.), but, since ישׁר is the designation of a mode of thought and of a relation, the accus. of manner, like veyashar, Psa 119:18; emeth, Psa 132:11; emunah, Psa 119:75. Regarding the common use of such an accus. of the nearer definition in the passive part., vid., Ewald, §284 c. The asyndeton vechathuv yosher divre emeth is like that at Ecc 10:1, mehhochmah michvod. That which follows limtso we interpret as its threefold object. Thus it is said that Koheleth directed his effort towards an attractive form (cf. avne-hephets, Isa 54:12); but, before all, towards the truth, both subjectively (ישׁר) and objectively (אמת), of that which was formulated and expressed in writing.

Ecc 12:11

From the words of Koheleth the author comes to the words of the wise man in general; so that what he says of the latter finds its application to himself and his book: “Words of the wise are as like goads, and like fastened nails which are put together in collections - they are given by one shepherd.” The lxx, Aq., and Theod. translate darvonoth by βούκεντρα, the Venet. by βουπλῆγες; and that is also correct. The word is one of three found in the Jerus. Gemara, Sanhedrin x. 1, to designate a rod for driving (oxen) - דרבן (from דרב, to sharpen, to point), מלמד (from למד, to adjust, teach, exercise), and מרדּע (from רדע, to hold back, repellere); we read ka-dārevonoth; Gesen., Ewald, Hitz., and others are in error in reading dorvonoth; for the so-called light Metheg, which under certain circumstances can be changed into an accent, and the Kametz chatuph exclude one another.The Kametz is the Kametz gadhol (opp. Kametz chatuph), and may for this reason have the accent Munach instead of Metheg. Vid., Michlol 153 b, 182 b. The case is the same as at Gen 39:3, where mimmachoraath is to be read. Cf. Baer’s Metheg-Setz. §27 and §18.

If דרבן is the goad, the point of comparison is that which is to be excited intellectually and morally. Incorrectly, Gesen., Hitz., and others: like goads, because easily and deeply impressing themselves on the heart as well as on the memory. For goads, aculei, the Hebrews use the word קוצים; darevonoth also are goads, but designed for driving on, thus stimuli (Jerome); and is there a more natural commendation for the proverbs of the wise men than that they incite to self-reflection, and urge to all kinds of noble effort? Divre and darevonoth have the same three commencing consonants, and, both for the ear and the eye, form a paronomasia. In the following comparison, it is a question whether ba'ale asuppoth (plur. of ba'al asuppoth, or of the double plur. ba'al asuppah, like e.g., sare missim, Exo 1:11, of sar mas) is meant of persons, like ba'al hallashon, Ecc 10:11, cf. ba'al kenaphayim, Ecc 10:20, or of things, as ba'al piphiyoth, Isa 41:15; and thus, whether it is a designation parallel to חכמים or to דברי. The Talm. Jer. Sanhedrin x. 1, wavers, for there it is referred first to the members of the assemblies (viz., of the Sanedrium), and then is explained by “words which are spoken in the assembly.” If we understand it of persons, as it was actually used in the Talm., then by asuppoth we must understand the societies of wise men, and by ba'ale asuppoth, of the academicians (Venet.: δεσπόται ξυναγμάτων; Luther: “masters of assemblies”) belonging to such academies. But an appropriate meaning of this second comparison is not to be reached in this way. For if we translate: and as nails driven in are the members of the society, it is not easy to see what this wonderful comparison means; and what is then further said: they are given from one shepherd, reminds us indeed of Eph 4:11, but, as said of this perfectly unknown great one, is for us incomprehensible. Or if we translate, after Isa 28:1 : and (the words of the wise are) like the fastened nails of the members of the society, it is as tautological as if I should say: words of wise men are like fastened nails of wise men bound together in a society (as a confederacy, union). Quite impossible are the translations: like nails driven in by the masters of assemblies (thus e.g., Lightfoot, and recently Bullock), for the accus. with the pass. particip. may express some nearer definition, but not (as of the genit.) the effective cause; and: like a nail driven in are the (words) of the masters of assemblies (Tyler: “those of editors of collections”), for ellipt. genit., dependent on a governing word carrying forward its influence, are indeed possible, e.g., Isa 61:7, but that a governing word itself, as ba'ale, may be the governed genit. of one omitted, as here divre, is without example.Regarding this omission of the muḍâf the governing noun, where this is naturally supplied before a genitive from the preceding, cf. Samachschari’s Mufaṣṣal, p. 43, l. 8-13.

It is also inconsistent to understand ba'ale asuppoth after the analogy of ba'ale masoreth (the Masoretes) and the like. It will not be meant of the persons of the wise, but of the proverbs of the wise. So far we agree with Lang and Hoelem. Lang (1874) thinks to come to a right understanding of the “much abused” expression by translating, “lords of troops,” - a designation of proverbs which, being by many acknowledged and kept in remembrance, possess a kind of lordship over men’s minds; but that is already inadmissible, because asuppoth designates not any multitude of men, but associations with a definite end and aim. Hoelem. is content with this idea; for he connects together “planted as leaders of assemblies,” and finds therein the thought, that the words of the wise serve as seeds and as guiding lights for the expositions in the congregation; but ba'ale denotes masters, not in the sense of leaders, but of possessors; and as ba'ale berith, Gen 14:13, signifies “the confederated,” ba'ale shevu'ah, Neh 6:18, “the sworn,” and the frequently occurring ba'ale ha'ir, “the citizens;” so ba'ale asuppoth means, the possessors of assemblies and of the assembled themselves, or the possessors of collections and of the things collected. Thus ba'ale asuppoth will be a designation of the “words of the wise” (as in shalishim, choice men = choice proverbs, Pro 22:20, in a certain measure personified), also of those which form or constitute collections, and which stand together in order and rank (Hitz., Ewald, Elst., Zöckl., and others). Of such it may properly be said, that they are like nails driven in, for they are secured against separations, - they are, so to speak, made nail-feast, they stand on one common ground; and their being fixed in such connection not only is a help to the memory, but also to the understanding of them. The Book of Koheleth itself is such an asuppah; for it contains a multitude of separate proverbs, which are thoughtfully ranged together, and are introduced into the severe, critical sermon on the nothingness of all earthly things as oases affording rest and refreshment; as similarly, in the later Talmudic literature, Haggadic parts follow long stretches of hair-splitting dialectics, and afford to the reader an agreeable repose.

And when he says of the “proverbs of the wise,” individually and as formed into collections: אחד נתּנוּ מרעה, i.e., they are the gift of one shepherd, he gives it to be understood that his “words of Koheleth,” if not immediately written by Solomon himself, have yet one fountain with the Solomonic Book of Proverbs, - God, the one God, who guides and cares as a shepherd for all who fear Him, and suffers them to want nothing which is necessary to their spiritual support and advancement (Psa 23:1; Psa 28:9). “Mēro'eh ehad,” says Grätz, “is yet obscure, since it seldom, and that only poetically, designates the Shepherd of Israel. It cannot certainly refer to Moses.” Not to Moses, it is true (Targ.), nor to Solomon, as the father, the pattern, and, as it were, the patron of “the wise,” but to God, who is here named the ἀρχιποίμην as spiritual preserver (provider), not without reference to the figure of a shepherd from the goad, and the figure of household economy from the nails; for רעה, in the language of the Chokma (Pro 5:21), is in meaning cogn. to the N.T. conception of edification.Vid., my Heb. Römerbrief, p. 97.

Regarding masmeroth (iron nails), the word is not used of tent spikes (Spohn, Ginsb.), - it is masc., the sing. is משׂמר (מסמר), Arab. mismâr. נטוּעים is = תּקוּעים (cf. Dan 11:45 with Gen 31:25), post-bibl. (vid., Jer. Sanhedrin) קבוּעים (Jerome, in altum defixi). Min with the pass., as at Job 21:1; Job 28:4; Psa 37:23 (Ewald, §295 b), is not synonymous with the Greek ὑπό. The lxx well: “given by those of the counsel from one shepherd.” Hitzig reads מרעה, and accordingly translates: “which are given united as a pasture,” but in mēro'eh ehad there lies a significant apologetic hint in favour of the collection of proverbs by the younger Solomon (Koheleth) in relation to that of the old. This is the point of the verse, and it is broken off by Hitzig’s conjecture.J. F. Reimmann, in the preface to his Introduction to the Historia Litterarum antediluviana, translates, Ecc 12:11 : “The words of the wise are like hewn-out marble, and the beautiful collectanea like set diamonds, which are presented by a good friend.” A Disputatio philologica by Abr. Wolf, Königsberg 1723, contends against this παρερμεενεία.

Ecc 12:12

With veyother mehemmah the postscript takes a new departure, warning against too much reading, and finally pointing once more to the one thing needful: “And besides, my son, be warned: for there is no end of much book-making; and much study is a weariness of the body.” With “my son,” the teacher of wisdom here, as in the Book of Proverbs, addresses the disciple who places himself under his instruction. Hitzig translates, construing mehemmah with hizzaher: “And for the rest: by these (the 'words of Koheleth,' Ecc 12:10) be informed.” But (1) נזהר, according to usage, does not signify in general to be taught, but to be made wiser, warned; particularly the imper. הזּהר is cogn. with השּׁמר (cf. Targ. Jer. Exo 10:28, אזדּהר לך = השּׁמר לך), and in fact an object of the warning follows; (2) min after yothēr is naturally to be regarded as connected with it, and not with hizzaher (cf. Est 6:6, Sota vii. 7; cf. Psa 19:12). The punctuation of veyother and mehemmah is thus not to be interfered with. Either hēmmah points back to divre (Ecc 12:11): And as to what goes beyond these (in relation thereto) be warned (Schelling: quidquid ultra haec est, ab iis cave tibi, and thus e.g., Oehler in Herzog’s R. E. vii. 248); or, which is more probable, since the divre are without a fixed beginning, and the difference between true and false “wise men” is not here expressed, hemmah refers back to all that has hitherto been said, and veyother mehemmah signifies not the result thereof (Ewald, §285e), but that which remains thereafter: and what is more than that (which has hitherto been said), i.e., what remains to be said after that hitherto said; Lat. et quod superest, quod reliquum est.

In Ecc 12:12, Hitzig also proposes a different interpunction from that which lies before us; but at the same time, in the place of the significant double sentence, he proposes a simple sentence: “to make many books, without end, and much exertion of mind (in making these), is a weariness of the body.” The author thus gives the reason for his writing no more. But with Ecc 12:8 he has certainly brought his theme to a close, and he writes no further; because he does not write for hire and without an aim, but for a high end, according to a fixed plan; and whether he will leave off with this his book or not is a matter of perfect indifference to the readers of this one book; and that the writing of many books without end will exhaust a man’s mind and bring down his body, is not that a flat truism? We rather prefer Herzfeld’s translation, which harmonizes with Rashbam's: “But more than these (the wise men) can teach thee, my son, teach thyself: to make many books there would be no end; and much preaching is fatiguing to the body.” But נזהר cannot mean to “teach oneself,” and ēn qētz does not mean non esset finis, but non est finis; and for lahach the meaning “to preach” (which Luther also gives to it) is not at all shown from the Arab. lahjat, which signifies the tongue as that which is eager (to learn, etc.), and then also occurs as a choice name for tongues in general. Thus the idea of a double sentence, which is the most natural, is maintained, as the lxx has already rendered it. The n. actionis עשׂות with its object is the subject of the sentence, of which it is said een qeets, it is without end; Hitzig’s opinion, that ēn qēts is a virtual adj., as ēn 'avel, Deu 33:4, and the like, and as such the pred. of the substantival sentence. Regarding להג, avidum discendi legendique studium. C. A. Bode (1777) renders well: polygraphiae nullus est finis et polymathia corpus delessat. Against this endless making of books and much study the postscript warns, for it says that this exhausts the bodily strength without (for this is the reverse side of the judgment) truly furthering the mind, which rather becomes decentralized by this polupragmosu'nee. The meaning of the warning accords with the phrase coined by Pliny (Ep. vii. 9), multum non multa. One ought to hold by the “words of the wise,” to which also the “words of Koheleth,” comprehended in the asuppah of the book before us, belong; for all that one can learn by hearing or by reading amounts at last, if we deduct all that is unessential and unenduring, to a unum necessarium:

Ecc 12:13 “The final result, after all is learned, (is this): Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the end of every man.” Many expositors, as Jerome, the Venet., and Luther, render נשׁמע as fut.: The conclusion of the discourse we would all hear (Salomon); or: The conclusion of the whole discourse or matter let us hear (Panzer, 1773, de Wette-Augusti); Hitzig also takes together soph davar hakol = soph davar kol-haddavar: The end of the whole discourse let us hear. But הכּל for כּלּנוּ is contrary to the style of the book; and as a general rule, the author uses הכל for the most part of things, seldom of persons. And also soph davar hakol, which it would be better to explain (“the final word of the whole”), with Ewald, §291 a, after yemē-olam mosheh, Isa 63:11, than it is explained by Hitzig, although, in spite of Philippi’s (Sta. const. p. 17) doubt, possible in point of style, and also exemplified in the later period of the language (1Ch 9:13), is yet a stylistic crudeness which the author could have avoided either by writing soph devar hakol, or better, soph kol-haddavar. נשׁמע, Ewald, §168 b, renders as a particip. by audiendum; but that also does not commend itself, for נשמע signifies nothing else than auditum, and acquires the meaning of audiendum when from the empirical matter of fact that which is inwardly necessary is concluded; the translation: The final word of the whole is to be heard, audiendum est, would only be admissible of also the translation auditum est were possible, which is not the case. Is נשׁמע thus possibly the pausal form of the finite נשׁמע? We might explain: The end of the matter (summa summarum), all is heard, when, viz., that which follows is heard, which comprehends all that is to be known. Or as Hoelem.: Enough, all is heard, since, viz., that which is given in the book to be learned contains the essence of all true knowledge, viz., the following two fundamental doctrines. This retrospective reference of hakol nishm'a is more natural than the prospective reference; but, on the other hand, it is also more probable that soph davar denotes the final resultat than that it denotes the conclusion of the discourse. The right explanation will be that which combines the retrospective reference of nakol nishm'a and the resultative reference of soph davar. Accordingly, Mendelss. appears to us to be correct when he explains: After thou hast heard all the words of the wise ... this is the final result, etc. Finis (summa) reî omnia audita is = omnibus auditis, for the sentence denoting the conditions remains externally undesignated, in the same way as at Ecc 10:14; Deu 21:1; Ezr 10:6 (Ewald, §341 b). After the clause, soph ... nishm'a, Athnach stands where we put a colon: the mediating hocce est is omitted just as at Ecc 7:12 (where translate: yet the preference of knowledge is this, that, etc.).

The sentence, eth-naeolohim yera (“fear God”), repeating itself from Ecc 5:6, is the kernel and the star of the whole book, the highest moral demand which mitigates its pessimism and hallows its eudaemonism. The admonition proceeding therefrom, “and keep His commandments,” is included in lishmo'a, Ecc 5:1, which places the hearing of the divine word, viz., a hearing for the purpose of observing, as the very soul of the worship of God above all the opus operatum of ceremonial services.

The connection of the clause, ki-zeh kol-haadam, Hitzig mediates in an unnecessary, roundabout way: “but not thou alone, but this ought every man.” But why this negative here introduced to stamp כי as an immo establishing it? It is also certainly suitable as the immediate confirmation of the rectitude of the double admonition finally expressing all. The clause has the form of a simple judgment, it is a substantival clause, the briefest expression for the thought which is intended. What is that thought? The lxx renders: ὃτι τοῦτο πᾶς ὁ ἄνθρωπος; also Symm. and the Venet. render kol haadam by πᾶς ὁ ἄνθρ., and an unnamed translator has ὃλος ὁ ἄνθρ., according to which also the translation of Jerome is to be understood, hoc est enim omnis homo. Thus among the moderns, Herzf., Ewald, Elst., and Heiligst.: for that is the whole man, viz., as to his destiny, the end of his existence (cf. as to the subject-matter, Job 28:28); and v. Hofmann (Schriftbew. II 2, p. 456): this is the whole of man, viz., as Grotius explains:totum hominis bonum; or as Dale and Bullock: “the whole duty of man;” or as Tyler: “the universal law (כל, like the Mishnic כּלל) of man;” or as Hoelem.: that which gives to man for the first time his true and full worth. Knobel also suggests for consideration this rendering: this is the all of man, i.e., on this all with man rests. But against this there is the one fact, that kol-haadam never signifies the whole man, and as little anywhere the whole (the all) of a man. It signifies either “all men” (πάντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι, οἱ πά ἄνθρ οἱ ἄνθρ πά), as at Ecc 7:2, hu soph kol-haadam, or, of the same meaning as kol-haadam, “every man” (πᾶς ἄντηρωπος), as at Ecc 3:13; Ecc 5:18 (lxx, also Ecc 7:2 : τοῦτο τέλος παντὸς ἀντηρώπου); and it is yet more than improbable that the common expression, instead of which haadam kullo was available, should here have been used in a sense elsewhere unexampled. Continuing in the track of the usus loq., and particularly of the style of the author, we shall thus have to translate: “for this is every man.” If we use for it: “for this is every man's,” the clause becomes at once distinct; Zirkel renders kol-haadam as genit., and reckons the expression among the Graecisms of the book: παντὸς ἀντηρώπου, Ϛιζ., πρᾶγμα. Or if, with Knobel, Hitz., Böttch., and Ginsburg, we might borrow a verb to supplement the preceding imperat.: “for this ought every man to do,” we should also in this way gain the meaning to be expected; but the clause lying before us is certainly a substantival clause, like meh haadam, Ecc 2:12, not an elliptical verbal clause, like Isa 23:5; Isa 26:9, where the verb to be supplied easily unfolds itself from the ל of the end of the movement.

We have here a case which is frequent in the Semitic languages, in which subj. and pred. are connected in the form of a simple judgment, and it is left for the hearer to find out the relation sustained by the pred. to the subj. - e.g., Psa 110:3; Psa 109:4, “I am prayer;” and in the Book of Koheleth, Ecc 3:19, “the children of men are a chance.”Vid., Fleischer’s Abh. ü. einige Arten der Nominalapposition, 1862, and Philippi’s St. const. p. 90ff.

In the same way we have here to explain: for that is every man, viz., according to his destiny and duty; excellently, Luther: for that belongs to all men. With right, Hahn, like Bauer (1732), regards the pronoun as pred. (not subj. as at Ecc 7:2): “this, i.e., this constituted, that they must do this, are all men,” or rather: this = under obligation thereto, is every man.Hitz. thus renders היא, Jer 45:4, predicat.: “And it is such, all the world.”

It is a great thought that is thereby expressed, viz., the reduction of the Israelitish law to its common human essence. This has not escaped the old Jewish teachers. What can this mean: zeh kol-haadam? it is asked, Berachoth 6 b; and R. Elazar answers: “The whole world is comprehended therein;” and R. Abba bar-Cahana: “This fundamental law is of the same importance to the universe;” and R. Simeon b. Azzai: “The universe has been created only for the purpose of being commanded this.”Cf. Jer. Nedarim ix. 3: “Thou oughtest to love thy neighbour as thyself,” says R. Akiba, is a principal sentence in the Law. Ben-Azzai says: “The words zěh ... adam (Gen 5:1) are it in a yet higher degree,” because therein the oneness of the origin and the destiny of all men is contained. Aben Ezra alludes to the same thing, when at the close of his Comm. he remarks: “The secret of the non-use of the divine name יהוה in Gen 1:1-2:3 is the secret of the Book of Koheleth.”

Ecc 12:14

As we render zeh kol-haadam as expressive of the same obligation lying on all men without exception, this verse appropriately follows: “For God shall bring every work into the judgment upon all that is concealed, whether it be good or bad.” To bring into judgment is, as at Ecc 11:9 = to bring to an account. There the punctuation is בּמּשׁ, here בּמשׁ, as, according to rule, the art. is omitted where the idea is determined by a relative clause or an added description; for bemishpat 'al kol-ne'llam are taken together: in the judgment upon all that is concealed (cf. Rom 2:16; 1Co 4:5, τὰ κρυπτά). Hitzig, however, punctuates here בּמשׁ, and explains על as of the same meaning as the distributive ל, e.g., Gen 9:5, Gen 9:10; but in this sense על never interchanges with ל. And wherefore this subtlety? The judgment upon all that is concealed is a judgment from the cognition of which nothing, not even the most secret, can escape; and that על משׁפט is not a Germanism, is shown from Ecc 11:9; to execute judgment on (Germ. an) any one is expressed by ב, Psa 119:84, Wisd. 6:6; judgment upon (über) any one may be expressed by the genit. of him whom it concerns, Jer 51:9; but judgment upon anything (Symm. περὶ παντὸς παροραθέντος) cannot otherwise be expressed than by על. Rather על may be rendered as a connecting particle: “together with all that is concealed” (Vaih., Hahn); but כל־מעשׂה certainly comprehends all, and with כל־נעלם this comprehensive idea is only deepened. The accent dividing the verse stands rightly under נעלּם;Thus rightly pointed in F. with Dagesh in lamed, to make distinct the ע as quiescent (cf. 1Ki 10:3; and, on the other hand, Neh 3:11; Psa 26:4). Cf. תּחשּׁ with Dagesh in shin, on account of the preceding quiescent guttural, like יח, Ecc 9:8; התּ, Lev 11:16; נח, Num 1:7, etc.; cf. Luth. Zeitsch. 1863, p. 413. for sive bonum sive malum (as at Ecc 5:11) is not related to ne'llam as disjoining, but to kol̇ma'aseh.

This certainty of a final judgment of personal character is the Ariadne-thread by which Koheleth at last brings himself safely out of the labyrinth of his scepticism. The prospect of a general judgment upon the nations prevailing in the O.T., cannot sufficiently set at rest the faith (vid., e.g., Ps 73; Jer 12:1-3) which is tried by the unequal distributions of present destiny. Certainly the natural, and particularly the national connection in which men stand to one another, is not without an influence on their moral condition; but this influence does not remove accountability, - the individuum is at the same time a person; the object of the final judgment will not be societies as such, but only persons, although not without regard to their circle of life. This personal view of the final judgment does not yet in the O.T. receive a preponderance over the national view; such figures of an universal and individualizing personal judgment as Mat 7:21-23; Rev 20:12, are nowhere found in it; the object of the final judgment are nations, kingdoms, cities, and conditions of men. But here, with Koheleth, a beginning is made in the direction of regarding the final judgment as the final judgment of men, and as lying in the future, beyond the present time. What Job 19:25-27 postulates in the absence of a present judgment of his cause, and the Apocalyptic Dan 12:2 saw as a dualistic issue of the history of his people, comes out here for the first time in the form of doctrine into that universally-human expression which is continued in the announcements of Jesus and the apostles. Kleinert sees here the morning-dawn of a new revelation breaking forth; and Himpel says, in view of this conclusion, that Koheleth is a precious link in the chain of the preparation for the gospel; and rightly. In the Book of Koheleth the O.T. religion sings its funeral song, but not without finally breaking the ban of nationality and of bondage to this present life, which made it unable to solve the mysteries of life, and thus not without prophesying its resurrection in an expanded glorified form as the religion of humanity.

The synagogal lesson repeats the 13th verse after the 14th, to gain thereby a conclusion of a pleasing sound. The Masoretic Siman (vox memorialis) of those four books, in which, after the last verse, on account of its severe contents, the verse going before is repeated in reading, is קקית. The י refers to ישׁעיה (Isaiah), ת to תריסר (the Book of the Twelve Prophets), the first ק to קהלת, the second ק to קינות (Lamentations). The Lamentations and Koheleth always stand together. But there are two different arrangements of the five Megilloth, viz., that of the calendar of festivals which has passed into our printed editions: the Song, Ruth, Lamentations, Koheleth, and Esther; and the Masoretic arrangement, according to the history of their origin: Ruth, the Song, Koheleth, Lamentations, and Esther.

The Infirmities of Old Age; The Effects of Death.

1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 4 And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; 5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. 7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Here is, I. A call to young people to think of God, and mind their duty to him, when they are young: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. This is, 1. The royal preacher's application of his sermon concerning the vanity of the world and every thing in it. "You that are young flatter yourselves with expectations of great things from it, but believe those that have tried it; it yields no solid satisfaction to a soul; therefore, that you may not be deceived by this vanity, nor too much disturbed by it, remember your Creator, and so guard yourselves against the mischiefs that arise from the vanity of the creature." 2. It is the royal physician's antidote against the particular diseases of youth, the love of mirth, and the indulgence of sensual pleasures, the vanity which childhood and youth are subject to; to prevent and cure this, remember thy Creator. Here is, (1.) A great duty pressed upon us, to remember God as our creator, not only to remember that God is our Creator, that he made us and not we ourselves, and is therefore our rightful Lord and owner, but we must engage ourselves to him with the considerations which his being our Creator lay us under, and pay him the honour and duty which we owe him as our Creator. Remember thy Creators; the word is plural, as it is Job xxxv. 10, Where is God my Makers? For God said, Let us make man, us, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (2.) The proper season for this duty—in the days of thy youth, the days of thy choice (so some), thy choice days, thy choosing days. "Begin in the beginning of thy days to remember him from whom thou hadst thy being, and go on according to that good beginning. Call him to mind when thou art young, and keep him in mind throughout all the days of thy youth, and never forget him. Guard thus against the temptations of youth, and thus improve the advantages of it."

II. A reason to enforce this command: While the evil days come not, and the years of which thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them.

1. Do it quickly, (1.) "Before sickness and death come. Do it while thou livest, for it will be too late to do it when death has removed thee from this state of trial and probation to that of recompence and retribution." The days of sickness and death are the days of evil, terrible to nature, evil days indeed to those that have forgotten their Creator. These evil days will come sooner or later; as yet they come not, for God is long-suffering to us-ward, and gives us space to repent; the continuing of life is but the deferring of death, and, while life is continued and death deferred, it concerns us to prepare, and get the property of death altered, that we may die comfortably. (2.) Before old age comes, which, if death prevent not, will come, and they will be years of which we shall say, We have no pleasure in them,—when we shall not relish the delights of sense, as Barzillai (2 Sam. xix. 35),—when we shall be loaded with bodily infirmities, old and blind, or old and lame,—when we shall be taken off from our usefulness, and our strength shall be labour and sorrow,—when we shall either have parted with our relations, and all our old friends, or be afflicted in them and see them weary of us,—when we shall feel ourselves die by inches. These years draw nigh, when all that comes will be vanity, the remaining months all months of vanity, and there will be no pleasure but in the reflection of a good life on earth and the expectation of a better life in heaven.

2. These two arguments he enlarges upon in the following verses, only inverting the order, and shows,

(1.) How many are the calamities of old age, and that if we should live to be old, our days will be such as we shall have no pleasure in, which is a good reason why we should return to God, and make our peace with him, in the days of our youth, and not put it off till we come to be old; for it will be no thanks to us to leave the pleasures of sin when they have left us, nor to return to God when need forces us. It is the greatest absurdity and ingratitude imaginable to give the cream and flower of our days to the devil, and reserve the bran, and refuse, and dregs of them for God; this is offering the torn, and the lame, and the sick for sacrifice; and, besides, old age being thus clogged with infirmities, it is the greatest folly imaginable to put off that needful work till then, which requires the best of our strength, when our faculties are in their prime, and especially to make the work more difficult by a longer continuance in sin, and, laying up treasures of guilt in the conscience, to add to the burdens of age and make them much heavier. If the calamities of age will be such as are here represented, we shall have need of something to support and comfort us then, and nothing will be more effectual to do that than the testimony of our consciences for us that we begin betimes to remember our Creator and have not since laid aside the remembrance of him. How can we expect God should help us when we are old, if we will not serve him when we are young? See Ps. lxxi. 17, 18.

[1.] The decays and infirmities of old age are here elegantly described in figurative expressions, which have some difficulty in them to us now, who are not acquainted with the common phrases and metaphors used in Solomon's age and language; but the general scope is plain—to show how uncomfortable, generally, the days of old age are. First, Then the sun and the light of it, the moon and the stars, and the light which they borrow from it, will be darkened. They look dim to old people, in consequence of the decay of their sight; their countenance is clouded, and the beauty and lustre of it are eclipsed; their intellectual powers and faculties, which are as lights in the soul, are weakened; their understanding and memory fail them, and their apprehension is not so quick nor their fancy so lively as it has been; the days of their mirth are over (light is often put for joy and prosperity) and they have not the pleasure either of the converse of the day or the repose of the night, for both the sun and the moon are darkened to them. Secondly, Then the clouds return after the rain; as, when the weather is disposed to wet, no sooner has one cloud blown over than another succeeds it, so it is with old people, when they have got free from one pain or ailment, they are seized with another, so that their distempers are like a continual dropping in a very rainy day. The end of one trouble is, in this world, but the beginning of another, and deep calls unto deep. Old people are often afflicted with defluxions of rheum, like soaking rain, after which still more clouds return, feeding the humour, so that it is continually grievous, and therein the body, as it were, melts away. Thirdly, Then the keepers of the house tremble. The head, which is as the watch-tower, shakes, and the arms and hands, which are ready for the preservation of the body, shake too, and grow feeble, upon every sudden approach and attack of danger. That vigour of the animal spirits which used to be exerted for self-defence fails and cannot do its office; old people are easily dispirited and discouraged. Fourthly, Then the strong men shall bow themselves; the legs and thighs, which used to support the body, and bear its weight, bend, and cannot serve for travelling as they have done, but are soon tired. Old men that have been in their time strong men become weak and stoop for age, Zech. viii. 4. God takes no pleasure in the legs of a man (Ps. cxlvii. 10), for their strength will soon fail; but in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength; he has everlasting arms. Fifthly, Then the grinders cease because they are few; the teeth, with which we grind our meat and prepare it for concoction, cease to do their part, because they are few. They are rotted and broken, and perhaps have been drawn because they ached. Some old people have lost all their teeth, and others have but few left; and this infirmity is the more considerable because the meat, not being well chewed, for want of teeth, is not well digested, which has as much influence as any thing upon the other decays of age. Sixthly, Those that look out of the windows are darkened; the eyes wax dim, as Isaac's (Gen. xxvii. 1), and Ahijah's, 1 Kings xiv. 4. Moses was a rare instance of one who, when 120 years old, had good eye-sight, but ordinarily the sight decays in old people as soon as any thing, and it is a mercy to them that art helps nature with spectacles. We have need to improve our sight well while we have it, because the light of the eyes may be gone before the light of life. Seventhly, The doors are shut in the streets. Old people keep within doors, and care not for going abroad to entertainments. The lips, the doors of the mouth, are shut in eating, because the teeth are gone and the sound of the grinding with them is low, so that they have not that command of their meat in their mouths which they used to have; they cannot digest their meat, and therefore little grist is brought to the mill. Eightly, Old people rise up at the voice of the bird. They have no sound sleep as young people have, but a little thing disturbs them, even the chirping of a bird; they cannot rest for coughing, and therefore rise up at cock-crowing, as soon as any body is stirring; or they are apt to be jealous, and timorous, and full of care, which breaks their sleep and makes them rise early; or they are apt to be superstitious, and rise up as in a fright, at those voices of birds, as of ravens, or screech-owls, which soothsayers call ominous. Ninthly, With them all the daughters of music are brought low. They have neither voice nor ear, can neither sing themselves nor take any pleasure, as Solomon had done in the days of his youth, in singing men, and singing women, and musical instruments, ch. ii. 8. Old people grow hard of hearing, and unapt to distinguish sounds and voices. Tenthly, They are afraid of that which is high, afraid to go to the top of any high place, either because, for want of breath, they cannot reach it, or, their heads being giddy or their legs failing them, they dare not venture to it, or they frighten themselves with fancying that that which is high will fall upon them. Fear is in the way; they can neither ride nor walk with their former boldness, but are afraid of every thing that lies in their way, lest it throw them down. Eleventhly, The almond-tree flourishes. The old man's hair has grown white, so that his head looks like an almond-tree in the blossom. The almond-tree blossoms before any other tree, and therefore fitly shows what haste old age makes in seizing upon men; it prevents their expectations and comes faster upon them than they thought of. Gray hairs are here and there upon them, and they perceive it not. Twelfthly, The grasshopper is a burden and desire fails. Old men can bear nothing; the lightest thing sits heavily upon them, both on their bodies and on their minds, a little thing sinks and breaks them. Perhaps the grasshopper was some food that was looked upon to be very light of digestion (John Baptist's meat was locusts), but even that lies heavily upon an old man's stomach, and therefore desire fails, he has no appetite to his meat, neither shall he regard the desire of woman, as that king, Dan. xi. 37. Old men become mindless and listless, and the pleasures of sense are to them tasteless and sapless.

[2.] It is probable that Solomon wrote this when he was himself old, and could speak feelingly of the infirmities of age, which perhaps grew the faster upon him for the indulgence he had given himself in sensual pleasures. Some old people bear up better than others under the decays of age, but, more or less, the days of old age are and will be evil days and of little pleasure. Great care therefore should be taken to pay respect and honour to old people, that they may have something to balance these grievances and nothing may be done to add to them. And all this, put together, makes up a good reason why we should remember our Creator in the days of our youth, that he may remember us with favour when these evil days come, and his comforts may delight our souls when the delights of sense are in a manner worn off.

(2.) He shows how great a change death will make with us, which will be either the prevention or the period of the miseries of old age. Nothing else will keep them off, nor any thing else cure them. "Therefore remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, because death is certainly before thee, perhaps it is very near thee, and it is a serious thing to die, and thou shouldst feel concerned with the utmost care and diligence to prepare for it." [1.] Death will fix us in an unchangeable state: Man shall then go to his long home, and all these infirmities and decays of age are harbingers of and advances towards that awful remove. At death man goes from this world and all the employments and enjoyments of it. He has gone for good and all, as to his present state. He has gone home, for here he was a stranger and pilgrim; both soul and body go to the place whence they came, v. 7. He has gone to his rest, to the place where he is to fix. He has gone to his home, to the house of his world (so some), for this world is not his. He has gone to his long home, for the days of his lying in the grave will be many. He has gone to his house of eternity, not only to his house whence he shall never return to this world, but to the house where he must be for ever. This should make us willing to die, that, at death, we must go home; and why should we not long to go to our Father's house? And this should quicken us to get ready to die, that we must then go to our long home, to an everlasting habitation. [2.] Death will be an occasion of sorrow to our friends that love us. When man goes to his long home the mourners go about the streets—the real mourners, and those, as now with us, distinguished by their habits as they go along the streets,—the mourners for ceremony, that were hired to weep for the dead, both to express and to excite the real mourning. When we die we not only remove to a melancholy house before us, but we leave a melancholy house behind us. Tears are a tribute due to the dead, and this, among other circumstances, makes it a serious thing to die. But in vain do we go to the house of mourning, and see the mourners go about the streets, if it do not help to make us serious and pious mourners in the closet. [3.] Death will dissolve the frame of nature and take down the earthly house of this tabernacle, which is elegantly described, v. 6. Then shall the silver cord, by which soul and body were wonderfully fastened together, be loosed, that sacred knot untied, and those old friends be forced to part; then shall the golden bowl, which held the waters of life for us, be broken; then shall the pitcher with which we used to fetch up water, for the constant support of life and the repair of its decays, be broken, even at the fountain, so that it can fetch up no more; and the wheel (all those organs that serve for the collecting and distributing of nourishment) shall be broken, and disabled to do their office any more. The body shall become like a watch when the spring is broken, the motion of all the wheels is stopped and they all stand still; the machine is taken to pieces; the heart beats no more, nor does the blood circulate. Some apply this to the ornaments and utensils of life; rich people must, at death, leave behind them their clothing and furniture of silver and gold, and poor people their earthen pitchers, and the drawers of water will have their wheel broken. [4.] Death will resolve us into our first principles, v. 7. Man is a strange sort of creature, a ray of heaven united to a clod of earth; at death these are separated, and each goes to the place whence it came. First, The body, that clod of clay, returns to its own earth. It is made of the earth; Adam's body was so, and we are of the same mould; it is a house of clay. At death it is laid in the earth, and in a little time will be resolved into earth, not to be distinguished from common earth, according to the sentence (Gen. iii. 19), Dust thou art and therefore to dust thou shalt return. Let us not therefore indulge the appetites of the body, nor pamper it (it will be worms' meat shortly), nor let sin reign in our mortal bodies, for they are mortal, Rom. vi. 12. Secondly, The soul, that beam of light, returns to that God who, when he made man of the dust of the ground, breathed into him the breath of life, to make him a living soul (Gen. ii. 7), and forms the spirit of every man within him. When the fire consumes the wood the flame ascends, and the ashes return to the earth out of which the wood grew. The soul does not die with the body; it is redeemed from the power of the grave (Ps. xlix. 15); it can subsist without it and will in a state of separation from it, as the candle burns, and burns brighter, when it is taken out of the dark lantern. It removes to the world of spirits, to which it is allied. It goes to God as a Judge, to give account of itself, and to be lodged either with the spirits in prison (1 Pet. iii. 19) or with the spirits in paradise (Luke xxiii. 43), according to what was done in the body. This makes death terrible to the wicked, whose souls go to God as an avenger, and comfortable to the godly, whose souls go to God as a Father, into whose hands they cheerfully commit them, through a Mediator, out of whom sinners may justly dread to think of going to God.

The Conclusion of the Whole.

8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity. 9 And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. 10 The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. 11 The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. 12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

Solomon is here drawing towards a close, and is loth to part till he has gained his point, and prevailed with his hearers, with his readers, to seek for that satisfaction in God only and in their duty to him which they can never find in the creature.

I. He repeats his text (v. 8), 1. As that which he had fully demonstrated the truth of, and so made good his undertaking in this sermon, wherein he had kept closely to his text, and both his reasons and his application were to the purpose. 2. As that which he desired to inculcate both upon others and upon himself, to have it ready, and to make use of it upon all occasions. We see it daily proved; let it therefore be daily improved: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

II. He recommends what he had written upon this subject by divine direction and inspiration to our serious consideration. The words of this book are faithful, and well worthy our acceptance, for,

1. They are the words of one that was a convert, a penitent, that could speak by dear-bought experience of the vanity of the world and the folly of expecting great things from it. He was Coheleth, one gathered in from his wanderings and gathered home to that God from whom he had revolted. Vanity of vanities, saith the penitent. All true penitents are convinced of the vanity of the world, for they find it can do nothing to ease them of the burden of sin, which they complain of.

2. They are the words of one that was wise, wiser than any, endued with extraordinary measures of wisdom, famous for it among his neighbours, who all sought unto him to hear his wisdom, and therefore a competent judge of this matter, not only wise as a prince, but wise as a preacher—and preachers have need of wisdom to win souls.

3. He was one that made it his business to do good, and to use wisdom aright. Because he was himself wise, but knew he had not his wisdom for himself, any more than he had it from himself, he still taught the people that knowledge which he had found useful to himself, and hoped might be so to them too. It is the interest of princes to have their people well taught in religion, and no disparagement to them to teach them themselves the good knowledge of the Lord, but their duty to encourage those whose office it is to teach them and to speak comfortably to them, 2 Chron. xxx. 22. Let not the people, the common people, be despised, no, not by the wisest and greatest, as either unworthy or incapable of good knowledge: even those that are well taught have need to be still taught, that they may grow in knowledge.

4. He took a great deal of pains and care to do good, designing to teach the people knowledge. He did not put them off with any thing that came next to hand, because they were inferior people, and he a very wise man, but considering the worth of the souls he preached to and the weight of the subject he preached on, he gave good heed to what he read and heard from others, that, having stocked himself well, he might bring out of his treasury things new and old. He gave good heed to what he spoke and wrote himself, and was choice and exact in it; all he did was elaborate. (1.) He chose the most profitable way of preaching, by proverbs or short sentences, which would be more easily apprehended and remembered than long and laboured periods. (2.) He did not content himself with a few parables, or wise sayings, and repeat them again and again, but he furnished himself with many proverbs, a great variety of grave discourses, that he might have something to say on every occasion. (3.) He did not only give them such observations as were obvious and trite, but he sought out such as were surprising and uncommon; he dug into the mines of knowledge, and did not merely pick up what lay on the surface. (4.) He did not deliver his heads and observations at random, as they came to mind, but methodized them, and set them in order that they might appear in more strength and lustre.

5. He put what he had to say in such a dress as he thought would be most pleasing: He sought to find out acceptable words, words of delight (v. 10); he took care that good matter might not be spoiled by a bad style, and by the ungratefulness and incongruity of the expression. Ministers should study, not for the big words, nor the fine words, but acceptable words, such as are likely to please men for their good, to edification, 1 Cor. x. 33. Those that would win souls must contrive how to win upon them with words fitly spoken.

6. That which he wrote for our instruction is of unquestionable certainty, and what we may rely upon: That which was written was upright and sincere, according to the real sentiments of the penman, even words of truth, the exact representation of the thing as it is. Those are sure not to miss their way who are guided by these words. What good will acceptable words do us if they be not upright and words of truth? Most are for smooth things, that flatter them, rather than right things, that direct them (Isa. xxx. 10), but to those that understand themselves, and their own interest, words of truth will always be acceptable words.

7. That which he and other holy men wrote will be of great use and advantage to us, especially being inculcated upon us by the exposition of it, v. 11. Here observe, (1.) A double benefit accruing to us from divine truths if duly applied and improved; they are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction in righteousness. They are of use, [1.] To excite us to our duty. They are as goads to the ox that draws the plough, putting him forward when he is dull and quickening him, to amend his pace. The truths of God prick men to the heart (Acts ii. 37) and put them upon bethinking themselves, when they trifle and grow remiss, and exerting themselves with more vigour in their work. While our good affections are so apt as they are to grow flat and cool, we have need of these goads. [2.] To engage us to persevere in our duty. They are as nails to those that are wavering and inconstant, to fix them to that which is good. They are as goads to such as are dull and draw back, and nails to such as are desultory and draw aside, means to establish the heart and confirm good resolutions, that we may not sit loose to our duty, nor even be taken off from it, but that what good there is in us may be as a nail fastened in a sure place, Ezra ix. 8. (2.) A double way of communicating divine truths, in order to those benefits:—[1.] By the scriptures, as the standing rule, the words of the wise, that is, of the prophets, who are called wise men, Matt. xxiii. 34. These we have in black and white, and may have recourse to them at any time, and make use of them as goads and as nails. By them we may teach ourselves; let them but come with pungency and power to the soul, let the impressions of them be deep and durable, and the will make us wise to salvation. [2.] By the ministry. To make the words of the wise more profitable to us, it is appointed that they should be impressed and fastened by the masters of assemblies. Solemn assemblies for religious worship are an ancient divine institution, intended for the honour of God and the edification of his church, and are not only serviceable, but necessary, to those ends. There must be masters of these assemblies, who are Christ's ministers, and as such are to preside in them, to be God's mouth to the people and theirs to God. Their business is to fasten the words of the wise, and drive them as nails to the head, in order to which the word of God is likewise as a hammer, Jer. xxiii. 29.

8. That which is written, and thus recommended to us, is of divine origin. Though it comes to us through various hands (many wise men, and many masters of assemblies), yet it is given by one and the same shepherd, the great shepherd of Israel, that leads Joseph like a flock, Ps. lxxx. 1. God is that one Shepherd, whose good Spirit indited the scriptures, and assists the masters of the assemblies in opening and applying the scriptures. These words of the wise are the true sayings of God, on which we may rest our souls. From that one Shepherd all ministers must receive what they deliver, and speak according to the light of the written word.

9. The sacred inspired writings, if we will but make use of them, are sufficient to guide us in the way of true happiness, and we need not, in the pursuit of that, to fatigue ourselves with the search of other writings (v. 12): "And further, nothing now remains but to tell thee that that of making many books there is no end," that is, (1.) Of writing many books. "If what I have written, serve not to convince thee of the vanity of the world, and the necessity of being religious, neither wouldst thou be convinced if I should write ever so much." If the end be not attained in the use of those books of scripture which God has blessed us with, neither should we obtain the end, if we had twice as many more; nay, if we had so many that the whole world could not contain them (John xxi. 25), and much study of them would but confound us, and would rather be a weariness to the flesh than any advantage to the soul. We have as much as God saw fit to give us, saw fit for us, and saw us fit for. Much less can it be expected that those who will not by these be admonished should be wrought upon by other writings. Let men write ever so many books for the conduct of human life, write till they have tired themselves with much study, they cannot give better instructions than those we have from the word of God. Or, (2.) Of buying many books, making ourselves master of them, and masters of what is in them, by much study; still the desire of learning would be unsatisfied. It will give a man indeed the best entertainment and the best accomplishment this world can afford him; but if we be not by these admonished of the vanity of the world, and human learning, among other things, and its insufficiency to make us happy without true piety, alas! there is no end of it, nor real benefit by it; it will weary the body, but never give the soul any true satisfaction. The great Mr. Selden subscribed to this when he owned that in all the books he had read he never found that on which he could rest his soul, but in the holy scripture, especially Tit. ii. 11, 12. By these therefore let us be admonished.

The Conclusion of the Whole.

13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

The great enquiry which Solomon prosecutes in this book is, What is that good which the sons of men should do? ch. ii. 3. What is the true way to true happiness, the certain means to attain our great end? He had in vain sought it among those things which most men are eager in pursuit of, but here, at length, he has found it, by the help of that discovery which God anciently made to man (Job xxviii. 28), that serious godliness is the only way to true happiness: Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, the return entered upon the writ of enquiry, the result of this diligent search; you shall have all I have been driving at in two words. He does not say, Do you hear it, but Let us hear it; for preachers must themselves be hearers of that word which they preach to others, must hear it as from God; those are teachers by the halves who teach others and not themselves, Rom. ii. 21. Every word of God is pure and precious, but some words are worthy of more special remark, as this; the Masorites begin it with a capital letter, as that Deut. vi. 4. Solomon himself puts a nota bene before it, demanding attention in these words, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Observe here,

I. The summary of religion. Setting aside all matters of doubtful disputation, to be religious is to fear God and keep his commandments. 1. The root of religion is fear of God reigning in the heart, and a reverence of his majesty, a deference to his authority, and a dread of his wrath. Fear God, that is, worship God, give him the honour due to his name, in all the instances of true devotion, inward and outward. See Rev. xiv. 7. 2. The rule of religion is the law of God revealed in the scriptures. Our fear towards God must be taught by his commandments (Isa. xxix. 13), and those we must keep and carefully observe. Wherever the fear of God is uppermost in the heart, there will be a respect to all his commandments and care to keep them. In vain do we pretend to fear God if we do not make conscience of our duty to him.

II. The vast importance of it: This is the whole of man; it is all his business and all his blessedness; our whole duty is summed up in this and our whole comfort is bound up in this. It is the concern of every man, and ought to be his chief and continual care; it is the common concern of all men, of their whole time. It is nothing to a man whether he be rich or poor, high or low, but it is the main matter, it is all in all to a man, to fear God and do as he bids him.

III. A powerful inducement to this, v. 14. We shall see of what vast consequence it is to us that we be religious if we consider the account we must every one of us shortly give of himself to God; thence he argued against a voluptuous and vicious life (ch. xi. 9), and here for a religious life: God shall bring every work into judgment. Note, 1. There is a judgment to come, in which every man's eternal state will be finally determined. 2. God himself will be the Judge, God-man will, not only because he has a right to judge, but because he is perfectly fit for it, infinitely wise and just. 3. Every work will then be brought into judgment, will be enquired into and called over again. It will be a day to bring to remembrance every thing done in the body. 4. The great thing to be then judged of concerning every work is whether it be good or evil, conformable to the will of God or a violation of it. 5. Even secret things, both good and evil, will be brought to light, and brought to account, in the judgment of the great day (Rom. ii. 16); there is no good work, no bad work, hid, but shall then be made manifest. 6. In consideration of the judgment to come, and the strictness of that judgment, it highly concerns us now to be very strict in our walking with God, that we may give up our account with joy.

CHAP. XII. Verſ. 1. Remember now thy Creatour.]

HEB. Creatours, ſcil. Father, Son, and Holy Ghoſt, called by Elihu, Eloa Gnoſai, God my Makers, Job 35.10. and by David, the Makers of Iſrael, Pſal. 149.1. ſo Iſa. 54.5. Thy Makers is thine Husbands. Let us make man, Gen. 1.26. and verſe 1. Dei creavit. Thoſe three in One, and One in Three made all things; but man hee made fearfully and wonderfully, Pſal. 139.14. The Father did it, Epheſ. 3.9. The Son, Heb. 1.8, 10. Col. 1.16. The Holy Ghoſt, Pſal. 33.6. and 104.30. Job 36.13. and 33.4. To the making of Man, a Council was called, Gen. 1.29. Sun, Moon, and Stars are but the work of his fingers, Pſal. 8.3. but Man is the work of his hands, Pſal. 139.14. Thine hands have made mee (or took ſpecial pains about mee) and faſhioned mee, ſaith Job, chap. 10.8. thou haſt formed mee by the book, ſaith David, Pſal. 139.16. Hence the whole Church ſo celebrates this great work with Crowns caſt down at the Creators feet, Rev. 4.10, 11. And hence young men alſo, who are moſtly moſt mindleſs of any thing ſerious (for childe-hood and youth are vanity) are here charged to remember their Creatour, that is (as dying David taught his young Son Solomon) to know, love, and ſerve him, with a perfect heart, and a willing mind, 1 Chron. 28.9. (for words of knowledge in Scripture imply affection and practice) Tam Dei meminiſſe opus eſt quam reſpirare, To remember God is every whit as needful as to draw breath; ſith it is hee that gave us being at firſt, and that ſtill gives us [non-Latin text not transcribed], life and breath, Act. 17.25. Let every thing therefore that hath breath, praiſe the Lord, even ſo long as it hath breath; yea let it ſpend and exhale it ſelf in continual ſallies, as it were, and egreſſions of affection unto God, till it hath gotten, not onely an union, but an unity with him. Of all things, God cannot endure to bee forgotten.

In the daies of thy youth] Auguſtus began his ſpeech to his mutinous ſouldiers, with Audite ſenem, juvenes, quem juvenem ſenes and ierunt, You that are young, hear mee that am old, whom old men were content to hear, when I was but young. And Auguſtine beginneth one of his Sermons thus, Ad vos mihi ſermo, O juvenes, flos aetatis, periculum mentis, To you is my ſpeech, O young men, the flower of age, the danger of the mind. To keep them from danger, and direct them to their duty it is, that the Preacher here exhorts them to remember God betimes, to gather Manna in the morning of their lives, to preſent the firſt-fruits to God, whoſe ſoul hath deſired the firſt ripe fruits, Micah 7.1. and who will remember the kindneſs of their youth, the love of their eſpouſals, Jer. 2.1. God of old would bee honoured with the firſtlings of men and of cattel, by the firſt-fruits of trees, and of the earth, in the ſhe[illegible: 1 letter]f, in the threſhing-floor, in the dough, in the loaves. Hee called for ears of corn dried by the fire, and wheat beaten out of the green ears, Levit. 2.14. to teach men to ſerve him with the primroſe of their childe-hood. Three ſorts there were of firſt-fruits. Firſt, Of the ears of corn offered about the Paſſeover. Secondly, Of the loaves offered about Pentecoſt. Laſtly, About the end of the year in Autumn. Now of the two firſt God had a part, but not of the laſt. Hee made choice of the Almond-tree, Jer. 1.11. becauſe it bloſſometh firſt; ſo of Jeremy from his infancy, Timothy from his Mothers breaſts, &c. Hee likes not of thoſe arbores antumnales, Jude 13. which bud at latter end of harveſt. Hee cares not for ſuch loiterers, as come halting in at laſt caſt to ſerve God, when they can ſerve their luſts no longer. The Circaſſians (a kinde of mongre-Chriſtians) are ſaid to divide their life betwixt ſin and devotion: dedicating their youth to rapine, B[illegible: 1 letter]cerw. Enqui[illegible: 1 letter]. 1[illegible: 1 letter]5 Mal. 1.14 and their old age to repentance. But curſed bee that cozener, ſaith the Prophet, that hath a male in his flock, and yet offereth to the Lord a corrupt thing. Wilt thou give God the dreggs, the bottom, the ſnuffs, the very laſt ſands, thy dotage, which thy ſelf and friends are weary of?James 4 Shall thine oyl (which ſhould have been fuel for thy thankfulneſs) increaſe the fire of thy luſts, and thy luſts conſume all? How much better were it to ſacrifice early with Abraham, the young Iſaac's of thine age? to bring as hee did young Rams unto the Lord, and even, whiles thou art yet a lad, a ſtripling, to take heed to thy waies according to Gods Word? Pſal. 119.9. Yee ſhall not ſee my face, ſaith Chriſt, (as once Joſeph) except you bring your younger brother with you.

While the evil daies come not] viz. Of old age and miſery: for theſe are ſeldome ſeparated. Senectus, ut Africa, ſemper aliquid novi adportat, As Africa is never without ſome monſter, ſo neither is old age ever without ſome ailement. Multa ſenem circumveniunt incommoda, Horat. Many are the inconveniences that do encompaſs an old man. Solet ſenectus eſſe deformis, infirma, oblivioſa, odentula, lucroſa, indocilis & moleſta, ſaith Cato in Plutarch, Plut. in Apoph. Rom. old age uſeth to bee deformed, weak, forgetful, toothleſs, covetous, unteachable, unquiet. Now ſhall any man bee to beſotted and betwitcht, as to make that the task of his old age, which ſhould bee the trade of his whole life? and to ſettle his everlaſting, onely, ſureſt making or marring upon ſo ſinking and ſandy a foundation? A Ship, the longer it leaks, the harder it is to bee emptied; a Land, the longer it lies, the harder it is to bee plowed; a Nail, the further it is driven in, with the greater difficulty it is pulled our. And ſhall any man think, that the trembling joints, the dazled eyes, the fainting heart, the failing hands, the feeble leggs, of ſtrengthleſs, drooping, untractable, wayward, froward old age, can break up the fallow ground, can ever empty and pluck out the leaks and nails of ſo many years flowing and faſtning?

Verſ. 2. While the Sun, or the light, or the Moon, &c.] i. e. Whiles greater and leſſer comforts fail not. Or before the ſight of thine eyes grow dim, and as unfit to let in light, as an old duſty window. The air to aged eyes, ſeemeth duſty and miſty, and the Sun wadeth, as the Moon in a foggy evening, and the ſtars are out of ſight;1 Cor. 13. they ſee thorow a glaſs darkly, as the Apoſtle ſpeaks in another caſe, they can know no kin without ſpectacles; the defluxion of rheum, which trickleth down the noſe and cheeks, being as it were the Rain, the gathering of new matter, which continually diſtilleth, being as it were the returning of the clouds after the rain in a moiſt ſeaſon, and waters into an emptied fountain. Some (with relation to the former verſe) interpret the words thus: Let thy Creator bee remembred while the Sun is not darkned, that is, while youth continueth: Or if not ſo, while the light of the Sun is not gone, that is, while thy manhood laſteth: Or if not ſo, while the Moon is not darkned, that is, while thine elder years are not ſpent: Or if not ſo, while the ſtars are not ſhut up, while the worſt of old age hath not ſeized upon thee: for then the clouds will return after the Rain; that is, one grief comes upon the neck of another,Pſal. 42.7. as deep calleth upon deep at the noiſe of the water-ſpouts. One affliction followeth and occaſioneth another, without intermiſſion of trouble, as one billow comes wallowing and tumbling upon another; or as in April weather, one ſhowre is unburthened, another is brewed. Hence ſome of the antient Patriarchs are ſaid to have died old men, and full of years, they had enough of this world, and deſired to depart, as Abraham, Simeon, others. Hence the Poets feign that Tithonus, when he might have had immortality here, hee would not.Cic. de Senectu [illegible: 1 letter]e. And Cato proteſted, that if of old hee might bee made young again, hee would ſeriouſly refuſe it.

Verſ. 3. In the day when the Keepers of the houſe, &c.] i.e. The hands and arms wherewith we defend the head and whole body (called an houſe alſo by St. Paul) from harm, and danger, and maintain our lives; which are therefore called the lives of our hands, becauſe upheld with the labour of our hands, Iſa. 57.10. Theſe are fitly called Keepers or Gardians, for their uſefulneſs, and for their faithfulneſs too:Plut. Numa Pompilius conſecrated the hands to Faith; His ſucceſſor Tullus Hoſtilius (being a prophane perfidious perſon,Lactant. and a contemner of all Religion, as that which did but emaſculate mens minds, and make them idle) brought in and worſhipped two new Gods, viz. Pavor and Pallor, Fear and Paleneſs. Like another Cain, Sighing and trembling hee was upon the Earth: (So the Septuagint render that, Gen. 4.12.) Not his hands onely trembled (which is thought to bee Cains mark, Gen. 4.15.) but his heart too, Iſa. 7.2. Not with old age neither, as here, but with the terrours of an evil conſcience. But to return to the Text,Ecquem vero mihi dabis Rhetorem tam magnifice & exquiſite diſſerentem, & in non obſcura ſententiae tot lumina, imo flumina orationis exſcrentem? Old men are full of the Palſie, for moſt part, and many other infirmities, which here are moſt elegantly deſcribed, by a continued allegory. Men draw forth as lively as they can the pictures of their young age, that in old age they may ſee their youth before their eyes. This is but a vanity, yet may good uſe bee made thereof. So contrarily the Preacher here draws out to the life the picture of old age, that young men may ſee and conſider it together with death that follows it, and after death judgement.

And the ſtrong men ſhall bow themſelves] Nutabunt, the leggs and thighs ſhall ſtagger and faulter, cripple and crinkle under them, as not able to bear the bodies burden. The thigh in Latine is called femur a ferendo, becauſe it beareth and holdeth up the creature, and hath the longeſt and ſtrongeſt bone in the whole body, The legg hath a ſhin-bone, and a ſhank-bone, aptly fitted for the better moving. The foot is the baſe, the ground and pedeſtal which ſuſtaineth the whole building. Theſe are Solomons ſtrong men: but as ſtrong as they are, yet in old age they buckle under their burden; and are ready to overthrow themſelves and the whole body.Genua [illegible: 1 letter]abant. Virg. Hence old men are glad to betake them to their third legg, a ſtaff or crutch: Membra levant baculis tardique ſenilibus annis. Hence Heſiod calls them [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Let them learn to lean upon the Lord, as the Spouſe did upon her Beloved, Cant. 8.5. and hee will ſtir up ſome good Job to bee eyes to them, when blinde, and feet to them, when lame, chap. 29.15. Let them alſo pray with David, Caſt mee not off in the time of old age, forſake mee not when my ſtrength faileth, Pſal. 71.9.

And the grinders ceaſe, becauſe they are few] The teeth (through age) fall out, or rot out, or are drawn out, or hang looſe in the gumms, and ſo cannot grind and maſticate the meat that is to bee tranſmitted into the ſtomach, for the preſervation of the whole. Now the teeth are the hardeſt of the bones,Lactant. de opif. Dei. if that they bee bones, whereof Ariſtotle makes queſtion. They are as hard as ſtones, in the edges of them eſpecially: and are here fitly compared to Millſtones from their chewing office. The ſeat of the teeth are the jaws, where they have their ſeveral ſockets, into which they are mortiſed. But in old men they ſtand wet-ſhod in ſlimy humor, or are hollow and ſtumpy, falling out one after another, as the coggs of a Mill, ſo that Frangendus miſero gingiva panis inermi.Juvenal.

And thoſe that look out at the windows] The eyes are dim, as they were in old Iſaac and Jacob. An heavy affliction ſurely, but eſpecially to thoſe that have had eyes full of adultery, evil eyes, windows of wickedneſs, for the conſcience of this puts a ſting into the affliction, is a thorn to their blinde eyes,2 Pet. 2. and becomes a greater torment than ever Regulus the Roman was put to,Plut. Oculus ab occalendo. Turk. hiſt. when his eye-lids were cut off, and hee ſet full oppoſite to the Sun ſhining in his ſtrength: Or than that Grecian Prince, that had his eyes put out with hot burning baſons, held near unto them.

Verſ. 4. And the doors ſhall bee ſhut in the ſtreets] The ears ſhall grow deaf, the hearing weak; which hearing is cauſed by two bones within the inſide of the ear; whereof one ſtands ſtill, and the other moves, like the two ſtones of a Mill.

And hee ſhall riſe up at the voice of the Bird] Being awakened by every ſmall noiſe; and this proceeds not from the quickneſs of the hearing, but from the badneſs of ſleeping. For as Hierome ſpeaketh, Frigeſcente jam ſanguine, &c. Hieron. in hunc verſ. The blood now growing cold, and the moiſture being dried up, by which matters ſleep ſhould bee nouriſhed, the old man awakeneth with a little ſound, and at midnight when the Cock croweth, hee riſeth ſpeedily; [non-Latin text not transcribed] dicitur, quia nos a lecto exſuſcitat. being not able often to turn his members in his bed. Thus hee. Cocks crowing (ſaith another) unto old men, is the ſcholars bell, that calls them to think of the things that are in Gods Book every morning.

And all the daughters of muſick ſhall bee brought low] Old men, as they cannot ſing tunably,Nam quae cantante voluptas? Juvenal. but creak or ſcream (whence Homer compares them to Graſhoppers, propter raucam vocem, for their unpleaſant voice) ſo they can take no delight in the melodious notes of others, as old Barzillai confeſſeth, 2 Sam. 19.35. they diſcern not the harmony or diſtinction of ſounds, neither are affected with muſick. They muſt therefore labour to become Temples of the Holy Ghoſt, (in whoſe Temple there never wants muſick) and ſing Pſalms with grace in their hearts: for, Non vox, ſed votum; non muſica chordula, ſed Cor; Non clamans, ſed amans, pſ[illegible: 1 letter]llit in aure Dei.

Verſ. 5. Alſo when they ſhall bee afraid of that which is high] Hillocks or little ſtones ſtanding up, whereat they may ſtumble; as being unſteddy and unweildy. High aſcents alſo they ſhun, as being ſhort-winded; neither can they look down without danger of falling: their heads being as weak as their hamms. Let them therefore pray for a guard of Angels, putting that promiſe into ſuit, Pſal. 91. Let them alſo keep within Gods precincts, as ever they expect his protection; and then, though old Eli fell, and never roſe again, yet when they fall, they ſhall ariſe, for the Lord puts under his hand, Pſal. 37.24. Contrition may bee in their way, but attrition ſhall not. Let them fear God, and they need not fear any other perſon or thing whatſoever.

And the Almond-tree ſhall flouriſh] The hair ſhall grow hoary, thoſe Churchyard-flowers ſhall put forth.Plin. lib. 16. cap. 25. The Almond-tree bloſſomes in January, while it is yet winter; and the fruit is ripe in March. Old age ſhall ſnow white hairs upon their heads. Let them ſee that they bee found in the way of Righteouſneſs.

And the Graſhopper ſhall bee a burden] Every light matter ſhall oppreſs them, who are already a burden to themſelves, being full of Gowt, and other ſwellings of the leggs, which the Septuagint and Vulgar point at here, when they render it impinguabitur locusta, The Locuſts ſhall bee made fat. Let them wait upon the Lord (as that old Diſciple Mnaſon did) and then they ſhall renew their ſtrength,Act. 11. mount up as Eagles, run, and not bee weary, walk, and not faint, even then, when the youth ſhall faint and bee weary, and the young men utterly fall, Iſa. 40.30, 31.

And deſire ſhall fail] The luſt of the fleſh, the luſt of the eye, and the pride of life.1 John 2.15 And this Tully reckons among the commodities and benefits of old age, quod hominem a libidinis eſtu, velut a tyranno quodem liberet, that it frees a man from the fire of luſt. [non-Latin text not transcribed] a [non-Latin text not transcribed]. It ſhould bee ſo, doubtleſs; an old Letcher being little leſs than a Monſter: What ſo monſtrous as to behold green Apples on a tree in winter? and what ſo indecent, as to ſee the ſins of youth prevailing in times of age among old decrepit Goats? that they ſhould bee capering after capparis, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. the fruit of Capers, as the Septuagint and Vulgar render it here.

Becauſe man goeth to his long home] Heb. to his old home, ſcil. to the duſt from whence hee was taken. Or to the houſe of his eternity, that is, the grave (that houſe of all living) where hee ſhall lye long, till the Reſurrection. Tremellius renders it, in domum ſaeculi ſui, to the houſe of his generation, where hee and all his contemporaries meet. Cajetan, in domum mundi ſui, into the houſe of his world, that which the world provides for him: as nature at firſt provided for him the houſe of the womb. Toward this home of his, the old man is now on gate, having one foot in the grave already: Hee ſits and ſings with Job, My ſpirit is ſpent, my daies are extinct, the graves are ready for mee, Job 17.1.

And the mourners go about the ſtreets] The proverb is, Senex [illegible: 1 letter]os non lugetur, An old man dies unlamented. But not ſo the good old man. Great moan was made for old Jacob, Moſes, Aaron, Samuel. The Romans took the death of old Auguſtus ſo heavily, that they wiſhed hee had either never been born, or never died. Thoſe indeed that live wickedly, dye wiſhedly. But godly men are worthily lamented, and ought to bee ſo, Iſa. 57.1. This is one of the dues of the dead, ſo it bee done aright. But they were hard beſtead that were fain to hire mourners; that as Midwives brought their friends into the world, ſo thoſe widows ſhould carry them out of it. See Job 3.8. Jer. 9.17.

Verſ. 6. Or ever the ſilver cord bee looſed] Or lengthened, i. e. before the marrow of the back (which is of a ſilver colour) bee conſumed. From this Cord many ſinews are derived: which when they are looſened, the back bendeth, motion is ſlow, and feeling faileth.

Or the golden bowl be broken] i. e. The heart ſay ſome, or the Pericardium: the Brain-pan, ſay others, or the Piamater compaſſing the brain like a ſwathing-cloath, or inner rind of a tree.

Or the pitcher bee broken at the fountain] That is, the veins at the Liver (which is the ſhop of ſangnification, or blood-making, as one calls it) but eſpecially Vena porta and Vena cava. Read the Anatomiſts.

Or the wheel bee broken at the ciſtern] i. e. The head, which draws the power of life from the heart, to the which the blood runs back in any great fright, as to the fountain of life.

Verſ. 7. Then ſhall the duſt return to the earth, &c.] What is man, ſaith Nazianzen, but [non-Latin text not transcribed], Soul and Soil, Breath and Body, a puff of wind the one, a pile of duſt the other, no ſolidity in either. Zoroaſter, and ſome other antient Heathens imagined, that the ſoul had wings; that having broken theſe wings, ſhee fell headlong into the body; and that recovering her wings again, ſhee flies up to Heaven, her original habitation. That of Epicharmus is better to bee liked, and comes nearer to the truth here delivered by the Preacher, Concretum fuit, & diſcretum eſt, rediitque unde venerat; terra deorſum, ſpiritus ſurſum, It was together, but is now by death ſet aſunder, and returned to the place whence it came; the Earth downward, the Spirit upward. See Gen. 2.7. God made man of the duſt of the earth, to note our frailty, vility, and impurity. Lutum enim conſpurcat omnia, ſic & caro, ſaith one, Dirt defiles all things, ſo doth the fleſh: It ſhould ſeem ſo (truly) by mans ſoul, which coming pure out of Gods hands, ſoon becomes Mens oblita Dei, vitiorumque oblita coeno.

Bernard complains not without juſt cauſe, that our ſouls by commerce with the fleſh are become fleſhly: Sure it is, that by their mutual defilement, corruption is ſo far rooted in us now, that it is not cleanſed out of us by meer death (as is to bee ſeen in Lazarus, and others that died) but by cinerification, or turning of the body to duſt and aſhes.

The ſpirit returns to God that gave it] For it is divinae particula aurae, an immaterial, immortal ſubſtance, that after death returns to God the Fountain of life.D. Preſt. The ſoul moves and guides the body (ſaith a worthy Divine) as the Pilot doth the ſhip. Now the Pilot may bee ſafe, though the ſhip bee ſplit on the rock. And as in a chicken, it grows ſtill, and ſo the ſhell breaks and falls off: So it is with the ſoul; the body hangs on it but as a ſhell, and when the ſoul is grown to perfection, it falls away, and the ſoul returns to the Father of ſpirits. Auguſtine (after Origen) held a long while, that the ſoul was begotten by the Parents, as was the body. At length hee began to doubt of this point, and afterward altered his opinion; confeſſing inter caetera teſtimonia hoc eſſe praecipuum, that among other teſtimonies this to bee the chief, to prove the contrary to that which hee had formerly held.

Verſ. 8. Vanity of vanities, ſaith the Preacher] Who choſe for his Text this Argument, of the vanity of humane things, which having fully proved, and improved, hee here reſumes and concludes. Vide ſupra.

Verſ. 9. And moreover becauſe the Preacher was wiſe] Hee well knew how hard it was to work men to a beleef of what hee had affirmed concerning earthly vanities; and therefore heaps up here many forcible and cogent Arguments, as Firſt, that himſelf was no baby, but wiſe above all men in the world, by Gods own teſtimony; therefore his words ſhould bee well regarded. [non-Latin text not transcribed], Our wiſe men expound to day (ſaid the Jews one to another) Come let us go up to the houſe of the Lord, &c. Cicero had that high opinion of Plato for his wiſdome, that hee profeſſed that hee would rather go wrong with him, than go right with others. Averroes over-admired Ariſtotle, as if hee had been infallible. But this is a praiſe proper to the holy Pen-men guided by the Spirit of Truth, and filled with wiſdome from on high for the purpoſe. To them therefore, and to the word of prophecy by them, muſt men give heed as unto a light that ſhineth in a dark place, &c. 2 Pet. 1.19.

Hee ſtill taught the people knowledge] Hee hid not his talent in a Napkin, but uſed it to the inſtruction of his people. Have not I written for thee excellent things (or three ſeveral ſorts of Books, viz. Proverbial, Penitential, Nuptial) in counſels and knowledge, Prov. 22.20. Syneſius ſpeaks of ſome, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Syneſ. that having great worth in them, will as ſoon part with their hearts, as with their conceptions. And Gregory obſerveth, that there are not a few, who being enriched with ſpiritual gifts and abilities to do good, dum ſolis contemplationis ſtudiis inardeſcunt, Past. Cur. p. 1. c. 5. parere utilitati proximorum praedicatione refugiu[illegible: 1 letter] while they burn in the ſtudies of contemplation onely, do ſhun to ſeek by preaching to profit their neighbours. Solomon was none of theſe.

Yea hee gave good heed] Or, hee made them to take good heed; Auſ[illegible: 1 letter]ultare fecit. Pag. Ar. Mon. tan. hee called upon them ever and anon, as our Saviour did upon his hearers, Let him that hath an ear to hear, hear. Or as the Deacons in Chryſoſtoms and Baſils time uſed to call upon the people, in theſe words, Oremus, attendamus, Let us pray, let us give heed.

And ſought out] By diligent ſcrutiny and hard ſtudy: beating his brains, as the foul bears the ſhell, to get out the fiſh, with great vehemency. The ſtaves were alway in the Ark, to ſhew, ſaith Gregory, that Preachers ſhould alwaies meditate in their hearts upon the ſacred Scriptures; that if need require they may without delay take up the Ark, teach the people.

And ſet in order many Proverbs] Marſhalled them in a fit method, and ſet others a work for to do the like.Dan. 68. For, Regis ad exemplum, &c. Our Henry the firſt (ſirnamed Beauclerk) had in his youth ſome taſte of learning; And this put many of his ſubjects into the faſhion of the Book, ſo that divers learned men flouriſhed in his time: as Ethan, Heman, Cha[illegible: 1 letter]col, Agur, and other Paroemiographers did in Solomons.

Luther.Verſ. 10. The Preacher ſought, &c.] Hee ſought and ſought, by pains and prayer. Hee knew the rule, Bene oraſſe, eſt bene ſtuduiſſe, To have prayed well, is to have ſtudied well. By prayer and tears St. John gat the Book opened, Rev. 5.4. Luther got much of his inſight into Gods matters, by the ſame means.

To finde out acceptable words] Verba deſiderata (ſo Cajetan renders it) Verba delectabilia (ſo Tremellius) Verba expetibilia (ſo Vatablus) Delectable and deſireable words, dainty expreſſions, that might both pleaſe and profit, tickle the ear,Into[illegible: 1 letter]abat, fulgurabat. Cicero. Plutarch. and withall take the heart. Such a Maſter of ſpeech was Paul, Act. 14.12. who thundred and lightened in his diſcourſes, like another Pericles. Such a one was Apollos that eloquent Preacher, mighty in the Scriptures ([non-Latin text not transcribed], like another Phocion, a weighty Speaker) ſuch were many of the Greek and Latine Fathers; Ambroſe for one, whom when Auguſtine heard preach, Veniebant, ſaith hee, in animum meum ſimul cum verbis quae deligebam, etiam res quas negligebam, there came into my mind, together with the words which I chiefly looked after, the matter which till then I made no reckoning of. Et res & verba. Philippus Melanchthon could dreſs his doctrine in dainty tearms, and ſo ſlide inſenſibly into the hearts of his hearers. Egit vir eloquens ut intelligenter ut obedienter audiretur, De doct. Chriſt. l. 4. c. 14. (as Auguſtine hath it.) This eloquent man took pains that hee might bee heard with underſtanding, with obedience. The like might bee ſaid of Calvin (famous for the purity of his ſtyle, and the holineſs of his matter.Zanch. Miſcell. Ep. dedic.) Viret, in whoſe Sermons ſingularem eloquentiam & in commovendis affectibus efficacitatem admirabar, ſaith Zanchy. I greatly admired at his ſingular eloquence and skill to work upon the affections by his elaborate diſcourſes.

And that which was written was upright] A corde ad cor, void of all inſincerity and falſhood, Prov. 8.8. Seducers come for the moſt part with pithanology; by good words and fair ſpeeches they deceive the hearts of the ſimple. Rom. 16.18. But our Preachers words are of another alloy; not more delicious and toothſome, than ſound and wholeſome, 2 Tim. 3.16. proceeding from a right heart, and tending to make men upright, transforming them into the ſame image, and transfuſing them into the Divine nature.

Verſ. 11. The words of the wiſe are like goads] To rouſe up mens drouſie and droſſie ſpirits; to drive them (as the Eagle doth her young ones with her talons) out of the neſt of carnal ſecurity: to awaken them out of the ſnare of the Devil, who hath caſt many into ſuch a dead lethargy, ſuch a dedolent diſpoſition, that like Dionyſius the Heracleot, they can hardly feel ſharpeſt goads, or needles thruſt into their fat hearts; fat as greaſe, Pſal. 119.17. St. Peter ſo preached, that his hearers were prickt at heart, Act. 2.37. St. Stephen ſo galled his adverſaries, that they were cut to the heart, Act. 7.54. And before them both, how [illegible: 2 letters]rely and boldly dealt John Baptiſt, and our Saviour Chriſt with thoſe enemies of all Righteouſneſs the Phariſees, qui toties puncti ac repuncti, nunquam tamen ad reſipiſcentiam compuncti, as one ſaith of them: (who like thoſe Bears in Pliny, or Aſſes of Tuſcany, that have fed on hemlock) were ſo ſtupified, that no ſharp words would work upon them, or take impreſſion in their hearts; ſo brawny were their breaſts; ſo horny their heart-ſtrings?

And as nails] Such as Shepheards faſtened their tents to the ground with; Jael drove one of theſe tent-nails thorow Siſera's Temples;Judg. 4. and laid his body as it were a liſtening what was become of the ſoul. Now as nails driven into pales do faſten them to their rails, ſo the godly and grave ſentences of Teachers (thoſe Maſters of Aſſemblies) do peirce into mens hearts, to unite them unto God by Faith, and one to another in love. Our exhortations truly ſhould bee ſtrong and well pointed; not onely to wound as arrows, but to ſtick by the people as forked arrows, that they may prove as thoſe of Joaſh, the arrows of the Lords deliverance. And ſurely it were to be wiſhed (in theſe unſetled and giddy times eſpecially) that people would ſuffer ſuch words of exhortation, as like goads, might prick them on to pious practice, and like nails, might fix their wilde conceits, that they might bee ſtedfaſt and unmoveable, ſtabliſhed in the truth, and not whiffled about with every wind of Doctrine. But wee can look for no better, ſo long as they have ſo mean an eſteem of the Miniſters, thoſe Maſters of the Aſſemblies, (whoſe Office it is to congregate the people, and to preſide in the Congregations) which are given from one Shepheard, 1 Pet. 2.25. the Arch-Shepheard of his Sheep, Jeſus Chriſt; who in the daies of his ſolemn inauguration into his Kingdome, gave theſe gifts unto men, viz. ſome to bee Apoſtles, ſome Evangeliſts, ſome Paſtors, ſome Teachers, &c. Epheſ. 4.11. What a mouth of blaſphemy then opens that Schiſmatical Pamphleter,The Compaſ. Samarit. that makes this precious gift of Chriſt to his Spouſe, this ſacred and tremend function of the Miniſtery, to bee as meer an Impoſture, as very a myſtery of iniquity, as arrant a juggle as the Papacy it ſelf?

Verſ. 12. And further, by theſe; my ſon, bee admoniſhed] By theſe divine directions and documents, contained in this ſhort Book, wherein thou ſhalt finde fulneſs of matter in fewneſs of words. Or by theſe, that is by the holy Scriptures, which (according to ſome interpreters) are called in the former verſe, Lords of Collections, becauſe they are as Lords paramount above all other words and writings of men, that ever were collected into volumes. Odi ego meos libros, ſaith Luther, Luth. in Geneſ. I do even hate the Books ſet forth by my ſelf, and could wiſh them utterly aboliſhed, becauſe I fear that by reading them, ſome are hindred from ſpending their time in reading the ſacred Scriptures. Of theſe it is that the Pſalmiſt ſaith, Moreover by them is thy ſervant warned (or clearly admoniſhed, as the word ſignifies) and in doing thereof there is great reward, Pſal. 19.11.

Of making many Books there is no end] Ambition and covetouſneſs ſets many Authors a work, in this ſcribling age, Scribimus indocti doctique, &c. Preſſes are greatly oppreſſed; and every fool will bee medling, that hee may bee a fool in Print. Multi mei ſimiles hoc morbo laborant, ut cum ſcribere neſciant, tamen a ſcribendo temperare non poſſunt, Many are ſick of my very diſeaſe, ſaith Eraſmus, that though they can do nothing worthy of the publick, yet they muſt bee publiſhing: hence the world ſo abounds with books, even to ſatiety and ſurfeit, many of them being no better than the ſcurf of ſcald and ſcabby heads.

And much ſtudy is a wearineſs to the fleſh] Hierome renders it, Labor carnis, a work of the fleſh. They will finde it ſo one day to their ſorrow, that are better read in Sir Philip, than in St. Peter, in Monſieur Balſa[illegible: 1 letter]s letters, than St. Pauls Epiſtles. The holy Bible is to bee chiefly ſtudied, and herein wee are to labour even to laſſitude; to read, till being overcome with ſleep, wee bow down as it were, to ſalute the leaves with a kiſs,Hierom▪ ad Euſt. as Hierome exhorted ſome good women of his time. All other Books, in compariſon of this, wee are to account as waſte Paper; and not to read them further than they ſome way conduce to the better underſtanding or practiſing of the things herein contained, and commended unto our care.

Verſ. 13. Let us hear the concluſion of the whole matter] ſcil. Touching the attainment of true happineſs: Let us ſee (for a percloſe of all) where and how it may bee had. Shall I tell you in two words, ſaith the Preacher? I will ſo, and ſee that yee mark it: In the Original the word rendred concluſion here, hath the firſt letter bigger than the reſt, to ſtir up the greater attention to that which follows: ſith in this ſhort ſentence is contained the ſum of all Divinity.

Fear God and keep his commandements] Bear an awful reſpect to the Divine Majeſty, a reverential fear; and from this principle obey God in every part and point of duty: Do this, and live for ever. Do it in an Evangelical way, I mean: for wee can do it now no otherwiſe. Wiſh well to exact obedience, as David doth, Pſal. 119.4, 5. Oh that I could keep thy commandements accurately; and woe is mee that I cannot! And then bee doing as thou canſt: for affection without indeavour, is like Rachel, beautiful, but barren. Bee doing, I ſay, at every thing, as well as at any thing: for thou muſt not bee funambulus vertutum (as Tertullian phraſeth it) one that goeth in a narrow tract of obedience. No: thine obedience muſt bee univerſal, extending to the compaſs of the whole Law, (which is but one copulative, as the Schools ſpeak.) And then,Aug. beati ſunt qui praecepta faciunt, etiam ſi non perficiunt, they are bleſſed that do what they can,Bern. though they cannot but under-do. And, in libro tuo ſcribuntur omnes qui quod poſſunt faciunt, & ſi quod debent, non poſſunt, They are ſurely written all in Gods Book, that do what they can, though they cannot do as they ought. I cannot let ſlip a Note given by one that was once a famous Preacher in this Kingdome, and ſtill lives in his printed Sermons. The Book of Eccleſiaſtes (ſaith hee) begins with All is vanity, and ends with fear God and keep his commandements. Now if that ſentence were knit to this, which Solomon keepeth to the end, as the haven of reſt after the turmoils of vanity, it is like that which Chriſt ſaid to Martha, Thou art troubled about many things, but one thing is neceſſary. That which troubleth us, Solomon calls vanity: that which is neceſſary, hee calls the fear of God. From that to this, ſhould bee every mans pilgrimage in this world. Wee begin at vanity, and never know perfectly that wee are vain, till wee come to fear God, and keep his commandements.

For this is the whole duty of man] Heb. This is the whole man, q. d. Hee is not a compleat man; hee loſeth all his other praiſes, that fears not God. It is the very nature and eſſence of man to bee a reaſonable creature: Now, what more reaſonable than that God ſhould bee feared and ſerved? What more irrational than irreligion? (See 2 Theſ. 3.2.) and what is man without true grace, but praeſtantiſſimum brutum (as one ſaith) a very fair beaſt?

Verſ. 14. For God ſhall bring every work into judgement] Full loth is ſinful fleſh to come to judgement: but (will they, nill they) come they muſt, God will bring them: Angels will hale them out of their hiding holes. Rocks and mountains will then prove a ſorry ſhelter; ſith rocks ſhall rent, and mountains melt at the preſence of the Judge. Let us therefore judge our ſelves, if hee ſhall not judge us, and take unto us words againſt our ſins, if wee will not have him to take unto him words againſt our ſouls, Hoſ. 14.2. And then, Ita vivamus, ut rationem nobis reddendam arbitremur, ſaith the Heathen Oratour, Let us ſo live, as thoſe that muſt ſhortly bee called to an account. For who can tell but that hee may ſuddenly hear as that Pope did, and was ſoon after found dead, Veni, miſer, in judicium, Come, thou wretch, receive thy judgement. Let this bee firmly beleeved, and thorowly digeſted, and it will notably incite us to the fear and ſervice of God. This ſome Heathens knew; Zaleucus Locrenſis, in the Proeme to his Laws hath theſe words, Hoc inculcatum ſit, eſſe Deos, & venturum eſſe ſummum & fatalem illum diem: Remember to preſs often upon the people theſe two things; Firſt, That there are Gods, Next, to theſe Gods an account of all muſt bee given. The Areopagites at their Council were wont diligently to enquire what every of the Athenians did, Rouz his Archaeol. Atti. 125 and how hee lived: that men knowing and remembring that once they muſt give an account of their lives (though but to earthly Judges) might imbrace honeſty.

With every ſecret thing] For at that day of Revelation, as it is called, Wee muſt all appear (or bee made tranſparent, pellucid and clear like a diaphanous body, as the word there ſignifies) before the judgement-ſeat of Chriſt: 2 Cor. 5.20 all ſhall bee laid naked and open, the Books of Gods Omniſcience, and mans Conſcience alſo ſhall bee then opened, and ſecret ſins ſhall bee as legible in thy fore-head, as if written with the brighteſt Stars, or the moſt glittering Sun-beams upon a wall of Cryſtal. Mens actions are all in print in Heaven, and God will at that day read them aloud in the ears of all the world.

Whether it bee good or evil] Then it ſhall appear what it is, which before was not ſo clear: like as in April, both wholeſome roots and poiſonable diſcover themſelves, which in winter were not ſeen. Then men ſhall give an account, 1 De bonis commiſſis, of good things committed unto them. 2. De bonis dimiſſis, of good things neglected by them. 3. De malis commiſſis, of evils committed by them. 4. Laſtly, De malis permiſſis, of evils done by others, ſuffered by them, when they might have hindered it.