A commentary on Ecclesiastes

XI. (1.) Cast thy bread upon the face of the waters, for in the multitude of the days thou shalt find it. (This passage is usually taken as an exhortation to liberality. Hengstenberg however understands it to refer to ships and their cargo of grain. ♦Zöckler refers to Proverbs xi. 24 for a similar sentiment, and Luke xvi. 9; the idea is clearly that of an unexpected return).

(2.) Give a portion to seven, and also to eight (see Job v. 19, Micah v. 4 (5), for similar idioms; it is equivalent to our ‘everybody, and some one else’), for not dost thou know what shall be mischief upon the earth.

(3.) If they are full the clouds (עב is the thick vapour that appears and disappears) rain (גשם is the storm rain which does mischief or good according to circumstances, see chapter xii. 2) they cause to empty (clouds do not always prognosticate rain; and even if they should, a storm may do mischief rather than good); and if is falling a tree in the south, or if either in the north (‘if’ is hence emphatic) the place where may fall (contracted relative) the tree (now with the article, for it is the falling tree spoken of above) there it will be (the unusual form יהוא has troubled the commentators much: Moses Stuart pronounces the א to be otiose, which is not explaining the form at all. But may not the following be a sufficient explanation?——הוא in this book is used in the sense of the existence of an object: might not Koheleth coin a verb by adding the י of the present tense, with the idea, ‘makes itself be’?——compare also Joshua x. 24, Isaiah xxiii. 12, where this otiose א occurs; the rendering of the LXX. by ἔσται shows how they understood it, and so also the Syriac and Vulgate. The whole sentence is ironical, when the tree has really fallen, then we know which way it fell. The Masoretic accentuation of this passage is peculiar——we should naturally have expected them to have divided the verse into two clauses, at יריקו, ‘they empty,’ instead of which the greatest pause occurs at ‘north’ בַּצָּפ֑וֹן, but this method of reading renders the irony of the passage; the verse will then stand thus:——‘If the clouds are full of rain they will empty themselves upon the earth, and so if the tree should incline to the south, or if it should incline to the north——the place where it falls is where it really will be.’ The accentuation is rhetorical rather than logical, and the Masorets have shown great taste in their pointing).

(4.) Regarding wind! not does one sow (impersonal), and looking into clouds neither is one reaping (we must attend to the precise form of the words in this sentence in order to gather the true nature of the sarcasm hidden in it; the LXX. have clearly marked these forms in their rendering).

(5.) As thou art not one who knows what is the way of the spirit, like the bones in the womb of the pregnant, just so, thou dost not know, with respect to the working of the Deity, Who is He that (full relative) performs with regard to the whole. (The LXX. render the first part ἐν οἷς οὐκ ἔστιν γινώσκων, ‘among whom none knows,’ taking no notice of the pronoun thou. Did they read the כ at the end of אינך as beginning the following word? That the sentence is equivocal, and that this equivoke helps the general drift of the passage is not to be doubted.) The subject now returns to the previous train of argument, which directs man to do his duty in submission to the inscrutable ways of Providence.

(6.) In the morning sow thy seed (with את, ‘sow that seed which you ought to sow,’) and to the evening (note the change of preposition, it renders this passage a better introduction to what is to follow: there is a reference to the evening of life) do not withhold thy hand (compare chapter vii. 18, where את is used with this verb, and observe the difference in meaning), for it is not thou who knowest (a repetition of this clause from the preceding verse) whether (but compare 1 Kings xxii. 24, and 1 Samuel ix. 18, showing that the meaning with זה is ‘what way’ or ‘how,’) succeeds (see chapter x. 10 and references) the this or this, or if both of them as one (ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό ‘to the same,’ LXX.) good (plural; sowing is no doubt taken generically as a type of human labour, performed in expectation of a future harvest, and the Preacher directs us to do our appointed work in patience, and from morning till evening, i.e. the whole day through, sure of a good result. The morning or the evening sowing will, one or other, perhaps both, succeed; the transition to what follows is quite natural).

(7.) And sweet (but the participial form ‘sweetened’ is not to be altogether overlooked; thus, ‘is sweetened’) the light, and a good to the eyes to behold (i.e. to have sight of) the sun, (for life is a blessing, and this is a reply to the equivocal ‘I said in my heart’ of chapter iii. 18 and iv. 3).

(8.) For if the years are many (that is, if his years are as long as they can be) the man (humanity generally) in all of them rejoices (but as the noun stands before the verb, it is emphatic, and in this case, as the verb is preceded by בכלם, is potential——‘may rejoice’), and remembers with regard to days of darkness (that is, forgetfulness, the days when he is forgotten, and also of sorrow or sadness, for both meanings are combined) for the many (repeating the above, with the sense, then, ‘for very many also,’) will they be, all which may come (‘every coming event’ that is, as the contracted relative shows) is vanity (evanescent).

(10.) And put away disappointment (כעס, chapter i. 18, references) from thy heart, and pass away evil from thy flesh; because the producings and the dawnings (שחרות occurs here only; for the meaning of the root see Job vii. 21, Psalms lxxviii. 34, Proverbs xiii. 24. So the meaning of the word here is ‘early seekings,’ which the LXX. render ad sensum by ἡ ἄνοια, ‘the ignorance;’ and the Syriac by ‘because childhood and not to know’) is vanity (singular; ‘each one is so,’ as a plural precedes). That the passage is ironical we cannot doubt, but it is good advice, even the very best, as it stands. Youth is the time of choice, the time of productions, or, if one will——and the expression will preserve an equivoke similar to that in the text——conception; but this time is evanescent. We choose our path in life when young, but then we cannot go back. He who changes his calling once rarely succeeds in it, and never if he chooses twice.