that the suff. of : b refers to the young upstart: in the kingdom which should afterwards become his; for this reason, that the suff. of תח, Ecc 4:16, refers to the old king, and thus also that this designation may be mediated, בם must refer to him. מלכות signifies kingdom, reign, realm; here, the realm, as at Neh 9:35, Dan 5:11; 6:29. Grätz thinks Ecc 4:13-16 ought to drive expositors to despair. But hitherto we have found no room for despair in obtaining a meaning from them. What follows also does not perplex us. The author describes how all the world hails the entrance of the new youthful king on his government, and gathers together under his sceptre.
Verses 15-16
Ecc 4:15-16 “I saw all the living which walk under the sun on the side of the youth, the second who shall enter upon the place of the former: no end of all the people, all those at whose head he stands.” The author, by the expression “I saw,” places himself back in the time of the change of government. If we suppose that he represents this to himself in a lively manner, then the words are to be translated: of the second who shall be his successor; but if we suppose that he seeks to express from the standpoint of the past that which, lying farther back in the past, was now for the first time future, then the future represents the time to come in the past, as at 2Ki 3:27; Psa 78:6; Job 15:28 (Hitz.): of the second who should enter on his place (עמד, to step to, to step forth, of the new king, Dan 8:23; Dan 11:2.; cf. קוּם, 1Ki 8:20). The designation of the crowd which, as the pregnant עם expresses, gathered by the side of the young successor to the old king, by “all the living, those walking under the sun (המה, perhaps intentionally the pathetic word for הלכים, Isa 42; 5),),” would remain a hyperbole, even although the throne of the Asiatic world-ruler had been intended; still the expression, so absolute in its universality, would in that case be more natural (vid., the conjectural reference to Cyrus and Astygates). השּׁני, Ewald refers to the successor to the king, the second after the king, and translates: “to the second man who should reign in his stead;” but the second man in this sense has certainly never been the child of fortune; one must then think of Joseph, who, however, remains the second man. Hitzig rightly: “The youth is the second שׁני, not אחר, in contrast to the king, who, as his predecessor, is the first.” “Yet,” he continues, “הילד should be the appos. and השׁני the principal word,” i.e., instead of: with the second youth, was to be expected: with the second, the youth. It is
