against their will to depart from the place which they love (Psa 26:8; Psa 84:2.). They must go forth (whither, is not said, but probably into a foreign country; cf. Amo 7:17), and only too soon are they forgotten in the city, viz., the holy city; a younger generation knows nothing more of them, and not even a gravestone brings them back to the memory of their people. Also this is a vanity, like the many others already registered - this, viz., that the wicked while living, and also in their death, possess the sacred native soil; while, on the contrary the upright are constrained to depart from it, and are soon forgotten. Divine rectitude is herein missed. Certainly it exists, and is also recognised, but it does not show itself always when we should expect it, nor so soon as appears to us to be salutary.
Verse 11
Ecc 8:11 “Because judgment against the work of the wicked man is not speedily executed, for this reason the heart of the children of men is full within them, to this, that they do evil.” The clause with asher is connected first with the foregoing äæ־îâ havel: thus vain, after the nature of a perverted world (inversus ordo) events go on, because ... (asher, as at Ecc 4:3; Ecc 6:12; cf. Deu 3:24); but the following clause with 'al-ken makes this clause with asher reflex. an antecedent of itself (asher = 'al-asher) - originally it is not meant as an antecedent.פּתגם[1] (here to be written after נעשׂה, with פ raph., and, besides, also with ג raph.), in the post-exilian books, is the Persian paigam, Armen. patgam, which is derived from the ancient Pers. paiti-gama: “Something that has happened, tidings, news.” The Heb. has adopted the word in the general sense of “sentence;” in the passage before us it signifies the saying or sentence of the judge, as the Pers. word, like the Arab. nabazn, is used principally of the sayings of a prophet (who is called peighâm-bar). Zirkel regards it as the Greek φθέγμα; but thus, also, the words אזמל, אפּריון strangely agree in sound with σμίλη φορεῖον, without being borrowed from the Greek. The long a of the word is, as Elst. shows, Eccl 1:20, invariable; also here פּתגם is the constr. To point פּתגם, with Heiligst. and Burg., is thus unwarrantable. It is more remarkable that the word is construed fem. instead of mas. For since אין is construed[2] neither in the bibl. nor in the Mishnic
- ↑ With ג raph. in H. P. and the older edd., as also Est 1:20; Dan 3:16. Thus also the punctuator Jekuthiél in his En hakore to Est 1:20.
- ↑ Ginsburg points in favour of נעשׂה as fin. to Exo 3:2, but there אכּל is particip.; to Jer 38:5, but there יוּכל (if it is not to be read יכול) represents an attributive clause; and to Job 35:15, but there the word is rightly pointed אין, not אין; and this, like the vulg. Arab. laysa, is used as an emphatic לא.
