- rupt or mutilated. Bickell thinks that it must originally have
run somewhat as follows:—
There was no end of all the people, even of all those who [applauded
him and cast reproaches on the old king. For because he
had despised the counsel of the prudent, to rule foolishly and to
oppress the people, therefore they hated him, even as those had
hated him] who were before them; they also that came afterwards
did not rejoice in him.
At this point the ideal autobiography of Koheleth is interrupted.
From v. 1 (= iv. 17 in the Hebrew) to vii. 14 we
are presented with a mixture of proverbial sayings (such
perhaps as Koheleth was continually framing and depositing
in his note-books) and records of the wise man's personal experience.
Notice especially the reappearance of the old
Israelitish instinctive sympathy with husbandmen (or, shall I
say, with yeomen) in ver. 9. Both proverbs and personal
records are the offspring of different moods, and therefore not
always consistent. Thus at one time our author repeats his
preference of sensuous enjoyment to any other mode of passing
one's life.
For (then) he will not think much on the (few) days of his life,
because God responds to the joy of his heart (v. 20).
But the writer is too pessimistic to rest long in this thought.
It is a 'common evil among men' to have riches without the
full enjoyment of them: 'better an untimely birth,' he cries,
than to be in such a case (vi. 3). Note here in passing the
fondness of our author for using a comparison in expressing
an emphatic judgment (comp. iv. 9-16, vii. 1-8). Better, he
continues, is a momentary experience of real happiness than
to let the desire wander after unattainable ends. 'There are
many things that increase vanity;' with the reserve of good
taste, he understates his meaning, for what human object, according
to Koheleth, is not futile? That gift which to the
Christian is so wondrously fair—the gift of life—to him becomes
'the numbered days of his life of vanity;' and 'who
knows what is good for man in life, which he spends as a
shadow? For who can tell a man what shall be after him
