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also are such words as 'allamat, greatly learned man; also khalyfaton, which is by no means an inf. noun, like the Heb. חליפה, but is the fem. of the verbal adj. khalyf, successor, representative. The Arabic grammarians say that the fem. termination gives to the idea, if possible, a collective signification, e.g., jarrar, the puller, i.e., the drawer of a ship (Helciarius), and jarrarat, the multitude drawing, the company (taife) drawing the boat up the stream; or it also serves “as an exhaustive designation of the properties of the genus;” so that, e.g., ‛allamat means one who unites in himself that which is peculiar to the very learned, and represents in his own person a plurality of very learned men. They also say that the fem. termination serves in such cases to strengthen the idea. But how can this strengthening result from a change in the gender? Without doubt the fem. in such cases discharges the function of a neut.; and since doctissimus is heightened to doctissimum, it is thereby implied that such an one is a pattern of a learned man-the reality of the idea, or the realized ideal of such an one.
From these Arab. analogues respecting the import of the name Koheleth, it follows that the fem. is not to be referred to Chokma in such a way as that Solomon might be thereby designated as the representative, and, as it were, the incarnation of wisdom (Ewald, Hitzig, etc.), - an idea which the book by no means supports; for it the author had designed, in conformity with that signification of the name, to let Wisdom herself speak through Solomon's mouth, he would have let him speak as the author of Prov 1-9 speaks when he addresses the reader by the title, “my son,” he would not have put expressions in his mouth such as Pro 1:16-18; Pro 7:23. One should not appeal to Ecc 7:27; for there, where the subject is the dangers of the love of women, Koheleth, in the sense of Wisdom preaching, is as little appropriate as elsewhere; just here as the masculine gender of the speaker to be accented, and Amrah Koheleth is thus an incorrect reading for Amar HakKoheleth (Ecc 12:8). The name Koheleth, without Chokma being supplied, is a man's name, of such recent formation as Sophereth, Neh 7:5, for which Ezr 2:55, Hassophereth; cf. also Ezr 2:57, 'פּך הץ. The Mishna goes yet further in the coining of such names for men generis fem. As it generally prefers to use the part. passivi in an active sense, e.g., סבוּר, thinking; רכוּב, riding; שׁתוּי, having drunk; so also it forms fem. plurals with a masculine signification, - as Hadruchoth, press-treaders, Terumoth iii. 4; Hammeshuhhoth, surveyors, Erubin iv. 11; Halleuzoth, speakers in a foreign tongue, Megilla ii. 1, - and construes these