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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 12:6 - 12:6
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A third 'ad asher lo now follows (cf. Ecc 5:1-2); the first placed the old man in view, with his désagrément in general; the second described in detail his bodily weaknesses, presenting themselves as forerunners of death; the third brings to view the dissolution of the life of the body, by which the separation of the soul and the body, and the return of both to their original condition is completed. “Ere the silver cord is loosed, and the golden bowl is shattered, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel is shattered in the well, and the dust returns to the earth as that which it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” Before entering into the contents of these verses, we shall consider the form in which some of the words are presented. The Chethı̂b ירחק we readily let drop, for in any case it must be said that the silver cord is put out of action; and this word, whether we read it יֵרְחֵק or יֵרָחֵק (Venet. μακρυνθῇ), is too indefinite, and, supposing that by the silver cord a component part of the body is meant, even inappropriate, since the organs which cease to perform their functions are not removed away from the dead body, but remain in it when dead. But the Keri יֵרָתֵק (“is unbound”) has also its difficulty. The verb רָתַק signifies to bind together, to chain; the bibl. Heb. uses it of the binding of prisoners, Nah 3:18, cf. Isa 40:19; the post-bibl. Heb. of binding = shutting up (contrast of פתח, Pesikta, ed. Buber, 176a, whence Mezia 107b, שורא וריתקא, a wall and enclosure); the Arab. of shutting up and closing a hole, rent, split (e.g., murtatiḳ, a plant with its flower-buds as yet shut up; rutûḳ, inaccessibleness). The Targumist
(Note: Similarly the lxx understands ונרץ, καὶ συντροχάσῃ (i.e., as Jerome in his Comm. explains: si fuerit in suo funiculo convoluta), which is impossible.)
accordingly understands יֵרָתֵק of binding = lameness (palsy); Rashi and Aben Ezra, of shrivelling; this may be possible, however, for נִרְתַּק, used of a “cord,” the meaning that first presents itself, is “to be firmly bound;” but this affords no appropriate sense, and we have therefore to give to the Niph. the contrasted meaning of setting free, discatenare (Parchon, Kimchi); this, however, is not justified by examples, for a privat. Niph. is unexampled, Ewald, §121e; נִלְבַּב, Job 11:12, does not mean to be deprived of heart (understanding), but to gain heart (understanding). Since, however, we still need here the idea of setting loose or tearing asunder (lxx ἀνατραπῇ; Symm. κοπῆναι; Syr. נתפסק, from פְּסַק, abscindere; Jerome, rumpatur), we have only the choice of interpreting yērathēq either, in spite of the appearance to the contrary, in the meaning of constingitur, of a violent drawing together of the cord stretched out lengthwise; or, with Pfannkuche, Gesen., Ewald, to read יִנָּתֵק (“is torn asunder”), which one expects, after Isa 33:20; cf. Jdg 16:9; Jer 10:20. Hitzig reaches the same, for he explains יֵרָחֵק = יֵחָרֵק, from (Arab.) kharaḳ, to tear asunder (of the sound of the tearing);
(Note: Vid., my treatise, Psyciol. u. Musik, u.s.w., p. 31.)
and Böttcher, by adopting the reading יֵחָרֵק; but without any support in Heb. and Chald. usus loq.
נֻּלָּה, which is applied to the second figure, is certainly
(Note: The lxx, unsuitably, τὸ ἀνθέμιον, which, per synecdochen partis pro toto, signifies the capital (of a pillar). Thus, perhaps, also are meant Symm. τὸ περιφερές, Jerome vitta, Venet. τὸ στέφος, and the Syr. “apple.” Among the Arabs, this ornament on the capital is called tabaryz (“prominence”).)
a vessel of a round form (from גָּלַל, to roll, revolve round), like the נֻּלָּה which received the oil and conducted it to the seven lamps of the candlestick in Zec 4:1-14; but to understand וְתָרֻץ of the running out of the oil not expressly named (Luther: “and the golden fountain runs out”) would be contrary to the usus loq.; it is the metapl. form for וְתָרֹץ, et confringitur, as יָרוּץ, Isa 42:4, for יָרֹץ, from רָצַץ, cogn. רעע, Psa 2:9, whence נָרֹץ, Ecc 12:6, the regularly formed Niph. (the fut. of which, תֵּרוֹץ, Eze 29:7). We said that oil is not expressly named. But perhaps it is meant by הַזָּהָב. The gullah above the candlestick which Zechariah saw was, according to Zec 4:12, provided with two golden pipes, in which were two olive trees standing on either side, which sunk therein the tuft-like end of their branches, of which it is said that they emptied out of themselves hazzahav into the oil vessels. Here it is manifest that hazzahav means, in the one instance, the precious metal of which the pipes are formed; and in the other, the fluid gold of the oil contained in the olive branches. Accordingly, Hitzig understands gullath hazzahav here also; for he takes gullah as a figure of the body, the golden oil as a figure of the soul, and the silver cord as a figure of vital energy.
Thus, with Hitz., understanding gullath hazzahav after the passage in Zechariah, I have correctly represented the meaning of the figures in my Psychol. p. 228, as follows: - “The silver cord = the soul directing and bearing the body as living; the lamp hanging by this silver cord = the body animated by the soul, and dependent on it; the golden oil = the spirit, of which it is said, Pro 20:27, that it is a lamp of God.” I think that this interpretation of the golden oil commends itself in preference to Zöckler's interpretation, which is adopted by Dächsel, of the precious fluidum of the blood; for if hazzahav is a metaphorical designation of oil, we have to think of it as the material for burning and light; but the principle of bright life in man is the spirit (ruahh hhayim or nishmath hhayim); and in the passage in Zechariah also, oil, which makes the candlestick give light, is a figure of the spirit (Ecc 12:6, ki im-beruhhi). But, as one may also suppose, it is not probable that here, with the same genit. connection, הכסף is to be understood of the material and the quality; and hazzqahav, on the contrary, of the contents. A golden vessel is, according to its most natural meaning, a vessel which is made of gold, thus a vessel of a precious kind. A golden vessel cannot certainly be broken in pieces, but we need not therefore understand an earthenware vessel only gilded, as by a silver cord is to be understood only that which has a silver line running through it (Gesen. in the Thes.); רָצוּץ may also denote that which is violently crushed or broken, Isa 42:3; cf. Jdg 9:53. If gullath hazzahav, however, designates a golden vessel, the reference of the figure to the body, and at the same time of the silver cord to the vital energy or the soul, is then excluded, - for that which animates stands yet above that which is animated, - the two metallic figures in this their distribution cannot be comprehended in this reference. We have thus to ask, since gullath hazzahav is not the body itself: What in the human body is compared to a silver cord and to a golden vessel? What, moreover, to a pitcher at the fountain, and to a wheel or a windlass? Winzer settles this question by finding in the two double figures only in general the thoughts represented: antequam vita ex tenui quasi filo suspensa pereat, and (which is essentially the same) antequam machina corporis destruatur.
Gurlitt also protests against the allegorical explanation of the details, but he cannot refrain from interpreting more specially than Winzer. Two momenta, he says, there are which, when a man dies, in the most impressive way present themselves to view: the extinction of consciousness, and the perfect cessation, complete ruin, of the bodily organism. The extinction of consciousness is figuratively represented by the golden lamp, which is hung up by a silver cord in the midst of a house or tent, and now, since the cord which holds it is broken, it falls down and is shattered to pieces, so that there is at once deep darkness; the destruction of the bodily organism, by a fountain, at which the essential parts of its machinery, the pitcher and windlass, are broken and rendered for ever useless. This interpretation of Gurlitt's affords sufficient support to the expectation of the allegorical meaning with which we approached Ecc 12:6; and we would be satisfied therewith, if one of the figures did not oppose us, without seeking long for a more special allegorical meaning: the pitcher at the fountain or well (כַּד, not הַכַּד, because determined by 'al-hammabu'a) is without doubt the heart which beats to the last breath of the dying man, which is likened to a pitcher which, without intermission, receives and again sends forth the blood. That the blood flows through the body like living water is a fact cognizable and perceptible without the knowledge of its course; fountain (מקור) and blood appear also elsewhere as associated ideas, Lev 12:7; and nishbar, as here vetishshaběr, into a state of death, or near to death, Jer 23:9; Psa 69:21. From this gullath hazzahav must also have a special allegorical sense; and if, as Gurlitt supposes, the golden vessel that is about to be destroyed is a figure of the perishing self-consciousness (whereby it is always doubtful that, with this interpretation, the characteristic feature of light in the figure is wanting), then it is natural to go further, and to understand the golden vessel directly of the head of a man, and to compare the breaking of the skull, Jdg 9:53, expressed by vataritz eth-gulgolto, with the words here before us, vatharutz gullath hazzahav; perhaps by gullath the author thought of the cogn. - both as to root and meaning - גלגלת; but, besides, the comparison of the head, the bones of which form an oval bowl, with gullath is of itself also natural. It is true that, according to the ancient view, not the head, but the heart, is the seat of the life of the spirit; “in the heart, Ephrem said (Opp. Syr. ii. 316), the thinking spirit (shuschobo) acts as in its palace;” and the understanding, the Arabians
(Note: Vid., Noldeke's Poesien d. alten Araber, p. 190.)
also say, sits in the heart, and thus between the ribs. Everything by which בשׂר and נפשׁ is affected - thus, briefly formulated, the older bibl. idea - comes in the לב into the light of consciousness. But the Book of Koheleth belongs to a time in which spiritual-psychical actions began to be placed in mediate causal relation with the head; the Book of Daniel represents this newer mode of conception, Dan 2:28; Dan 4:2; Dan 7:10, Dan 7:15. The image of the monarchies seen in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Dan 2:32, Dan 2:28, had a golden head; the head is described as golden, as it is the membrum praecipuum of the human body; it is compared to gold as to that which is most precious, as, on the other hand, ראשׁ is used as a metaphorical designation of that which is most precious. The breaking to pieces of the head, the death-blow which it receives, shows itself in this, that he who is sick unto death is unable to hold his head erect, that it sinks down against his will according to the law of gravity; as also in this, that the countenance assumes the aspect which we designate the facies hippocratica, and that feeling is gradually destroyed; but, above all, that is thought of which Ovid says of one who was dying: et resupinus humum moribundo vertice pulsat.
If we now further inquire regarding the meaning of the silver cord, nothing can obviously be meant by it which is locally above the golden bowl which would be hanging under it; also הכסף גלת itself certainly admits no such literal antitype, - the concavity of the גלגלת is below, and that of a גלה, on the other hand, is above. The silver cord will be found if a component part of the structure of the body is pointed to, which stands in a mutually related connection with the head and the brain, the rending asunder of which brings death with it. Now, as is well known, dying finally always depends on the brain and the upper spinal marrow; and the ancients already interpreted the silver cord of the spinal marrow, which is called by a figure terminologically related to the silver cord, חוּט הַשְּׂדֵרָה (the spinal cord), and as a cord-like lengthening of the brain into the spinal channel could not be more appropriately named; the centre is grey, but the external coating is white. We do not, however, maintain that hakkěsěph points to the white colour; but the spinal marrow is related, in the matter of its value for the life of man, to the brain as silver is to gold. Since not a violent but a natural death is the subject, the fatal stroke that falls on the spinal marrow is not some kind of mechanical injury, but, according as יֵרָתֵק is unbound is explained or is changed into יִנָּתֵק is torn asunder, is to be thought of either as constriction = shrinking together, consuming away, exhaustion; or as unchanging = paralysis or disabling; or as tearing asunder = destruction of the connection of the individual parts. The emendation ינתק most commends itself; it remains, however, possible that ינתק is meant in the sense of morbid contraction (vid., Rashi); at any rate, the fate of the גלה is the consequence of the fate of the חבל, which carries and holds the gullah, and does not break without at the same time bringing destruction on it; as also the brain and the spinal marrow stand in a relation of solidarity to each other, and the head receives
(Note: Many interpreters (lately Ewald, Hengst., Zöckl., Taylor, and others) understand the silver cord of the thread of life; the spinal marrow is, without any figure, this thread of life itself.)
from the spinal marrow (as distinguished from the so-called prolonged marrow) the death-stroke. As the silver cord and the bowl, so the pitcher and the well and the wheel stand in interchangeable relation to each other.
We do not say: the wheel at the fountain, as is translated by Hitz., Ewald, and others; for (1) the fountain is called בְּאֵר, not בּוֹר (בֹאר), which, according to the usage (vid., Hitz. under Jer 7:9), signifies a pit;, and particularly a hole, for holding water, a cistern, reservoir; but for this there was no need for a wheel, and it is also excluded by that which had to be represented; (2) the expression galgal ěl-habor is purposely not used, but hagalgal ěl-habor, that we may not take ěl-habor as virtual adj. to galgal (the wheel being at the בור), but as the designation of the place into which the wheel falls when it is shattered. Rightly, the lxx renders 'al-hammabu'a by ἐπὶ τῇ πηγῇ, and el-habor by ἐπὶ τὸν λάκκον. The figure of a well (mabbu'a) formed by means of digging, and thus deep, is artistically conceived; out of this the water is drawn by means of a pitcher (כַּד, Gen 24:14, a word as curiously according with the Greek κάδος as those mentioned in pp. 505 and 552, whence Arab. kadd, to exhaust, to pitcher-out, as it were; syn. דְּלִי, a vessel for drawing out water; Assyr. di-lu, the zodiacal sign of the water-carrier), and to facilitate this there is a wheel or windlass placed above (Syr. gilgla devira), by which a rope is wound up and down (vid., Smith's Bibl. Dict. under “well”).
(Note: Wetzstein remarks, that it is translated by “cylinder” better than by “wheel,” since the galgal is here not at a river, but over a draw-well.)
The Midrash refers to the deep draw-well of the hill town of Sepporis, which was supplied with such rollers serving as a pulley (polyspast). Wheel and pitcher stand in as close mutual relation as air and blood, which come into contact in the lungs. The wheel is the figure of the breathing organ, which expands and contracts (winds and unwinds) itself like a draw-rope by its inhaling and exhaling breath. The throat, as the organ of respiration and speech, is called גָּרוֹן (Psa 115:7) and גַּרְגְּוֹת (vid., under Pro 1:9), from גָּרָה or גָּרַר to draw, σπᾶν (τὸν ἀέρα, Wisd. 7:3). When this wheel makes its last laborious revolution, there is heard the death-rattle. There is a peculiar rattling sound, which they who once hear it never forget, when the wheel swings to an end-the so-called choking rheum, which consists in this, that the secretion which the dying cannot cough up moves up and down in the air-passage, and finally chokes him. When thus the breathings become always weaker, and sometimes are interrupted for a minute, and at last cease altogether, there takes place what is here designated as the breaking to pieces of the wheel in the pit within - the life is extinguished, he who has breathed his last will be laid as a corpse in the grave (בּוֹר, Psa 28:1, and frequently), the σῶμα has become a πτῶμα (Mar 6:29; cf. Num 14:32). The dust, i.e., the dust of which the body was formed, goes back to the earth again like as it was (originally dust), and the spirit returns to God who gave it. וְיָשֹׁב subordinates itself to the 'ad asher lo, also in the form as subjunct.; the interchange of the full and the abbreviated forms occurs, however, elsewhere is the indic. sense, e.g., Job 13:27; Ewald, §343b. Shuv 'al occurs also at 2Ch 30:9; and אֶל and עַל interchange without distinction in the more modern language; but here, as also at Ecc 12:6, not without intention, the way downwards is to be distinguished from the way upwards (cf. Ecc 3:21). כְּשֶׁהֶיָה is = כַּאֲשֶׁר הָיָה, instar ejus quod fuit. The body returns to the dust from which it was taken, Gen 3:19, to the dust of its original material, Psa 104:29; and the spirit goes back to the God of its origin, to whom it belongs.
We have purposely not interrupted our interpretation of the enigmatical figures of Ecc 12:6 by the citation and criticism of diverging views, and content ourselves here with a specification of the oldest expositions. The interpretation of Shabbath 152a does not extend to Ecc 12:6. The Midrash says of the silver cord: זו חוט השדרה (as later, Rashi, Aben Ezra, and many others), of the golden vessel: גלגלת זו (as we), and it now adds only more in jest: “the throat which swallows up the gold and lets the silver run through.” The pitcher becoming leaky must be כרס, the belly, which three days after death is wont to burst. And as for hagalgal, reference is made to the draw-wells of Sepporis; so for el havor, after Job 21:33, to the clods of Tiberias: he lies deep below, “like those clods of the deep-lying Tiberias.” The Targ takes its own way, without following the Midrash, and translates: “before thy tongue [this of חבל] is bound and thou art unable to speak any more, and the brain of thy head [this the גלה] is shattered, and thy gall [= כד] is broken with thy liver [= המבוע], and thy body [= הגלגל] hastens away [נרץ of רוץ] into the grave.” These interpretations have at least historical and linguistic value; they also contain separate correct renderings. A quodlibet of other interpretations
(Note: Geiger in the Deut. Morg. Zeitsch. xxvii. 800, translates Ecc 12:6 arbitrarily: and the stone-lid (גלגל in the sense of the Mish.-Targ. גולל) presses on the grave.)
is found in my Psychol. p. 229, and in Zöckler, ad loc. A principal error in these consists in this, that they read Koheleth as if he had been a disciple of Boerhaave, and Harvey, and other masters. Wunderbar in his Bibl.-Talm. medicin (1850) takes all in earnest, that the author knew already of the nervous system and the circulation of the blood; for, as he himself says, there is nothing new under the sun. As far as concerns my opinion, says Oetinger in his exposition (Sämmt. Schrift. herausg. von Ehmann, IV p. 254), I dare not affirm that Solomon had a knowledge systematis nervolymphatici, as also circuli sanguinis, such as learned physicians now possess; yet I believe that the Holy Spirit spake thus through Solomon, that what in subsequent times was discovered as to these matters might be found under these words. This judgment also goes too far; the figure of death which Koheleth presents contains no anticipation of modern discoveries; yet it is not without its value for the historical development of anthropology, for science and poetry combine in it; it is as true to fact as it is poetically beautiful.
The author has now reached the close. His Koheleth-Solomon has made all earthly things small, and at last remains seated on this dust-heap of vanitas vanitatum. The motto-like saying, Ecc 1:2, is here repeated as a quod erat demonstrandum, like a summary conclusion. The book, artistically constructed in whole and in its parts, comes to a close, rounding itself off as in a circle in the epiphonema: