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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 2:25 - 2:25
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“For who can eat, and who can have enjoyment, without [= except from Him?]” Also here the traditional text is tenable: we have to read ממנו חוץ, after the lxx (which Jerome follows in his Comm.) and the Syr. If we adopt the text as it lies before us, then the meaning would be, as given by Gumpel,
(Note: Vid., regarding his noteworthy Comm. on Koheleth, my Jesurun, pp. 183 and 195. The author bears the name among Christians of Professor Levisohn.)
and thus translated by Jerome: Quis ita devorabit et deliciis effluet ut ego? But (1) the question thus understood would require מִמֶּנִּי יוֹתֵר, which Gumpel and others silently substitute in place of חוץ ם; (2) this question, in which the king adjudicates to himself an unparalleled right to eat and to enjoy himself, would stand out of connection with that which precedes and follows.
Even though with Ginsburg, after Rashi, Aben Ezra, and Rashbam, we find in Ecc 2:25 the thought that the labourer has the first and nearest title to the enjoyment of the fruit of his labour (חוץ ם thus exemplif. as Ecc 4:8, ע ... למי), the continuation with כִּי, Ecc 2:26, is unsuitable; for the natural sequence of the thoughts would then be this: But the enjoyment, far from being connected with the labour as its self-consequence and fruit, is a gift of God, which He gives to one and withholds from another. If we read מִמֶּנּוּ, then the sequence of the thoughts wants nothing in syllogistic exactness. חוּשׁ .ssen here has nothing in common with חוּשׁ = Arab. ḥât, to proceed with a violent, impetuous motion, but, as at Job 20:2, is = Arab. ḥss, stringere (whence hiss, a sensible impression); the experience here meant is one mediated by means of a pleasant external enjoyment. The lxx, Theod., and Syr. translate: (and who can) drink, which Ewald approves of, for he compares (Arab.) ḥasa (inf. ḥasy), to drink, to sip. But this Arab. verb is unheard of in Heb.; with right, Heiligst. adheres to the Arab., and at the same time the modern Heb. ḥass, חושׁ, sentire, according to which Schultens, quis sensibus indulserit. ממנו חוּץ is not = ולא ם, “except from him” (Hitz., Zöckl.), but מן חוץ together mean “except;” cf. e.g., the Mishnic לאמנה וחוץ לם, beyond the time and place suitable for the thank-offering, חוץ מאחד מהם, excepting one of the same, Menachoth vii. 3, for which the old Heb. would in the first case use בלא, and in the second זולא or מִן לבַד (= Aram. מִן בַּר) (vid., p. 637). Accordingly ממנו חוץ means practer cum (Deum), i.e., unless he will it and make it possible, Old Heb. מִבַּ, Gen 41:44.
In enjoyment man is not free, it depends not on his own will: labour and the enjoyment of it do not stand in a necessary connection; but enjoyment is a gift which God imparts, according as He regards man as good, or as a sinner.