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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 5:12 - 5:12
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He can also eat that which is good, and can eat much; but he does not on that account sleep more quietly than the labourer who lives from hand to mouth: “Sweet is the sleep of the labourer, whether he eats little or much; but, on the contrary, the abundance of the rich does not permit him to sleep.” The lxx, instead of “labourer,” uses the word “slave” (δούλου), as if the original were הָעֶבֶד. But, as a rule, sound sleep is the reward of earnest labour; and since there are idle servants as well as active masters, there is no privilege to servants. The Venet. renders rightly by “of the husbandman” (ἐργάτου), the האֲדָמָה עֹבֵד; the “labourer” in general is called עָמֵל, Ecc 4:8 and Jdg 5:26, post-bibl. פֹּעֵל. The labourer enjoys sweet, i.e., refreshing, sound sleep, whether his fare be abundant of scanty - the labour rewards him by sweet sleep, notwithstanding his poverty; while, on the contrary, the sleep of the rich is hindered and disturbed by his abundance, not: by his satiety, viz., repletion, as Jerome remarks: incocto cibo in stomachi angustiis aestuante; for the labourer also, if he eats much, eats his fill; and why should sufficiency have a different result in the one from what is has in the other? As שָׂבָע means satiety, not over-satiety; so, on the other hand, it means, objectively, sufficient and plentifully existing fulness to meet the wants of man, Pro 3:10, and the word is meant thus objectively here: the fulness of possession which the rich has at his disposal does not permit him to sleep, for all kinds of projects, cares, anxieties regarding it rise within him, which follow him into the night, and do not suffer his mind to be at rest, which is a condition of sleep. The expression הַשָּׂ לֶעָ is the circumlocutio of the genit. relation, like לב ... חל, Rth 2:3; נע ... אם (lxx Αμνὼν τῆσ ̓Αχινόαμ), 2Sa 3:2. Heiligstedt remarks that it stands for שְׂבַע העשׁיר; but the nouns צָמָא, רָעַב ,צָמָא snuon, שָׂבָע form no const., for which reason the circumloc. was necessary; שְׂבַע is the constr. of שָׂבֵעַ. Falsely, Ginsburg: “aber der Ueberfluss den Reichen - er lässt ihn nicht schlafen” but superabundance the rich - it doth not suffer him to sleep; but this construction is neither in accordance with the genius of the German nor of the Heb. language. Only the subject is resumed in אֵינֶנּוּ (as in Ecc 1:7); the construction of הֵנִיחַ is as at 1Ch 16:21; cf. Psa 105:14. Of the two Hiphil forms, the properly Heb. הֵנִיחַ and the Aramaizing הִנִּיחַ, the latter is used in the weakened meaning of ἐᾶν, sinere.
After showing that riches bring to their possessor no real gain, but, instead of that, dispeace, care, and unrest, the author records as a great evil the loss, sometimes suddenly, of wealth carefully amassed.