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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 7:20 - 7:20
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“For among men there is not a righteous man on the earth, who doeth good, and sinneth not.” The original passage, found in Solomon's prayer at the consecration of the temple, is briefer, 1Ki 8:46 : “There is no man who sinneth not.” Here the words might be וגו צַדִּיק אָדָם אֵין, there is no righteous man ... . Adam stands here as representing the species, as when we say in Germ.: Menschen gibt es keine gerechten auf Erden [men, there are none righteous on earth]; cf. Exo 5:16 : “Straw, none was given.” The verification of Ecc 7:19 by reference to the fact of the common sinfulness from which even the most righteous cannot free himself, does not contradict all expectation to the same degree as the ki in Ecc 7:7; but yet it surprises us, so that Mercer and Grätz, with Aben Ezra, take Ecc 7:20 as the verification of Ecc 7:16, here first adduced, and Knobel and Heiligst. and others connect it with Ecc 7:21, Ecc 7:22, translating: “Because there is not a just man ... , therefore it is also the part of wisdom to take no heed unto all words,” etc. But these are all forced interpretations; instead of the latter, we would rather suppose that Ecc 7:20 originally stood after Ecc 7:22, and is separated from its correct place. But yet the sequence of thought lying before us may be conceived, and that not merely as of necessity, but as that which was intended by the author. On the whole, Hitzig is correct: “For every one, even the wise man, sins; in which case virtue, which has forsaken him, does not protect him, but wisdom proves itself as his means of defence.” Zöckler adds: “against the judicial justice of God;” but one escapes from this by a penitent appeal to grace, for which there is no need for the personal property of wisdom; there is thus reason rather for thinking on the dangerous consequences which often a single false step has for a man in other respects moral; in the threatening complications in which he is thereby involved, it is wisdom which then protects him and delivers him. Otherwise Tyler, who by the עֹז, which the wise has in wisdom, understands power over evil, which is always moving itself even in the righteous. But the sinning spoken of in Ecc 7:20 is that which is unavoidable, which even wisdom cannot prevent or make inefficacious. On the contrary, it knows how to prevent the destruction which threatens man from his transgressions, and to remove the difficulties and derangements which thence arise. The good counsel following is connected by gam with the foregoing. The exhortation to strive after wisdom, contained in Ecc 7:19, which affords protection against the evil effects of the failures which run through the life of the righteous, is followed by the exhortation, that one conscious that he himself is not free from transgression, should take heed to avoid that tale-bearing which finds pleasure in exposing to view the shortcomings of others.