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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 7:8 - 7:8
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There now follows a fourth, or, taking into account the mutilated one, a fifth proverb of that which is better: “Better the end of a thing than its beginning; better one who forbears than one who is haughty. Hasten thyself not in thy spirit to become angry: for anger lieth down in the bosom of fools.” The clause 8a is first thus to be objectively understood as it stands. It is not without limitation true; for of a matter in itself evil, the very contrary is true, Pro 5:4; Pro 23:32. But if a thing is not in itself evil, the end of its progress, the reaching to its goal, the completion of its destination, is always better than its beginning, which leaves it uncertain whether it will lead to a prosperous issue. An example of this is Solon's saying to Croesus, that only he is to be pronounced happy whose good fortune it is to end his life well in the possession of his wealth (Herod. i. 32).
The proverb Ecc 7:8 will stand in some kind of connection with 8a, since what it says is further continued in Ecc 7:9. In itself, the frequently long and tedious development between the beginning and the end of a thing requires expectant patience. But if it is in the interest of a man to see the matter brought to an issue, an אֶרֶךְ אַףַּ will, notwithstanding, wait with self-control in all quietness for the end; while it lies in the nature of the רוּחַ גְּבַהּ, the haughty, to fret at the delay, and to seek to reach the end by violent means; for the haughty man thinks that everything must at once be subservient to his wish, and he measures what others should do by his own measureless self-complacency. We may with Hitzig translate: “Better is patience (אֶרֶךְ = אֹרֶךְ) than haughtiness” (גְּבַהּ, inf., as שְׁפַל, Ecc 12:4; Pro 16:19). But there exists no reason for this; גְּבַהּ is not to be held, as at Pro 16:5, and elsewhere generally, as the connecting form of גָּבֹהַּ, and so אֶרֶךְ for that of אָרֵךְ; it amounts to the same thing whether the two properties (characters) or the persons possessing them are compared.