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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 8:1 - 8:1
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“Who is like the wise? and who understandeth the interpretation of things? The wisdom of a man maketh his face bright, and the rudeness of his face is changed.” Unlike this saying: “Who is like the wise?” are the formulas חָכָם מִי, Hos 14:9, Jer 11:11, Psa 107:43, which are compared by Hitzig and others. “Who is like the wise?” means: Who is equal to him? and this question, after the scheme מִי־כָמִכָה, Exo 15:11, presents him as one who has not his like among men. Instead of כְּהֶ the word כֶּחָכָם might be used, after לֶחָכָם, Ecc 2:16, etc. The syncope is, as at Eze 40:25, omitted, which frequently occurs, particularly in the more modern books, Eze 47:22; 2Ch 10:7; 2Ch 25:10; 2Ch 29:27; Neh 9:19; Neh 12:38. The regular giving of Dagesh to כְ after מִי, with Jethib, not Mahpach, is as at Ecc 8:7 after כִּי; Jethib is a disjunctive. The second question is not כְּיודע, but יוֹדֵעַ וּמִי, and thus does not mean: who is like the man of understanding, but: who understands, viz., as the wise man does; thus it characterizes the incomparably excellent as such. Many interpreters (Oetinger, Ewald, Hitz., Heiligst., Burg., Elst., Zöckl.) persuade themselves that דָּבָר פֵּשֶׁר is meant of the understanding of the proverb, 8b. The absence of the art., says Hitzig, does not mislead us: of a proverb, viz., the following; but in this manner determinate ideas may be made from all indeterminate ones. Rightly, Gesenius: explicationem ullius rei; better, as at Ecc 7:8 : cujusvis rei. Ginsburg compares נְבוֹן דָּבָר, 1Sa 16:18, which, however, does not mean him who has the knowledge of things, but who is well acquainted with words. It is true that here also the chief idea פֵּשֶׁר first leads to the meaning verbum (according to which the lxx, Jer., the Targ., and Syr. translate; the Venet.: ἑρμηνείαν λόγου); but since the unfolding or explaining (pēshěr) refers to the actual contents of the thing spoken, verbi and rei coincide. The wise man knows how to explain difficult things, to unfold mysterious things; in short, he understands how to go to the foundation of things.
What now follows, Ecc 8:1, might be introduced by the confirming כי, but after the manner of synonymous parallelism it places itself in the same rank with 1a, since, that the wise man stands so high, and no one like him looks through the centre of things, is repeated in another form: “Wisdom maketh his face bright” is thus to be understood after Psa 119:130 and Psa 19:9, wisdom draws the veil from his countenance, and makes it clear; for wisdom is related to folly as light is to darkness, Ecc 2:13. The contrast, יְשֻׁ ... עֹזוְ (“and the rudeness of his face is changed”), shows, however, that not merely the brightening of the countenance, but in general that intellectual and ethical transfiguration of the countenance is meant, in which at once, even though it should not in itself be beautiful, we discover the educated man rising above the common rank. To translate, with Ewald: and the brightness of his countenance is doubled, is untenable; even supposing that יְשֻׁנֶּא can mean, like the Arab. yuthattay, duplicatur, still עֹז, in the meaning of brightness, is in itself, and especially with פָּנָיו, impossible, along with which it is, without doubt, to be understood after az panim, Deu 28:50; Dan 8:23, and hē'ēz panim, Pro 7:13, or bephanim, Pro 21:29, so that thus פנים עֹז has the same meaning as the post-bibl. פנים עַזּוּת, stiffness, hardness, rudeness of countenance = boldness, want of bashfulness, regardlessness, e.g., Shabbath 30b, where we find a prayer in these words: O keep me this day from פנים עזי and from עזות פ (that I may not incur the former or the latter). The Talm. Taanith 7b, thus explaining, says: “Every man to whom עזות פ belongs, him one may hate, as the scripture says, יִשָּׂנְא ... ועז (do not read יְשֻׁנֶּא).” The lxx translates μισητηήσεται will be hated, and thus also the Syr.; both have thus read as the Talm. has done, which, however, bears witness in favour of יְשֻׁנֶּא as the traditional reading. It is not at all necessary, with Hitzig, after Zirkel, to read y|shane': but boldness disfigureth his countenance; עֹז in itself alone, in the meaning of boldness, would, it is true, along with פניו as the obj. of the verb, be tenable; but the change is unnecessary, the passive affords a perfectly intelligible meaning: the boldness, or rudeness, of his visage is changed, viz., by wisdom (Böttch., Ginsb., Zöckl.). The verb שָׁנָה (שנא, Lam 4:1) means, Mal 3:6, merely “to change, to become different;” the Pih. שִׁנָּה, Jer 52:33, שִׁנָּא, 2Ki 25:29, denotes in these two passages a change in melius, and the proverb of the Greek, Sir. 13:24, -
Καρδία ἀντηρώπου ἀλλοιοῖ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ
ἐάν τε εἰς ἀγαθὰ ἐάν τε εἰς κακά,
is preserved to us in its original form thus:
לֵב אָדָם יְשַׁנֶּא פָנָיו
בֵּין לְטוֹב וּבֵין לְרָע׃
so that thus שֻׁנָּא, in the sense of being changed as to the sternness of the expression of the countenance, is as good as established. What Ovid says of science: emollit mores nec sinit esse feros, thus tolerably falls in with what is here said of wisdom: Wisdom gives bright eyes to a man, a gentle countenance, a noble expression; it refines and dignifies his external appearance and his demeanour; the hitherto rude external, and the regardless, selfish, and bold deportment, are changed into their contraries. If, now, Ecc 8:1 is not to be regarded as an independent proverb, it will bear somewhat the relation of a prologue to what follows. Luther and others regard Ecc 8:1 as of the nature of an epilogue to what goes before; parallels, such as Hos 14:9, make that appear probable; but it cannot be yielded, because the words are not חכם מי, but מי כהח. But that which follows easily subordinates itself to Ecc 8:1, in as far as fidelity to duty and thoughtfulness amid critical social relations are proofs of that wisdom which sets a man free from impetuous rudeness, and fits him intelligently and with a clear mind to accommodate himself to the time.