Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 8:10 - 8:10
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
“And then I have seen the wicked buried, and they came to rest; but away from the holy place they had to depart, and were forgotten in the city, such as acted justly: also this is vain.” The double particle בְּכֵן signifies, in such a manner, or under such circumstances; with “I have seen” following, it may introduce an observation coming under that which precedes (בכן = Mishnic בְּכָךְ), or, with the force of the Lat. inde, introduce a further observation of that ruler; this temporal signification “then” (= אָז), according to which we have translated, it has in the Targ. (vid., Levy's W.B.).
(Note: Cf. וְכֵן, 2Ch 32:31; Ewald, §354a; Baer's Abodath Jisrael, pp. 384, 386.)
Apparently the observation has two different classes of men in view, and refers to their fate, contradicting, according to appearance, the rectitude of God. Opposite to the רְשָׁ (“the wicked”) stand they who are described as וגו אֲשֶׁר: they who have practised what is rightly directed, what stands in a right relation (vid., regarding כֵּן, as noun, under Pro 11:19), have brought the morally right into practice, i.e., have acted with fidelity and honour (כֵּן עָשָׂה, as at 2Ki 7:9). Koheleth has seen the wicked buried; ראה is followed by the particip. as predic. obj., as is שׁמע, Ecc 7:21; but קְבוּרִים is not followed by וּבָאִים (which, besides not being distinct enough as part. perfecti, would be, as at Neh 13:22, part. praes.), but, according to the favourite transition of the particip. into the finite, Gesen. §134. 2, by וָבָאוּ, not וּבָאוּ; for the disjunctive Rebîa has the fuller form with waa; cf. Isa 45:20 with Job 17:10, and above, at Ecc 2:23. “To enter in” is here, after Isa 47:2, = to enter into peace, come to rest.
(Note: Cf. Zunz, Zur Gesch. u. Literatur, pp. 356-359.)
That what follows ומם does not relate to the wicked, has been mistaken by the lxx, Aquila, Symm., Theod., and Jerome, who translate by ἐπῃνήθησαν, laudabantur, and thus read ישתבחו (the Hithpa., Psa 106:47, in the pass. sense), a word which is used in the Talm. and Midrash along with שתכחו.
(Note: The Midrash Tanchuma, Par. יתרו, init., uses both expressions; the Talm. Gittin 56b, applies the passage to Titus, who took away the furniture of the temple to magnify himself therewith in his city.)
The latter, testified to by the Targ. and Syr., is without doubt the correct reading: the structure of the antithetical parallel members is chiastic; the naming of the persons in 1a a precedes that which is declared, and in 1a b it follows it; cf. Psa 70:5, Psa 75:9. The fut. forms here gain, by the retrospective perfects going before, a past signification. מְק קָד, “the place of the holy,” is equivalent to מָקוֹם קָדוֹשׁ, as also at Lev 7:6. Ewald understands by it the place of burial: “the upright were driven away (cast out) from the holy place of graves.” Thus e.g., also Zöckl., who renders: but wandered far from the place of the holy ... those who did righteously, i.e., they had to be buried in graves neither holy nor honourable. But this form of expression is not found among the many designations of a burial-place used by the Jews (vid., below, Ecc 12:5, and Hamburger's Real-Encykl. für Bibel u. Talm., article “Grab”). God's-acre is called the “good place,”
(Note: Vid., Tendlau's Sprichw., No. 431.)
but not the “holy place.” The “holy place,” if not Jerusalem itself, which is called by Isaiah II (Isa 48:2), Neh., and Dan., 'ir haqqodesh (as now el-ḳuds), is the holy ground of the temple of God, the τόπος ἃγιος (Mat 24:15), as Aquila and Symm. translate. If, now, we find min connected with the verb halak, it is to be presupposed that the min designates the point of departure, as also הָשְׁלך מן, Isa 14:19. Thus not: to wander far from the holy place; nor as Hitz., who points יהֲלֹכוּ: they pass away (perish) far from the holy place. The subject is the being driven away from the holy place, but not as if יְהַלֵּ were causative, in the sense of יוֹלִיכוּ fo esne, and meant ejiciunt, with an indef. subj. (Ewald, Heiligst., Elst.), - it is also, Ecc 4:15; Ecc 11:9, only the intens. of Kal, - but יְהַלֵּ denotes, after Psa 38:7; Job 30:28, cf. Job 24:10, the meditative, dull, slow walk of those who are compelled against their will to depart from the place which they love (Psa 26:8; Psa 84:2.). They must go forth (whither, is not said, but probably into a foreign country; cf. Amo 7:17), and only too soon are they forgotten in the city, viz., the holy city; a younger generation knows nothing more of them, and not even a gravestone brings them back to the memory of their people. Also this is a vanity, like the many others already registered - this, viz., that the wicked while living, and also in their death, possess the sacred native soil; while, on the contrary the upright are constrained to depart from it, and are soon forgotten. Divine rectitude is herein missed. Certainly it exists, and is also recognised, but it does not show itself always when we should expect it, nor so soon as appears to us to be salutary.