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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 8:16 - 8:16
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“When I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to view the business which is done on the earth (for neither day nor night doth he see sleep with his eyes): then have I seen all the work of God, that a man is unable to find out the work which is done under the sun: therefore that a man wearieth himself to seek out, and yet findeth not; and although a wise man taketh in hand to know, - he is unable to find.” A long period without a premeditated plan has here formed itself under the hand of the author. As it lies before us, it is halved by the vav in veraithi (“then I have seen”); the principal clause, introduced by “when I gave,” can nowhere otherwise begin than here; but it is not indicated by the syntactical structure. Yet in Chr. and Neh. apodoses of כאשׁר begin with the second consec. modus, e.g., 1Ch 17:1; Neh 4:1, and frequently; but the author here uses this modus only rarely, and not (vid., Ecc 4:1, Ecc 4:7) as a sign of an apodosis.
We consider, first, the protasis, with the parenthesis in which it terminates. The phrase נתן את־הלב לְ, to direct the heart, to give attention and effort toward something, we have now frequently met with from Ecc 1:13 down. The aim is here twofold: (1) “to know wisdom” (cf. Ecc 1:17), i.e., to gain the knowledge of that which is wisdom, and which is to be regarded as wisdom, viz., solid knowledge regarding the essence, causes, and objects of things; (2) by such knowledge about that which wisdom is in itself “to see earthly labour,” and - this arises from the combination of the two resolutions - to comprehend this labour in accordance with the claims of true wisdom from the point of view of its last ground and aim. Regarding 'inyan, vid., under Ecc 3:10. “On the earth” and “under the sun” are parallel designations of this world.
With גַּם כִּי begins a parenthetical clause. Ki may also, it is true, be rendered as at Ecc 8:17: the labour on the earth, that he, etc. (Zöckl.); but this restlessness, almost renouncing sleep, is thereby pressed too much into the foreground as the special obj. of the reuth (therefore Ginsburg introduces “how that”); thus better to render this clause with ki gam, as establishing the fact that there is 'inyan, self-tormenting, restless labour on the earth. Thus also אֵינֶנּוּ is easier explained, which scarcely goes back to laadam, Ecc 8:15 (Hitz.), but shows that the author, by )inyan, has specially men in view. וּבַלַּ ... גַּם is = גם בי גם בל: as well by day as by night, with the negat. following (cf. Num 23:25; Isa 48:8): neither by day nor by night; not only by day, but also in the night, not. “To see sleep” is a phrase occurring only here; cf. Terence, Heautontim. iii. 1. 82, Somnum hercle ego hac nocte oculis non vidi meis, for which we use the expression: “In this whole night my eyes have seen no sleep.” The not wishing to sleep, and not being able to sleep, is such an hyperbole, carrying its limitation in itself, as is found in Cicero (ad Famil. vii. 30): Fuit mirifica vigilantia, qui toto suo consulatu somnum non vidit.
With ור, “Then I have seen,” begins the apodosis: vidi totum Dei opus non posse hominem assequi. As at Ecc 2:24, the author places the obj. in the foreground, and lets the pred. with ki follow (for other examples of this so-called antiposis, vid., under Gen 1:4). He sees in the labour here below one side of God's work carrying itself forward amid this restless confusion, and sets forth this work of God, as at Ecc 3:11 (but where the connection of the thoughts is different), as an object of knowledge remaining beyond the reach of man. He cannot come to it, or, as מצא properly means, he reaches not to it, therefore “that a man wearies himself to seek, and yet finds not,” i.e., that the search on the part of a man with all his endeavours comes not to its aim. אשׁר בכל Ewald's emendation, instead of the words of the text before us: for all this, that quantumcunque (Ewald, §362c), which seems to have been approved of by the lxx, Syr., and Jerome, is rightly rejected by Hitzig; beshel asher is Heb., exactly equivalent to Aram. בְּדִיל דְּ, e.g., Gen 6:3; and is rightly glossed by Rashi, Kimchi, Michlol 47b, by בִּשְׁבִיל שֶׁ and בּעֲבוּר שֶׁ. The accent dividing the verse stands on yimetsa, for to this word extends the first half of the apodosis, with vegam begins the second. Gam im is = εἰ καί, as gam ki is = ἐὰν καί. יאמר is to be understood after אם אח, Ecc 7:23 : also if (although) the wise man resolves to know, he cannot reach that which is to be known. The characteristic mark of the wise man is thus not so much the possession as the striving after it. He strives after knowledge, but the highest problems remain unsolved by him, and his ideal of knowledge unrealized.