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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 8:9 - 8:9
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“All that I have seen, and that, too, directing my heart to all the labour that is done under the sun: to the time when a man rules over a man to his hurt.” The relation of the clauses is mistaken by Jerome, Luther, Hengst., Vaih., Ginsburg, and others, who begin a new clause with עֵת: “there is a time,” etc.; and Zöckl., who ventures to interpret עת וגו as epexegetical of כָּל־מעֲ וגו (“every work that is done under the sun”). The clause וְנָתוֹן is an adverbial subordinate clause (vid., under Ecc 4:2): et advertendo quidem animum. עֵת is accus. of time, as at Jer 51:33; cf. Psa 4:8, the relation of 'eth asher, like מְק שׁ, Ecc 1:7; Ecc 11:3. All that, viz., the wisdom of patient fidelity to duty, the perniciousness of revolutionary selfishness, and the suddenness with which the judgment comes, he has seen (for he observed the actions done under the sun), with his own eyes, at the time when man ruled over man לוֹ לְרַע, not: to his own the ruler's injury (Symm., Jerome), but: to the injury (lxx, Theod., τοῦ κακῶσαι αὐτόν, and thus also the Targ. and Syr.) of this second man; for after 'eth asher, a description and not a judgment was to be expected. The man who rules over man to the hurt of the latter rules as a tyrant; and this whole section, beginning with Ecc 8:1, treats of the right wisdom of life at a time of tyrannical government.