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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ecclesiastes 9:1 - 9:1
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“For all this I brought to my consciousness, and all this I sought to make clear to me, that the righteous, and the wise, and their deeds, are in God's hands: neither love nor hatred stands in the knowledge of man, all lies before them.” With ki follows the verification of what is said in Ecc 8:17, “is unable to find out,” from the fact of men, even the best and the wisest of men, being on all sides conditioned. This conditioning is a fact which he layeth to his heart (Ecc 7:2), or (since he here presents himself less as a feeling than as a thinking man, and the heart as reflecting) which he has brought to his consciousness, and which he has sought to bring out into clearness. וְלָבוּל has here not the force of an inf. absol., so that it subordinates itself in an adverbial manner (et ventilando quidem) - for it nowhere stands in the same rank with the inf. absol.; but the inf. with לְ (לָ) has the force of an intentional (with a tendency) fut., since the governing הָיִיתִי, as at Ecc 3:15, הָיָה, and at Hab 1:17, יִהְיֶה, is to be supplied (vid., comm. on these passages, and under Isa 44:14): operam dedi ut ventilarem (excuterem), or shorter: ventilaturus fui. Regarding the form לָבוּר, which is metapl. for לָבֹר, and the double idea of sifting (particularly winnowing, ventilare) of the R. בר, vid., under Ecc 3:18. In the post-bibl. Heb. the words להעמיד על בוריו would denote the very same as is here expressed by the brief significant word לָבוּר; a matter in the clearness of its actual condition is called בוריו דבר על (from לָברִי, after the form חֳלִי, purity, vid., Buxtorf's Lex. Talm. col. 366). The lxx and Syr. have read ראה ולבי instead of ולבור, apparently because they could not see their way with it: “And my heart has seen all this.” The expression “all this” refers both times to what follows; asher is, as at Ecc 8:12, relat. conj., in the sense of ὃτι, quod, and introduces, as at Ecc 7:29, cf. Ecc 8:14, the unfolding of the זֶה - an unfolding, viz., of the conditioning of man, which Ecc 8:17 declared on one side of it, and whose further verification is here placed in view with ki, Ecc 9:1. The righteous, and the wise, and their doings, are in God's hand, i.e., power (Psa 31:16; Pro 21:1; Job 12:10, etc.); as well their persons as their actions, in respect of their last cause, are conditioned by God, the Governor of the world and the Former of history; also the righteous and the wise learn to feel this dependence, not only in their being and in what befalls them, but also in their conduct; also this is not fully attained, לאל ידם, they are also therein not sufficient of themselves. Regarding 'avadēhěm, corresponding to the Aram. 'ovadēhon, vid., 'avad.
The expression now following cannot mean that man does not know whether he will experience the love or hatred of God, i.e., providences of a happy nature proceeding from the love of God, or of an unhappy nature proceeding from the hatred of God (J. D. Michaelis, Knobel, Vaih., Hengst., Zöckl.), for אהֲבָה and שִׂןְ are too general for this, - man is thus, as the expression denotes, not the obj., but the subj. to both. Rightly, Hitz., as also Ewald: “Since man has not his actions in his own power, he knows not whether he will love or hate.” Certainly this sounds deterministic; but is it not true that personal sympathies and antipathies, from which love and hatred unfold themselves, come within the sphere of man, not only as to their objects, in consequence of the divine arrangement, but also in themselves anticipate the knowledge and the will of man? and is it less true that the love which he now cherishes toward another man changes itself, without his previous knowledge, by means of unexpected causes, into hatred, and, on the other hand, the hatred into love? Neither love nor hatred is the product of a man's self-determination; but self-determination, and with it the function of freedom, begins for the first time over against those already present, in their beginnings. In הַכֹּל לִףְ, “by all that is before him,” that is brought to a general expression, in which לִפְנֵי has not the ethical meaning proceeding from the local: before them, prae = penes eos (vid., Song, under Son 8:12), but the purely local meaning, and referred to time: love, hatred, and generally all things, stand before man; God causes them to meet him (cf. the use of הִקְרָה); they belong to the future, which is beyond his power. Thus the Targ., Symm., and most modern interpreters; on the contrary, Luther: “neither the love nor the hatred of any one which he has for himself,” which is, linguistically, purely impossible; Kleinert: “Neither the love nor the hatred of things does man see through, nor anything else which is before his eyes,” for which we ought at least to have had the words לפניו גם הכל אשׁר; and Tyler: “Men discern neither love nor hatred in all that is before them,” as if the text were אשׁר בכל. The future can, it is true, be designated by אחֲרִית, and the past by לְפָנִים, but according to the most natural way of representation (vid., Orelli's Synon. der Zeit, p. 14) the future is that which lies before a man, and the past that which is behind him. The question is of importance, which of the two words לף הכל has the accent. If the accent be on לף, then the meaning is, that all lies before men deprived of their freedom; if the accent be on הכל, then the meaning is, that all things, events of all kinds, lie before them, and that God determines which shall happen to them. The latter is more accordant with the order of words lying before us, and shows itself to be that which is intended by the further progress of the thoughts. Every possible thing may befall a man - what actually meets him is the determination and providence of God. The determination is not according to the moral condition of a man, so that the one can guide to no certain conclusion as to the other.