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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Ecclesiastes 8:10 - 8:10
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
And so, in like manner, or such another vanity or disorder, I saw the wicked; wicked princes or rulers, as the next clause limits this.
Buried; die quietly in their beds, and afterward be buried with state and pomp, whereas in truth they deserved an untimely end, and no other than the burial of an ass.
Who had come and gone; who had administered public justice and government, which is frequently signified by the phrase of coming in and going out before the people, as Num_27:17 Deu_31:2. The seventy Jewish interpreters, whom some others follow, render the word, they were praised, applauded and adored, by the variation of one letter in the Hebrew word, which also is very like that letter which is in the text.
The place of the holy; by which he understands either,
1. The holy city Jerusalem, or the Holy Land, where Israel dwelt; which may be added to aggravate the wickedness of such persons, from the obligations, and counsels, and examples which they had to do better things. Or,
2. The seat of majesty and judgment, which may well be called the place or seat of the Holy, i.e. of God, who is called the Holy One, Hab_3:3, and oft elsewhere, who is in a special manner present in and president over those places, whose work, and for whom, and in whose name and stead, magistrates act, who therefore are called gods; of all which see Exo_22:28 Deu_1:17 1Ch_29:23 Psa_82:1, &c. And the throne or tribunal seems to be so called here, to aggravate their wickedness, who being sacred persons, and advanced by God into so high and sacred a place, betrayed so great a trust, and both practised and encouraged that wickedness which by their office they were obliged to suppress and punish. They were forgotten; whereas they designed to spread and perpetuate their names and memories to succeeding ages, Psa_49:11. Where they had so done, i.e. come to and go from the place of the holy; where they lived in great splendour, and were buried with great magnificence; which might have kept up their remembrance at least in that place. This is also vanity; that men should so earnestly thirst after and please themselves with worldly greatness and glory, which is so soon extinct, and the very memory of it quickly worn out of the minds of men.