man himself as such is vain, and thus - this is the facit - all is הבל, “vain.”
(C.) THE EPILOGUE. XII. 9-14.
In an unexpected manner there now follows a postscript. Since the book closes with the epiphonema xii. 8 as having reached the intended goal, the supposition that what follows xii. 8 is from another hand is more natural than the contrary. Of the question of genuineness there cannot be here properly anything said, for only that which is not what it professes to be and ought to be, is spurious ; the postscript is certainly according to tradition an integral part of the Book of Koheleth (Bullock), but not as an original organic formal part of it, and still less does it expressly bear self-evidence of this. At the least, those who regard Solomon as the author of the book ought to contend against the recognition in xii. 9 ff. of an appendix by a later hand. Hahn, however, regards the same Solomon who speaks in ver. 8 as continuing to speak in ver. 9, for he interprets אָמַ֥ר, which, however, only means inquit, as perf., looking back to the completed book, and regards this retrospect as continued in ver. 9 ff., without being hindered by the interchange of the I and of the following historical he, which is contained in “saith Koheleth.” Dale even ventures the assertion, that the Book of Koheleth could have closed with the unsatisfying pure negative, ver. 8, as little as the Gospel of Mark with “and they were afraid” (Mc. 16:8). As if ver. 13 f. expressed postulates not already contained in the book itself ! The epilogue has certainly manifestly the object of recommending the author of the book, Koheleth-Solomon, and of sealing the contents of the book. If Solomon himself were the author, the epilogue would stand in the same relation to the book as Joh 21:24 f. to the fourth Gospel, of the Johannean origin of which a voice from the apostolic church there bears witness.[1]
It is a serious anachronism when modern interpreters of Scripture occupy the standpoint of the old, who take the name of the man after whom the book is entitled, without more ado, as the name of its author from first to last.[2] To what childish puerilities a bigotry so uncritical descends is seen in the case of Christ.
- ↑ Hoelemann, in Abth. II. of his Bibel-Studien (1860), draws a parallel between these two epilogues; he regards them as original formal parts of the Solomonic Koheleth and of the Johannean Gospel, and seeks to prove that they stand in more than external and accidental relation to the two works respectively.
- ↑ Thus John Miller, in his Commentary on the Proverbs (New York, 1872), regards Solomon as the author of the entire Book of Proverbs and also of Ecclesiastes. His interpretation of Scripture proceeds on the fundamental principle, in itself commendable, that the Scripture never expresses trivialities (“each text must be a brilliant”) ; but it is not to be forgotten that the 0. T., in relation to the high school of the New, is in reality a trivium, and that the depth of the words of Scripture is not everywhere the same, but varies according to the author and the times.
