[** I do not recommend this page for the faint-of-heart. Greek, Latin, Syriac/Hebrew all lurk within the footnote. I hope I got close. Good luck!]
do is to accustom yourself to acquiesce in destiny: you will then see that every act and every state in your ever-shifting life is truly beautiful or seemly (iii. 11), even if not profitable to the individual (iii. 9). More than this, man has been endowed with the faculty of understanding this kaleidoscopic world, with the drawback that he cannot possibly embrace it all in one view:—[1]
Also he hath put the world into their heart (i.e. mind), except
that man cannot find out from beginning to end the work which
God hath made (iii. 11).
In fact, to quote Lord Bacon's words in the Advancement of Learning, 'God has framed the mind like a glass, capable
of the image of the universe, and desirous to receive it, as the
eye to receive the light.' But here a dark mood interrupts
the course of our author's meditations; or perhaps it is the
record of a later period which is but awkwardly attached to
the previous passages. 'To rejoice and to fare well'—sensual
(or, let us say, sensuous) pleasure, in short—is now represented
as the only good for man, and even that is not to bein Eph. ii. 2)?
(2) 'Also he has put eternity into their heart, but so that man cannot' &c. So
Ginsburg and Delitzsch (desiderium æternitatis, taking 'eternity' in a metaphysical
sense = 'that which is beyond time'); so also Nowack (taking it in the popular
sense of years following upon years without apparent limit). Ginsburg's view is
against the context, in which the continuance of the human spirit is doubted; but
Nowack's explanation is not unacceptable. Man has been enabled to form the idea
of Time (for the popular view of 'eternity' comes practically to this), and has
divided this long space into longer and shorter periods; what happens in one
period or season, he can compare with what happens in another, thus finding all
well-adapted and 'beautiful.' But he cannot grasp the whole of Time in one
view. But I still prefer the explanation given in the text, as being simpler, in
spite of the fact that 'ōlām nowhere else occurs in the sense of 'world' (or the
present order of things), so common in later Hebrew.]
- ↑ Among the many other interpretations of this difficult passage, two may be mentioned here. (1) 'He has also set worldliness in their heart, without which man cannot understand the work that God does, from beginning to end.' So Kalisch (Path and Goal, frequently). This is an improvement upon the translation of Gesenius and others, who render, not 'without which' &c., but 'so that man may not' &c. The objection to the latter rendering is that it gives 'worldliness' a New Testament sense (comp. 1 John ii. 15). Kalisch, however, in full accord with the spirit of Judaism, makes Koheleth frankly accept 'worldliness' as a good, understanding by 'worldliness' a sense of worldly duties and enjoyments. Had this however been Koheleth's meaning, would he not have coined another of his favourite abstract terms (comp. the Peshitto's 'olmoyuthō = [Greek: aiôn
