Expositor's Bible: The Book of Ecclesiastes

EDITED BY THE REV.
Editor of The Expositor.
AUTHOR OF COMMENTARIES ON JOB, RUTH, ETC.
Omnia vanitas, præter amare Deum, et illi soli servire. —St. Augustine.
TORONTO: WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY AND BIBLE DEPÔT, Corner of Yonge and Temperance Streets. 1890.
In rewriting the book I have retained as much as I could of its earlier form, lest the vivacity of a first exposition of the Scripture should be lost. And, indeed, the alterations I have had to make are but slight for the most part, though I have in many places altered, and, I hope, amended both the translation and the commentary: but there are one or two additions—they will be found on pages 20-26, and, again, in certain modifications of the exposition of Chapter XII., verses 9-12, on pages 279-305; dealing mainly with the structure of Ecclesiastes —which may, I trust, be found useful not to the general reader alone. Since the original edition appeared I have had to study the Book of Job, most of the Psalms, many of the Prophetical writings, and some of the Proverbs; and it was inevitable that in the course of these pleasant studies I should arrive at clearer and more definite conceptions on the structure of Hebrew poetry. These I now place at the service of my readers, and submit to the judgment of scholars and critics.
Another and much more important result of these subsequent studies has been that I can now speak with a more assured confidence of the theme of this Scripture, and of its handling by the Author. None of the scholars who have recently commented on the Book doubt that it is the quest of the chief good which it sets forth; and though some of them arrange and divide it differently, yet, on the whole and in the main, they are agreed that this quest is urged in Wisdom, in Pleasure, in Devotion to Public Affairs, in Wealth and in the Golden Mean; and that it ends and rests in the large noble conclusion, that only as men reverence God, and keep his commandments, and trust in his love, do they touch their true ideal, and find a good that will satisfy and sustain them under all changes, even to the last. The assent to this view of the Book was by no means general a quarter of a century ago; but it is so wide now, and is sanctioned by the authority of so many schools of learning, that I think no reader of the following pages need be disturbed by misgivings as to the accuracy of the main lines of thought here set forth.