Ver. 3.: The words of this verse do not, as they stand, seem to carry on the logical sequence of thought. The Preacher's complaint is that even the wise and the good are not exempted from the common fate, not that the foolish and reckless are exposed to it. The text may be corrupt; but Ginsburg is content with it. A good reading of it, however, is still wanting.
4 For who is exempted?
To all the living there is hope,
For a living dog is better than a dead lion;
5 For the living know that they shall die,
But the dead know not anything;
And there is no more any compensation to them,
For the very memory of them is gone:
6 Their love, too, no less than their hatred and rivalry, hath perished;
And there is no part for them in ought that is done under the sun.
Nor in Pleasure: Ch. ix., vv. 7-12.
7 Go, then, eat thy bread with gladness,
And drink thy wine with a merry heart,
Since God hath accepted thy works:
8 Let thy garments be always white;
Let no perfume be lacking to thy head:
9 And enjoy thyself with any woman whom thou lovest
All the days of thy life
Which He giveth thee under the sun,
All thy fleeting days:
For this is thy portion in life,
And in the labour which thou labourest under the sun.
Ver. 9.: "Enjoy thyself with any woman." The word here rendered "woman" does not mean "wife." And as the Hebrew Preacher is here speaking under the mask of the lover of pleasure, this immoral maxim is at least consistent with the part he plays. More than one good critic, however, read "a wife" for "any woman."
10 Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do,
Do it whilst thou art able;
For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Hades,
Whither thou goest.
11 Then I turned and saw under the sun,
That the race is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong;
Nor yet bread to the wise,
Nor riches to the intelligent,
Nor favour to the learned;
12 But time and chance happen to all,
And that man doth not even know his time:
Like fish taken in a fatal net,
And like birds caught in a snare,
So are the sons of men entrapped in the time of their calamity,
When it falleth suddenly upon them.
Nor in Devotion to Public Affairs and its Rewards: Ch. ix., v. 13-Ch. x. v. 20.
13 This wisdom also have I seen under the sun,
And it seemed great to me—
14 There was a little city,
And few men in it,
And a great king came against it and besieged it,
And threw up a military causeway against it:
15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man,
And he saved that city by his wisdom;
Yet no one remembered this same poor man.
16 Therefore say I,
Though wisdom is better than strength,
Yet the wisdom of the poor is despised,
And his words are not listened to:
17 Though the quiet words of the wise have much advantage
Over the vociferations of a fool of fools,
And wisdom is better than weapons of war,
Yet one fool destroyeth much good: