Koheleth does not, of course, include himself among the reckless evil-doers. He acquiesces in the painful inconsistencies of the world, and seems to comfort himself with the relatively best good—‘to eat and drink and be merry’ (viii. 15). Charity may perhaps suggest that this is not said without bitter irony.
Then follows a clumsy but affecting passage (viii. 16, 17) on the uselessness of brooding (as the author had so long done) over the mysteries of human life, which introduces the concluding part of the section (ix. 1-12). These twelve verses are full of a restrained passion. Such being the unfree condition of man that he cannot even govern his sympathies and antipathies, and so regardless of moral distinctions the course of destiny, and there being no hereafter,[[316]] what remains but to take such pleasure as life—especially wedded life—can offer, and to carry out one’s plans with energy? Yet, alas! it is only too true that neither success nor freedom of action can be reckoned upon, for ‘the race is not to the swift,’ and men are ‘snared’ like the fishes and the birds.
The section which begins at ix. 13 is of still more varied contents. It begins with a striking little story about the ‘poor wise man,’ a Themistocles in common life, ‘who by his wisdom delivered the city, and no one remembered that poor man’ (ix. 14, 15). Surely here (as in iv. 13, 14, viii. 10) we catch the echo of contemporary history. It is not a generalisation (comp. Prov. xxi. 22), but a fact which the author gives us, and it may plausibly be conjectured that he was the ‘poor wise man’ himself. The rest of the section (down to x. 15) contains proverbs on wisdom and folly, and some bitterly ironical remarks on the exaltation of servants and burden-bearers[[317]] above the rich and the princely.
CHAPTER V.
THE WISE MAN’S PARTING COUNSELS.
A new section begins at x. 16—no ingenuity avails to establish a connection with the preceding verses. We are approaching our goal, and breathe a freer air. From the very first the ideas and images presented to us are in a healthier and more objective tone. The condemnation expressed in ver. 16 does credit to the public spirit of the writer, and, I need hardly say, is not really inconsistent (as Hitzig supposed) with the advice in ver. 20. In the words—
Even among thine acquaintance[[318]] curse not the king, and in thy bedchambers curse not the rich; for the birds of the heaven may carry the voice [comp. the cranes of Ibycus] and that which hath wings may report the word—
Dean Plumptre perhaps rightly sees ‘the irony of indignation’ which ‘veils itself in the garb of a servile prudence.’ There is no necessity to reduce Koheleth to the moral level of Epicurus, who is said to have deliberately preferred despotism and approved courting the monarch.
It is a still freer spirit which breathes in the remainder of the book. Let courtiers waste their time in luxury (x. 18), but throw thou thyself unhesitatingly into the swift stream of life. Be not ever forecasting, for there are some contingencies which can no more be guarded against than the falling of rain or of a tree (xi. 3, 4). Act boldly, then, like the corn-merchants, who speculate on such a grand scale,—
Send forth thy bread upon the wide waters [lit. upon the face of the waters], for thou mayst find it [i.e. obtain a good return for it] after many days (xi. 1).
But since fortune is capricious, do not risk thine all on a single venture. ‘Ships are but boards, sailors but men’ &c., as Shylock says. Divide thy merchandise, and so, if one vessel is wrecked or plundered, much may still be saved; or—another possible interpretation—store thy property in various hiding-places, so that, in case of some political revolution, thine all may not be taken from thee,—