[313]. In Koheleth’s phrase, ‘that which is;’ comp. Wisd. vii. 17-21, where ‘the infallible knowledge of the things that are’ is equivalent to a perfect natural science. Here a similar phrase means rather philosophy.
[314]. So Klostermann. The ordinary interpretation is, ‘One man among a thousand (men) I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found;’ i.e. I have tested a thousand men and a thousand women; I have found one true man, but not one true woman. The objection is that ’ādām elsewhere (e.g. ver. 29) means human beings without distinction of sex.
[315]. Following Bickell. In viii. 10 it is the linguistic form, and in viii. 12, 13 the contents of the Massoretic text which excite suspicion. The former verse is thus rendered by Delitzsch, ‘And then I have seen the wicked buried, and they entered into (their ‘perpetual house,’ the grave): but they that had done right had to depart (into exile) from the holy place (Jerusalem; cf. II. Isa. xlviii. 2), and were forgotten out of the city: this too is vanity.’
[316]. The view expressed in ix. 10 is, I hope, very far from being the private belief of the many preachers who are accustomed to quote it. See the chapter on Ecclesiastes from a religious point of view.
[317]. Correcting the text in x. 6 with A. Krochmal.
[318]. Altering the points with Klostermann.
[319]. But Goethe may have thought of the Turkish proverb, ‘Do good, throw the loaf into the water; if the fish knows it not, the Creator does,’ or the story from the life of the Caliph Mutewekyil [Mutawakkil?] quoted, with this proverb, from H. F. v. Diez by Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese, pp. 73-74. Comp. also the stories in the Midrash Koheleth on our passage.
[320]. What judgment? Present or future (i.e. after death)? The latter gives a more forcible meaning (comp. iii. 17, xii. 14).
[321]. Essays and Reviews (1869), pp. 15-17.
[322]. Does the eastern sun blanch the ‘crimson broidery’ of the almond-blossom? From the language of travellers like Thomson and Bodenstedt it would seem so.