[383]. I do not of course assent to the form in which Grätz puts this, to serve his hypothesis as to the age of Koheleth. See Appendix.
[384]. Once Koheleth appears as a sharp critic of the female sex (vii. 26-29).
[385]. Lagarde describes Omar as ‘ein schlemmer, der die angst des irdischen daseins und die öde langeweile seiner noch in den anfängen stehenden wissenschaft hinwegzuschwelgen suchte’ (Symmicta, 1877, p. 9). Too hard a judgment perhaps on this changeful and impressionable nature. See Bodenstedt’s version as well as Fitzgerald’s.
[386]. The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, chap. i., sect. 3. Parts of this chapter remind us strongly of Koheleth, and are strange indeed in a book of Christian devotion.
[387]. Prose Works, ed. Bohn, ii. 69.
[388]. See the Midrasch Kohelet (ed. Wünsche, 1880), or Ginsburg, p. 38.
[389]. Comp. the glossary at the end of Grätz’s commentary.
[390]. Quoted by Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 197.
[391]. Die poetischen Bücher des Alten Bundes, Theil iv.
[392]. The ‘house of God’ must, I think, mean the temple of Jerusalem. That of Onias IV. was not built till 160 B.C. The synagogues would not be called ‘houses of God’ (on Ps. lxxiv. 8, see Hitzig).