Give a share all round, and to some one else beside, for thou dost not know what sort of mischief shall be in the earth.
(2.) Give a portion to seven, and also to eight (see Job v. 19, Micah v. 4 (5), for similar idioms; it is equivalent to our ‘everybody, and some one else’), for not dost thou know what shall be mischief upon the earth.
3 If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
If the clouds are FULL of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if falls the tree by the south [wind] or by the north——the place where the tree falls is just where it will be.
(3.) If they are full the clouds (עב is the thick vapour that appears and disappears) rain (גשם is the storm rain which does mischief or good according to circumstances, see [chapter xii. 2]) they cause to empty (clouds do not always prognosticate rain; and even if they should, a storm may do mischief rather than good); and if is falling a tree in the south, or if either in the north (‘if’ is hence emphatic) the place where may fall (contracted relative) the tree (now with the article, for it is the falling tree spoken of above) there it will be (the unusual form יהוא has troubled the commentators much: Moses Stuart pronounces the א to be otiose, which is not explaining the form at all. But may not the following be a sufficient explanation?——הוא in this book is used in the sense of the existence of an object: might not Koheleth coin a verb by adding the י of the present tense, with the idea, ‘makes itself be’?——compare also Joshua x. 24, Isaiah xxiii. 12, where this otiose א occurs; the rendering of the LXX. by ἔσται shows how they understood it, and so also the Syriac and Vulgate. The whole sentence is ironical, when the tree has really fallen, then we know which way it fell. The Masoretic accentuation of this passage is peculiar——we should naturally have expected them to have divided the verse into two clauses, at יריקו, ‘they empty,’ instead of which the greatest pause occurs at ‘north’ בַּצָּפ֑וֹן, but this method of reading renders the irony of the passage; the verse will then stand thus:——‘If the clouds are full of rain they will empty themselves upon the earth, and so if the tree should incline to the south, or if it should incline to the north——the place where it falls is where it really will be.’ The accentuation is rhetorical rather than logical, and the Masorets have shown great taste in their pointing).
4 He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.