10 Therefore remove [¹]sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.
[¹] Or, anger.
Put away disappointment from thine heart, and purge away mischief from thy flesh, for childhood and early expectations are evanescent.
(10.) And put away disappointment (כעס, chapter i. 18, references) from thy heart, and pass away evil from thy flesh; because the producings and the dawnings (שחרות occurs here only; for the meaning of the root see Job vii. 21, Psalms lxxviii. 34, Proverbs xiii. 24. So the meaning of the word here is ‘early seekings,’ which the LXX. render ad sensum by ἡ ἄνοια, ‘the ignorance;’ and the Syriac by
‘because childhood and not to know’) is vanity (singular; ‘each one is so,’ as a plural precedes). That the passage is ironical we cannot doubt, but it is good advice, even the very best, as it stands. Youth is the time of choice, the time of productions, or, if one will——and the expression will preserve an equivoke similar to that in the text——conception; but this time is evanescent. We choose our path in life when young, but then we cannot go back. He who changes his calling once rarely succeeds in it, and never if he chooses twice.