VIII. There is no remembrance of former matters; and so also with regard to subsequent ones which will be, there will be no remembrance with those who will succeed them.
(11.) There is nothing of remembrance (or memorial) to former events (or persons) and in addition to succeeding events which will be. There will not be to them (emphatic) a remembrance (the repetition of this word shows it to be the prominent word of the sentence) amongst those which shall be to (i.e. belonging to) the last of all (so the LXX.) We have here the feminine form, אחרנה. Koheleth usually expresses the abstracts by this form, and so here. Thus, then, we find that history always repeats itself: not so, however, that its events can be anticipated, but always so that its teachings may be forgotten.
This then forms the first division of the book. By these eight instances Koheleth proves the existence of unceasing toilsome care and resultless progression in all human things. He proceeds in the next place to give his own personal experience, in the form of an autobiography to the same effect. All commentators, even those who deny that Solomon himself was the author of this book, are agreed that he is the hero, and that his life and experience form the groundwork of what is here set before us.
12 ¶ I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
Section II.——Containing a more formal discussion of the problem of human existence, drawn from the Preacher’s own observation and experience.
Now, I myself, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem,
(12.) I (emphatic) Koheleth was king over Israel in Jerusalem. Ginsburg supposes that by this declaration that he was king, he intends to imply that he was so no longer; but not only does the LXX. render by an imperfect, but the same word occurs in precisely the same form at Exodus ii. 22, and clearly at the time there mentioned Moses continued to be a stranger in Midian. The object in stating this fact is rather to show that as a king he possessed peculiar facilities for making the investigation, an account of which follows.