, ‘Intellectum, Consilium dedit,’ vel ‘inivit,’ ‘Consultavit,’ ‘Promisit,’ ‘Pollicitus est;’ thus we must understand it to mean, ‘plans formed and intended to be carried out.’ The question then which Koheleth asks is this, ‘Who is the man who will enter upon——as we say, carry out——his plans with respect to that which in the present moment he makes them or devises them;’ in other words, can he carry out what he now devises, and can any man do this out of the number of human creatures who make these plans? This is the reason of the distributive plural which the best recensions of the LXX. preserve. The equivoke involved in the meaning ‘king’ is obvious. Koheleth himself is, of course, the king: could any one do better than he? It must be allowed that this meaning makes excellent sense with the context, and violates no Hebrew grammar. If, however, I have failed in giving a real interpretation of this most difficult passage, I may be excused a conjecture which is as plausible as many that have been advanced on this point. The corruptions of the old versions may be explained by the fact that the equivoke was lost so soon as readers ceased to have the Hebrew text before them, and hence the attempt to better their text. This most obscure passage may perhaps receive some light from a further discussion of the word כבר and other forms derived from the same root. The feminine or abstract occurs Genesis xxxv. 16, xlviii. 7, and 2 Kings v. 19, joined with ארץ, rendered in the Authorized Version a ‘little’ way. The verb occurs in hiphil, Job xxxv. 16, xxxvi. 31, translated ‘multiplied,’ ‘in abundance;’ and in the hiphil form, with the characteristic jud̄ inserted——Job viii. 2, xv. 10, etc.; Isaiah x. 13, xvii. 12, etc.——in the sense of ‘full of years,’ ‘overflowing,’ and the like. A diligent comparison of these meanings shows that ‘fulness,’ in the sense of ‘completeness,’ must be the root-meaning; and hence, when applied to time, the LXX. render ἤδη, ‘already.’ With this meaning agree also the Arabic and Syriac, see Fuerst, Lexicon, s. voc. The meaning then of the word is, the ‘complete present.’ With regard to the use of the root מלך in the sense of counsel, it occurs once in Hebrew, viz. Nehemiah v. 7, and once in biblical Chaldee, Daniel iv. 27 (24). This meaning is common, as remarked in the note, in Aramaic. The fair inference from this is, that the root-meaning of the Hebrew word is ‘to counsel,’ just as the root-meaning of the word Apostle is ‘one sent.’ These senses are just what the context requires. Koheleth turns round to see wisdom in comparison with, or contradistinction to, false hopes and false prudence, and asks how the man, that is, humanity, can tell the one from the other. His words are ‘what is,’ not ‘who is the man,’ etc., equivalent to——‘in what way can humanity enter upon the results of the counsel,’ ‘or the king,’——the equivoke being, we believe, intentional, and the contracted relative giving a conditional turn to the sentence——‘with respect to that which at present he performs it.’ It would have been better if the word with had been printed in the notes with a small letter, as the division hardly amounts to a period, though the connexion is not close. The suffix of the verb refers back through the relative pronoun to counsel, and might be well rendered into English thus——‘In respect of which he at present takes that counsel.’ The LXX., contrary to their custom, omit ἤδη, because it is perhaps sufficiently included in ἐπελεύσεται, or because τὰ ὅσα ἤδη ἐποίησαν αὐτήν would not have been intelligible. It is evident this all squares with the context. Koheleth, as Solomon, discovered that with all his wisdom he could not practically discern the difference between this true wisdom and that false prudence which led him to accumulate only to be disappointed in his successor.
13 Then I saw [¹]that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.
[¹] Hebrew that there is an excellency in wisdom more than in folly, etc.
Now, I have myself perceived that there must be a profit to wisdom over false prudence as great as the profit of light over darkness.
(13.) And I have seen, I have (with the emphatic I again, as a personal experience) that there is (i.e. that there really is), a profit to wisdom above folly (these same elaborate mistakes which look so like wisdom) as the profit of the light above the darkness. (Here profit is repeated, hence the meaning is ‘as great as the profit of light above darkness.’) The wise, his eyes are in his head, but the fool (i.e. the ‘deceived fool’——notice the hiphil form——equivalent to the befooled, but not necessarily by others——by himself also) in darkness walks (hence a wise man ought to be as much better off than a fool as a sighted man is better than one blind, but experience does not confirm this conclusion); and I know also, I (emphatic), that the hap (i.e. the result or what occurs) is one happening (present here as opposed to participial noun) to all of them (i.e. both wise and fools alike——equivalent in our idiom, ‘precisely the same result occurs to all’).
14 The wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.