15 Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it [¹]happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity.
[¹] Hebrew happeneth to me, even to me.
The wise has eyes in his head, the befooled is wandering in the dark; yet I know, as the result of my own experience, that the event to which both attain is just alike, so I reasoned with myself thus: Exactly the same event as happens to one befooled has happened to me, and therefore why should I make myself wise? Then besides! Why, I said in my heart, even this is an instance of evanescence,
(14, 15.) And I said, I did, in my heart (it was not a right thing to say, but, as we have already noticed, this formula introduces a suggestion more specious than true), Like the hap of the befooled, so have I happened me (i.e. made my own hap or result), and why did I make myself wise then in addition? (The Masorets accent so as to make this the main division of the verse, and consider these three last words to belong to what precedes. The LXX., on the contrary——which adds a gloss after καρδίᾳ μοῦ (διότι ἄφρων ἐκ περισσεύματος λαλεῖ), ‘for the fool speaketh abundantly,’ which is an ancient one, for the Syriac has it also, and varies much in its different recensions——considers them to belong to the following verse. It is difficult on this account to come to a conclusion which is correct, the LXX. or the Masorets; the more that the Masorets themselves hesitate between יתר and יותר. On the whole, one would incline to the following explanation:——take יֶתֶר in its ordinary acceptation, ‘the rest,’ the meaning would thus be ‘then the rest,’ or ‘what results is;’ and suppose the pointing יֹתֵר, a conjecture subsequently strengthened by writing יותר); and I said (it was possibly this difficult ו, ‘and,’ which gave rise to the Masoretic conjecture——the LXX. take no notice of it; it is equivalent to ‘why I said’) that this (the contracted relative with גם occurs only chapter i. 17, ii. 15, viii. 14, and has a tone of surprise and disappointment, giving the sense apparently that ‘even this wisdom itself! is’) a vanity (or an instance of evanescence or transitoriness).
16 For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.
because there is no remembrance of the wise or the befooled either, in the future; because as time goes on the present will be forgotten, and fool and wise will perish alike together.
(16.) For (an expansion of the above argument, and a corroboration of the conclusion) there is nothing of remembrance to a wise (person or thing indefinitely) with the fool (but the hiphil form is to be noted, as also the article, the befooled, generically, for a wise action perishes from remembrance amidst the class of fools) to the age (i.e. so far as the indefinite future is concerned) by which present (i.e. in the present of that future age or æon it will so happen that) during the days, the going ones (meaning, of course, the days as they are passing, or, as we say, ‘in the lapse of time’) the whole (the whole of these wise lives and works) is forgotten (niphal, ‘becomes a forgotten thing’) and how then dies the wise? with the fool (i.e. both perish together).