Nevertheless, this book does not profess to be anything in the nature of a new discovery. Sense is attempted to be made of difficult passages by what may be called a microscopic attention to the grammar of the writer, and a minute and careful analysis of every form and expression he uses. The test of the correctness of the meaning thus found is displayed in the way in which it falls into place in the context, and squares with its tenor. But nothing novel in the way of Hebrew grammar is urged, or anything which may not be found in ordinary commentaries, except, perhaps, it be the fact of the difference of signification between the contracted and full relative pronoun——a usage which is peculiar to the Book of Ecclesiastes. This has hitherto been dismissed by other commentators as evidence of late composition, without giving it the notice it merited.
Many points of interest are started in these pages, which would well repay a more careful investigation than I have either leisure or learning to follow out. They are only presented so far as necessary to illustrate and clear up difficulties in the interpretation of that marvellous book which is the subject of this Commentary. If I have succeeded, the Church will be benefited; if I have altogether failed, my book will only add a few pages more to the vast literature which this, the scientific treatise of the Divine Word, has elicited.
London, Oct. 1873.
INTRODUCTION.
DATE AND AUTHORSHIP.
THE title or superscription of the book is, chapter i. 1, ‘The words of Koheleth, the son of David, king of Jerusalem,’ and this is further explained in verse 12, by ‘I Koheleth was king over Israel in Jerusalem.’ The only person in Jewish history who answers exactly to this description is Solomon, and accordingly the whole ancient Church, Jewish as well as Christian, have regarded Solomon as the undoubted author of the book. With this conclusion even modern criticism is so far agreed, that it is universally admitted that Solomon is the hero or personated author, even though it is denied that he was the real writer. It is alleged that internal evidence is against the supposition of so early a date; for that the language and tone of thought in the book point to a writer further on in Jewish history. The favourite opinion amongst German scholars is, that Ecclesiastes was composed towards the end of the Persian dominion. Ewald, indeed, considers that, so far as language and style is concerned, the book might be the very latest written in the whole Hebrew Scriptures.
A detailed history of the exposition of the book will be found in the Coheleth of Dr. Ginsburg, together with a complete discussion of the reasons for and against Solomonic authorship. It will be unnecessary, therefore, to go into detail on this point. We shall only add what concerns the immediate object of the present Commentary, remarking that several most competent English-speaking scholars remain unconvinced by arguments which have apparently fully satisfied their German brethren. Dr. Wordsworth, Professor Plumptre, Dr. Taylor Lewis of America, argue that the book is really Solomon’s, while even in Germany D. H. A. Hahn (Commentar über das Predigerbuch, Leipzig, 1860) is strongly on the side of the Solomonic authorship.
The principal arguments in favour of later date derived from internal evidence, arise from (first) the state of violence and misery depicted in the book with so much bitterness, and which, it is alleged, cannot be made to harmonize with what we know of the reign of Solomon; and (secondly) the strongly Aramaic character of the language, which assimilates itself to that of the books of Daniel and Esther. With regard to the first point (if we have at all found the real interpretation of the book), it seems improbable that any special description of a particular period could have been ever intended, or even any allusion to the special circumstances of any people. So far also from supposing a time of trouble in the mind of the writer, on the contrary the point and moral of the book will be enhanced if we suppose it to be written rather in a time of prosperity than of adversity or oppression. Thus, if we turn to the expressions of chapter [iv. 1] we shall see that to give any special reference to them, and suppose them peculiar or out of the way, would weaken the force of Koheleth’s argument. Human life generally, under the very best of external circumstances, always exhibits the spectacle both of oppressions by the wicked, and of oppressed without comforters. Now underneath this statement lies the difficulty that He who permits this is the merciful Author of Nature Himself, and it is this difficulty which is especially discussed. There is no necessity to suppose the concluding years of Persian tyranny to be pointedly alluded to, because it is not under an Asiatic despotism alone that hypocrites come and go from the place of the holy (chapter viii. 10), or servants are seen on horseback, and nobles, like serfs, walking afoot (chapter x. 7), or that men continue in prosperous wickedness (chapter ix. 3). Indeed, the same may be said of any other of the similar providential difficulties advanced in this book, for the very same occurrences may be witnessed now in this age of civilisation and progress. The reply then to the assertion that it is ‘impossible to reconcile this state of things with the age of Solomon’ is simply this. There is no need even to make the attempt, because there is no reason to believe that, considering the author’s standpoint, he intended that the instances of human suffering and disappointment he cites should be taken otherwise than perfectly generally. What he adduces of this nature is in sufficient measure true always, at the best of times. It would blunt the point of his reasoning if it could be shown that the difficulties he starts were exceptional or temporary; but this is not so. Koheleth’s repeated declaration is that all——that is, the whole of human life——is vanity or evanescence.
The argument from Aramaic words is much more formidable, and would be conclusive if our knowledge of the successive stages of the Hebrew language were less fragmentary and uncertain than is really the case. It is quite true that such words as מדינה, רעיון, רעות, כבר, זמן, פתגם, have an Aramaic colouring; but we must set against this the fact that, as Ewald remarks, we have in Ecclesiastes a new philosophical terminology, which has modified the Hebrew of the book. And again, it will be seen by referring to the places where these peculiar words occur, that they are introduced either for the purposes of expressing new ideas or terms not found in the language elsewhere. Sometimes the more usual word would be out of harmony with the context, e.g. the word זמון replaces the more ordinary מיעד, because not only is the latter used to signify a feast, but the root-meaning of the former is just what is required by the argument. Again, כבר, as will be seen stated at length in the notes, is used in the purely technical sense, of ‘this present,’ and not in the ordinary meaning of ‘already.’ The unusual [♦]אלו, chapter vi. 6, also is apparently introduced for the sake of the alliteration with הלא in the next clause, and the once occurring עֲדֶן chapter iv. 3, for the sake of the equivoke to which its use gives rise. All these Aramaic words are noticed as they occur in the body of the Commentary, and we think that the conclusion which results from what there appears is to weaken very considerably any argument as to date which can be drawn from them one way or the other.