(8.) If oppression of the poor (see [chapter iv. 1, 3], etc.), and wresting of judgment and right, thou seest in a province (במדינה, this has been considered a late word, and a sign, moreover, that the writer lived in the country and not in the city, as he says, chapter i. 12; but though it occurs in the later Hebrew [1 Kings xx. 14 is the first instance] it is quite regularly formed, and is clearly in place here), do not marvel (Psalms xlviii. 6, Jeremiah iv. 9, to ‘be astonished,’ ‘struck with astonishment’) over the providence (החפץ with the article; the LXX. render τῷ πράγματι in this instance, the word, however, occurs in the technical meaning it has all through the book, see [chapter iii. 1], [v. 4 (3)]); for high from above the high (which the LXX. render word for word, ὑψηλὸς ἐπάνω ὑψηλοῦ) keeps and high ones above them (the sentence is enigmatic, perhaps proverbial, though the meaning is clear. Is it possible that a play was intended between מֵעַל and מַעַל, Leviticus v. 15, a ‘transgression,’ גבה being taken in the meaning of swelling up, thus——‘Increasing transgression is increasing regard?’ In the same way the מ at the end of גבהים would unite with the word following in utterance, and so help the equivoke).
9 ¶ Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.
And besides,
(i.) The produce of the earth is all in all: a king is a subject to the field.
(9.) And the profit (as this is joined by a conjunction with the former, we must look upon it as a further argument in the same chain of reasoning; the meaning will then be ‘and besides the produce’) of earth (not the earth, the article is wanting) in all (the LXX. render this by ἐπὶ with a dative, hence they understood the preposition here to mean ‘for all,’ which our version follows) it is (feminine, in close apposition therefore with the noun, but this noun must be יתרון, which is feminine, and the meaning is that it exists subjectively, or is always there playing its part) a king (again, not the king: any king, therefore, however great,——Solomon himself, or any other) to a field (again, not the field, equivalent to some field; the LXX. render by the simple genitive) is served (niphal; this occurs only twice in the past tense, here and at Ezekiel xxxvi. 9, both in the sense of tilling; and the niphal future twice, at Deuteronomy xxi. 4 and Ezekiel xxxvi. 34, again with the same meaning——no doubt עבד is used with the signification ‘to serve generally’ in a vast number of places. It must be observed, however, that a niphal is not exactly the same as a passive, but has an objective signification, so that it is often nearer in meaning to the Greek middle voice than our passive. Bearing this in mind, we can have no further doubt over this passage as to its principal scope,——‘the king is served of,’ or ‘a subject to the field.’ The idea is that the very highest are really in a state of abject dependence——a single day’s starvation would have been sufficient to have brought to the dust Solomon or Nebuchadnezzar. The other possible rendering, that ‘the king is served by the field,’ is only the other side of the same truth, and the sentence is equivocal, being ingeniously constructed so as to read either way).
10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.