(ii.) A lover of money no money ever satisfied; and who that loved profusion ever had sufficient income? Another instance of the evanescent.
(10.) Loving silver (the Masorets point as a participle, but however correct this may be, the participial notion is in Ecclesiastes apparently not so prominent, as it is when the poel is used written full) not satisfies (i.e. as the nominative follows, ‘shall not be satisfied with’) silver (silver is doubled here, and used of course in the sense of money——the meaning being that ‘a lover of money no money ever satisfies’), and who loving in a multitude (i.e. setting his desires in a multitude of goods, or anything else) not (but the LXX. in place of לא possibly read לוֹ, ‘to him,’ and this makes far better and more pungent sense——‘to him’ emphatic will then be the meaning) a revenue (Numbers xviii. 30, Deuteronomy xxxiii. 14, Proverbs iii. 14, xviii. 20; or, still better, for the word is derived from the root בוא, ‘to come,’ ‘an income.’ Thus it is seen that the two clauses are aimed respectively against niggardliness and extravagance. The miser and the spendthrift both never have enough); also this is vanity (another instance of the transitory and evanescent, as indeed it is, because these riches look satisfactory and are not).
11 When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?
(iii.) As property increases, so increases consumption too; and what success then has ownership, but just the right of beholding it?
(11.) In the multitudes of the good (an abstract, with the article, and hence the meaning is ‘In the very increase of the property itself, and as it increases,’ this being the meaning of the plural, which is distributive) multiply the eatings of it (or, for the ה may be considered paragogic, and so making, as it were, an abstract of the poel participle, ‘consumers’), and what is the success (כשרון, see [ii. 21], references) to the owners of it (i.e. to ownership), except seeing (ראית, this the Masorets alter to ראות, but unnecessarily, for there is a slight difference in the sense here, which will account for the unusual grammatical form; a causative or hiphil notion is implied by it; hence the LXX. ἀρχὴ τοῦ ὁρᾶν, ‘the priority to see,’) his eyes? (i.e. each one with his eyes, singular following plural).
12 The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.