20 [¹]For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart.
[¹] Or, though he give not much, yet he remembereth, etc.
For the memory of the days of the past life is not of much importance; but the Almighty rather exercises men in their present emotions.
(20.) For not the much he remembers (but as no nominative precedes or follows, the verb is impersonal) the days of his life, and for (the second כי introducing a reason in addition to and confirmatory of the first) the Deity answers (this is the only place in which the participle hiphil occurs; in one other place the participle pual——Isaiah liii. 4, which differs only from the hiphil in its pointing, occurs evidently in the sense of ‘afflicted,’ which the LXX. render by κακώσει, ‘in affliction.’ The future hiphil is used at 1 Kings viii. 35 and 2 Chronicles vi. 26, parallels, and is translated ‘thou dost afflict them.’ On the whole, however, the meaning, as pointed out by [♦]Zöckler, and which the LXX. confirm, seems to be, ‘hears them by vouchsafing;’ and as this answer is painful or joyful, as the case may be, and more usually the former, ‘exercises’ would be a suitable rendering) in the joy of (or by means of the joy, בְ־, of the instrument; it is an abstract in regimen, ‘in the joyousness’ or ‘rejoicings of’) his heart. Thus, then, the two reasons given stand related thus: Present gratification is the lot of humanity, because the past is not much remembered. The chief remembrance——for this is the meaning of הרבה——is not in the past. The deepest sorrows fade away quickly into forgetfulness; and so also the brightest joys. They have, no doubt, some influence by recollection, but not much. And thus the Deity, or God regarded as the supreme providential ruler, exercises us. He responds to our anxieties, afflicts us, or chastens us, or causes us pleasure by means of joys given or taken away, as the case may be. Again, these are spoken of as joys of our hearts, or of our inward desires and consciousness, which is the meaning of ‘heart’ in this book; our emotional nature, as the idea would stand expressed in the nomenclature of modern philosophy.
[♦] “Zökler” replaced with “Zöckler” for consistency