(9.) Good is the seeing of the eyes above the walking the soul (but the participle מראה is singular, and eyes are plural, hence ‘better is a sight with the eye than,’ etc. But may not there be this equivoke? מהלך might be a participle also, and then the whole would read thus, ‘A real good, the seeing of the eye, the wandering of the soul’). Moreover, this is vanity and vexation of spirit (this clause being in this case the answer to the above. So curt and enigmatical a sentence was no doubt in some way intended to be equivocal).
10 That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.
What then is that which will be? The present state of things, called by its true name, and known what it really is——Old Adam, unable to obtain a decision in a cause with a Power superior to himself.
(10.) What is that which will be? The present (compare [chapter i. 10], references) is called its name (to be called by its name is of course equivalent to our ‘accurately described’), and it is known (subjectively) what it is (emphatic), even man (but here without the article, an ‘instance’ then of ‘an Adam’ or human person), and not able to decide with the mightier than he (emphatic, לדין, Psalms l. 4, Isaiah iii. 13; this the Authorized Version renders rightly ‘to contend with,’ because דון has the meaning of ‘judge’ in the sense of ‘decide in a court of justice.’ שֶׁה֯תַּקִּיף occurs Job xiv. 20, [♦]xv. 24, and chapter iv. 12, and as an adjective in the hiphil form here only. The Masorets notice that the ה is superfluous; but this could only have been because they did not see, as the LXX. did [who add the article τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ, ‘the strong’], that it means ‘the strong one’ generically; ‘what is stronger,’ as we say, or, noticing the hiphil form, ‘what is made stronger,’ and which is clearly man’s destiny, decided by an overruling providence which he cannot escape).
[♦] “xvi” replaced with “xv”
11 ¶ Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better?