And on this wise: I have seen the wicked honourably buried, who used to come and go from the place of the holy, and were praised in the city where they had done this: an instance this of the evanescent.
(10.) And in this wise (ובכן, occurs only Esther iv. 16, in the sense of ‘in this way’) I have observed wicked ones (not the wicked, but continually instances of the impiously wicked) sepulchres (the Masorets point with [♣]kubbutz, the [♦]pual participle, the only other instance of which occurs 1 Kings xiii. 31; but there the participle is full: we cannot therefore accept the Masoretic pointing as authoritative; it really amounts to an alteration of the unpointed text. The LXX. considered קברים a noun plural, accusative to ובאו, and translate εἰς τάφοῦς [♠]εἰσαχθέντας, ‘carried into the tombs’) and they entered (I would seek an explanation of the difficulty here in the occurrence of this conjunction ‘and,’ of which a similar instance is found at chapter ii. 15, ‘so they entered a place ... and they are going,’ etc.; i.e. ‘did this as a habit’) and from a place of the hallowed one (participle) they go. (The rendering of the LXX. is easily explained; they translate as they do, because we have a past tense joined with a present——יהלקו, thus giving the meaning of imperfects. As the wicked could not be said to go after death into the sepulchre, they rendered by a passive, ‘were taken,’ or because they wished it to be made plain that it was not a mere entering and departing, but that the wicked were buried, i.e. honoured, in their graves). And they were forgotten in the city in which (full relative, because it does not refer closely to the city only; they were forgotten, not as regards that particular city, but as a general proposition) thus they did (but twenty MSS. and all the ancient versions, except the Syriac, in place of וישתכחו, ‘were forgotten,’ read ישתבחו, ‘praised,’ which not only makes better sense, but accounts for the hithpael with its reflexive signification. Symmachus reads, ‘And when they had gone round in the holy place, they returned, being praised in the city where they had so done’—— καὶ ὅποτε περιῆσαν ἐν τόπῳ ἁγίῳ ἀνέστρεφον ἐπαινούμενοι ἐν τῇ πόλει.——See Field’s Hexapla, p. 396. He also gives the explanatory gloss, ὡς δίκαια πράξαντες, ‘as those who had done well.’ Hence, then, on the whole, we should prefer to take in substance the LXX.’s rendering, and look upon this as setting forth a salient example of successful hypocrisy. After all, the forced renderings of certain critics are in effect alterations of the text, or yield no sense at all. The remark) This also is vanity (equivalent to ‘this then is besides, an instance of evanescence or transitoriness,’ is very striking and appropriate at this point, as also what succeeds).
[♣] “kibbutz” replaced with “kubbutz”
[♦] “paul” replaced with “pual”
[♠] “εἰσαχθεντες” replaced with “εἰσαχθέντας”
11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
It amounts to this, however: there is no speedy execution of sentence for doing evil, and so the heart of the human race is thus encouraged in them to do that evil;