Ecclesiastes 8:1-9

Maxims on Wisdom and Government.

Ecclesiastes 8:1. Wisdom (like prayer and self-sacrifice; cf. Luke 9:29) transfigures the countenance, it takes the hardness or coarseness out of the face.

Ecclesiastes 8:2. Honour the king, remembering his Divine appointment and the oath taken at his coronation; do not rashly leave his service or rebel against him. Or we may (so LXX) connect Ecclesiastes 8:2 b with Ecclesiastes 8:3, but where an oath of God is in question be not hasty (i.e. in obeying the king); go out of his presence, persist not in an evil thing, for, etc. Otherwise we must interpret persist not in an evil thing as enter not into opposition to him. If Ecclesiastes 8:5; Ecclesiastes 8:6 a is Qoheleth's own counsel it refers to the king's commandment and is a maxim of prudence; the wise man will keep his head and his feet even when such commandments are grievous. It may, however, be a pious commentator's reference to the commandment of God. Ecclesiastes 8:6 b connects more closely with Ecclesiastes 8:4.

Ecclesiastes 8:7 f. One never knows what a despot will do next, and a wise man grows weary with uncertainty. Human help lessness is seen everywhere: a man has no more control over the day of his death than over the wind (mg.), nor can he escape from wickedness once he has given himself to it any more than the mercenary can obtain furlough when the war for which he is engaged is proceeding. The Persian law was stricter than the Mosaic (Deuteronomy 20:5).

Ecclesiastes 8:9 suggests that these observations of tyranny were taken from life, though this gives us no clue to the date. Follow mg. in the first reference; the second, which brings in the thought of retribution on the tyrant, is an open question.