Ecclesiastes 1:5

The sun also ariseth From the standpoint of modern thought the sun might seem even more than the earth to be the type of permanent existence, but with the Hebrew, who looked on it in its phenomenal aspect, it was not so, and the sun accordingly appears as presenting not a contrast, but a parallel, to human mutability and resultless labour. We are reminded of the Rabbinic legend of Abraham's looking on the sun, and, when half tempted to adore it, repressing the temptation by watching its going down and saying "The God whom I worship must be a God that does not set." Koran, Sur.6. Stanley's Jewish Church, 1. Lect. 1.

hasteth to his place where he arose The primary meaning of the first of the two verbs is that of the panting of one who travels quickly. Here again we have to think of the belief that, between the sunset and the sunrise, the sun had a long journey to perform, as the Greeks thought, by the great Ocean river, till it returned to the point where it had risen the day before. Possibly the clouds and mists of the morning were thought of as the panting of the sun, as of "the strong man" who "runs his race" (Psalms 19:5).

Parallels present themselves in Psalms 19:5 ("rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race") and yet more strikingly in Virgil, Georg. i. 250,

Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens adflavit anhelis,

Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.

"And when to us the sun with panting steeds

Hastens at dawn, far off the star of eve

There lights her glowing lamp."

Comp. also Æn. xii. 113.