Ecclesiastes 12:12

And further, by these, my son, be admonished Better, And for more than these (i.e.for all that lies beyond), be warned. The address "my son" is, as in Proverbs 1:1; Proverbs 2:1; Proverbs 10:15, that of the ideal teacher to his disciple. It is significant, as noted above, that this appears here for the first time in this book.

of making many books there is no end The words, which would have been singularly inappropriate as applied to the scanty literature of the reign of the historical Solomon, manifestly point to a time when the teachers of Israel had come in contact with the literature of other countries, which overwhelmed them with its variety and copiousness, and the scholar is warned against trusting to that literature as a guide to wisdom. Of that copiousness, the Library at Alexandria with its countless volumes would be the great example, and the inscription over the portals of that at Thebes that it was the Hospital of the Soul (ἰατρεῖον ψυχῆς, Diodor. Sic. i. 49) invited men to study them as the remedy for their spiritual diseases. Conspicuous among these, as the most voluminous of all, were the writings of Demetrius Phalereus (Diog. Laert. v. 5. 9), and those of Epicurus, numbering three hundred volumes (Diog. Laert. x. 1. 17), and of his disciple Apollodorus, numbering four hundred (Diog. Laert. x. 1. 15), and these and other like writings, likely to unsettle the faith of a young Israelite, were probably in the Teacher's thought. The teaching of the Jewish Rabbis at the time when Koheleth was written was chiefly oral, embodying itself in maxims and traditions, and the scantiness of its records must have presented a striking contrast to the abounding fulness of that of the philosophy of Greece. It was not till a much later period that these traditions of the elders were collected into the Mishna and the Gemara that make up the Talmud. Scholars sat at the feet of their teacher, and drank in his words, and handed them on to their successors. The words of the wise thus orally handed down are contrasted with the "many books."

much study is a weariness of the flesh The noun for "study" is not found elsewhere in the O. T., but there is no doubt as to its meaning. What men gain by the study of many books is, the writer seems to say, nothing but a headache, no guidance for conduct, no solution of the problems of the universe. They get, to use the phrase which Pliny (Epp.vii. 9) has made proverbial, "multa, non multum." We are reminded of the saying of a higher Teacher that "one thing is needful" (Luke 10:42). The words of Marcus Aurelius, the representative of Stoicism, when he bids men to "free themselves from the thirst for books" (Medit. ii. 3), present a striking parallel. So again, "Art thou so unlettered that thou canst not read, yet canst thou abstain from wantonness, and be master of pain and pleasure (Meditt. vii. 8).