Ecclesiastes 5:8

If thou seest the oppression of the poor From the follies of the religious life we pass to the disorders of the political. As in ch. Ecclesiastes 4:16, the thinker looks on those disorders of the world, "the poor man's wrong, the proud man's contumely," and teaches others how he has learnt to think of them. The words "wonder not" tells us with scarcely the shadow of a doubt who had been his teachers. In that counsel we have a distinct echo from one of the floating maxims of Greek proverbial wisdom, from the Μηδὲν θαυμάζειν ("wonder at nothing") of Pythagoras, and Cebes (Tabula, p. 232), which has become more widely known through the Nil admirariof Horace (Epist. i. 6. 1). Why men were not to wonder at the prevalence of oppression is explained afterwards. The word for "province" may be noted as one distinctly belonging to later Hebrew, found chiefly in the books of the Persian period, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Daniel; once only in those of earlier date, 1 Kings 20:14-17.

for he that is higher than the highest The first impression made by the verse is that the Debater tells men not to wonder or be dismayed at the prevalence of wrong, on the ground that God is higher than the highest of the tyrants of the earth and will in the end punish their wrong-doing. So understood, the first and the last "higher" both refer to "God," or, as some take it, the last only, the first referring to the king as distinct from satraps or other officers, and the train of thought is supposed to be "Wonder not with the wonder of despair, at the seeming triumph of evil. The Supreme Judge (ch. Ecclesiastes 3:17) will one day set all things right." The last "higher" is however plural in the Hebrew, and if it be understood of God, it must be by a somewhat unusual construction connecting it with the plural form (Elohim) of the name of God. We have, it may be noted, another example of a like construction in the use of the plural form for Creator in ch. Ecclesiastes 12:1, and for "the Holy" in Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 30:3. Over and above the grammatical difficulties, however (which, as has been shewn, are not insuperable), it may be said that this thought is hardly in keeping with the tone of the Debater's mind at this stage of his progress. Belief in the righteous government of God can hardly remove, though it may perhaps silence, the wonder which men feel at the prevalence of evil. It seems better accordingly to fall back upon another interpretation. The observer looks upon the state of the Persian or Syrian or Egyptian Monarchy and sees a system of Satraps and Governors which works like that of the Pachas in modern Asiatic Turkey. There is one higher than the high one, the king who is despotic over the satraps: there are others (the court favourites, king's friends, eunuchs, chamberlains) who are higher or, at least, of more power, than both together, each jealously watching the others, and bent on self-aggrandisement. Who can wonder that the result should be injustice and oppression? The system of government was rotten from the highest to the lowest, suspicion and distrust pervading its whole administration. Comp. Aristotle's description of Asiatic monarchies as suppressing all public spirit and mutual confidence (Pol. Ecclesiastes 5:11). It may be suggested, lastly, that the enigmatic form of the maxim may have been deliberately chosen, so that men might read either the higher or the lower interpretation into it, according to their capacities. It was a "word to the wise" after the measure of their wisdom. The grave irony of such an ambiguous utterance was quite after the Teacher's method. See notes on ch. Ecclesiastes 11:1-2.