XI. (1) In this section the preacher is drawing to a close, and he brings out practical lessons very different from those which views of life like his have suggested to others. From the uncertainty of the results of human effort, he infers that we ought the more diligently to make trial of varied fo... [ Continue Reading ]
TO SEVEN, AND ALSO TO EIGHT. — Quite similar forms of expression occur in Job 5:19; Proverbs 30:21; Amos 1:3; Micah 5:4. The numbers seven and eight are used indefinitely in the advice to multiply our modes of exertion, ignorant as we are which may miscarry.... [ Continue Reading ]
The world is ruled by fixed laws, the operation of which man has no power to suspend.... [ Continue Reading ]
But it is idle to try to guard against all possibilities of failure. To demand a certainty of success before acting would mean not to act at all.... [ Continue Reading ]
The wording of this passage leaves it ambiguous whether we have here two illustrations of man’s ignorance, or only one; whether we are to understand the verse as declaring that we know neither the way of the wind nor the growth of the embryo, or whether, retaining the translation “spirit,” we take t... [ Continue Reading ]
PROSPER. — The word is used again in Ecclesiastes 10:10 and Esther 8:5, and belongs to modern Hebrew. (Comp. Galatians 6:7.)... [ Continue Reading ]
DAYS OF DARKNESS. — Psalms 88:12; Psalms 143:3; Job 10:21. (Comp. also Psalms 56:13; Job 33:30.)... [ Continue Reading ]
The beginning of the last chapter would more conveniently have been placed here than where the division is actually made. It is hard to interpret the judgment spoken of in this verse of anything but future judgment, when we bear in mind how much of the book is taken up with the complaint that retrib... [ Continue Reading ]
SORROW. — See Note on Ecclesiastes 7:3. YOUTH. — The word occurs not elsewhere in the Old Testament; but nearly the same word is used of black hair in Leviticus 13:37; Song of Solomon 5:11.... [ Continue Reading ]