CHAPTER VI.
THERE is an evil which I │ THERE is another evil which I have seen under the sun, and │ have observed in this work-day it _is_ common among men: │ world, and a common one is it │ upon mankind:
VI. (1.) =There is= (exists) an =evil which I have seen under the sun, and common= (literally ‘much’) =it is= (feminine emphatic) =over the man= (_i.e._ mankind in general).
2 A man to whom God hath │ one who has appointed to given riches, wealth, and │ him by the Almighty riches, honour, so that he wanteth │ possessions, and honour, and nothing for his soul of all │ there is nothing lacking to him that he desireth, yet God │ which he could possibly desire; giveth him not power to eat │ and yet the Almighty Himself thereof, but a stranger eateth │ does not allow him to have it: this _is_ vanity, and it │ any enjoyment of it; but _is_ an evil disease. │ some stranger or other enjoys │ it. This is an instance of │ evanescence, and an infirmity │ which is indeed an evil.
(2) =A man= (איש, not אדם, for it is equivalent to our ‘one’ indefinitely), =which gives to him= (emphatic) =the Deity= (one to whom the Deity gives, that is) =riches, and possessions= (chapter v. 19), =and honour, and he is not lacking to his soul of all which he desires= (the expression is peculiar, and is designed to bring into prominence the fact that to this person nothing at all is lacking; as we say, ‘he wants for nothing’) =and not causes to him power=, does =the Deity to eat= (in the usual sense of ‘enjoy’ or ‘use’) =from it, for a man= (again איש, ‘one’), =a stranger, eats it= (equivalent to ‘some stranger or another really enjoys it’). =This= is =vanity= and =sickness=, which =is an evil=, (indeed) =it is.=
3 ¶ If a man beget an │ Suppose one were to beget a hundred _children_, and live │ hundred children, and he should many years, so that the days │ have many years, yes, many of his years be many, and his │ indeed may be the days of his soul be not filled with good, │ years, and his soul not and also _that_ he have no │ satisfied with good, and he burial; I say, _that_ an │ have no burial,――I should say, untimely birth _is_ better │ that better off than such an than he. │ one is an abortion.
(3.) =If is caused to beget a man= (again איש, ‘should one beget’) =a hundred= (children is to be supplied, but not prominently; begetting is used in its widest sense), =and years many= (plural, equivalent to ‘years, and many of them’) =should live, and many= (singular) =which they are the days of his years= (‘and the days of his years should be ever so many,’ his life being expressed both in days and years to give strong prominence to the fact of its duration), =and his soul not satisfied from out of the good= (the abstract with the article, hence equivalent to our ‘good,’ standing alone), =and moreover burial= (the abstract of the past participle, used, of course, as the place of burial――see Genesis xxxv. 20, xlvii. 30, but with a shade of difference from קבר――compare Genesis xlvii. 30 with Genesis l. 5, for here, too, we notice that קבורה is written full), =is not to be to him= (emphatic. To have no burial, no one to lament him or erect a tomb over him――to be worse off than Jehoiakim, Jeremiah xxii. 19, who had the burial of an ass――is such a terrible failure to a man who had possessed a hundred children, of whom some at least might have shown him this last honour, that it may well be cited as an instance of failure of human felicity), =I say a good better than his= (emphatic) =is the abortion= (_i.e._ that abortion is a better lot).
4 For he cometh in with │ For in evanescence it begins, vanity, and departeth in │ and in darkness departs, and darkness, and his name shall │ its name in that darkness is be covered with darkness. │ concealed; IT has not seen │ light; HE has not known rest; 5 Moreover he hath not seen │ the one is no better than the the sun, nor known _any thing_:│ other. this hath more rest than the │ other. │
(4, 5.) =For in vanity he comes, and in darkness he goes, and in darkness= (repeated, equivalent, therefore, to ‘in that darkness’) =his name is covered; moreover the sun not seen= (which is the lot of the abortion), and =not knowing rest= (the lot of the person here spoken of), =to this= there is no =more= than =that=. The Masorets, however, by their accentuation, show that they understood the verse somewhat differently. They render, ‘a sun he does not see and does not know; the rest of this is more than that;’ but this rendering is obscure and clumsy, and makes the words ‘does not know’ superfluous, besides interrupting the argument. The LXX. render verbatim: καίγε ἥλιον οὐκ εἶδεν καὶ οὐκ ἔγνω ἀναπαύσεις τούτῳ ὑπὲρ τοῦτον, which is clear enough with the Hebrew before us, but is quite unintelligible without it, hence the text has been attempted to be amended in various ways (see Stier and Theile’s _Polyglot_).
6 ¶ Yea, though he live a │ Suppose he had even lived a thousand years twice _told_, │ thousand years twice over, and yet hath he seen no good: do │ seen no good in them, does he not all go to one place? │ not arrive at altogether the │ same result as abortion?
(6.) =And if= (this particle occurs Esther vii. 4 only, equivalent to וְאִם לוֹ, but common in later Hebrew and Chaldee. It is one of those words from which many critics infer a late date to this book; but is it not used for the sake of the alliteration with הלא below?) =he lived a thousand years twice= told, =and goodness not seen= (as there is no nominative expressed, these verbs are in the nature of impersonals, and express the fact generally), =is it not to a place= which =is the same= (literally ‘one’) =the whole= (_i.e._ the totality of such persons) =is going?=
7 All the labour of man _is_ │ All the toil of humanity is for his mouth, and yet the │ for the gratification of ¹appetite is not filled. │ appetite, and yet the desires │ are never satisfied. ¹ _Hebrew_ soul. │
(7.) =Every toil= of =the man= (_i.e._ humanity) is =to his mouth= (remembering the meaning of עמל, the sense is clear; the anxiety of men is directed to their mouths, to satisfy physical or moral hunger), =and besides the soul= (_i.e._ the self, the ego, as metaphysicians write) =is not filled= (_i.e._ satisfied, or fills itself).
8 For what hath the wise │ What profit then is there to more than the fool? what hath │ the wise above the befooled? the poor, that knoweth to walk │ simply that which it is to a before the living? │ man in distress to maintain │ himself in the presence of the │ living.
(8.) =For what is profiting to the wise beyond the befooled? what= (repeated, ‘even what’) =to the poor= (but ‘poor’ in the sense of oppressed or unfortunate) =made to know to walk in the presence of the living ones?= We must notice, in explaining this very obscure passage, that החיים, being with the article, must be looked upon as denoting lives generally; moreover נגד has the meaning of ‘in the presence of,’ ‘amongst,’ ‘in the midst of.’ Thus the advantage, or that which is really profitable to the wise, is to know how to walk, proceed, or act; to know which way to go in the presence of the living; in what way, therefore, to direct himself through life and amongst its pleasures and difficulties, so as to make no mistakes as the befooled does. Thus we obtain a connected sense. The anxiety is for enjoyment, but satisfaction is impossible. What, then, is the advantage or profit of wisdom, in the sense of knowing what is best to do under a given set of circumstances? and what advantage gives it over the man who is dissatisfied equally, but does _not_ know this? The answer is, Just the same as to a man in distress, who can manage to live. Existence itself is the struggle for life; but the wise rise to the top, and the fools sink.
9 Better _is_ the sight of │ Good is a sight with one’s eyes the eyes ¹than the wandering │ above a longing for one knows of the desire: this _is_ also │ not what: another instance this vanity and vexation of spirit. │ of evanescence and vexation of │ spirit. ¹ _Hebrew_ walking of the │ soul. │
(9.) =Good= is =the seeing= of =the eyes above the walking the soul= (but the participle מראה is singular, and eyes are plural, hence ‘better is a sight with the eye than,’ etc. But may not there be this equivoke? מהלך might be a participle also, and then the whole would read thus, ‘A real good, the seeing of the eye, the wandering of the soul’). =Moreover, this= is =vanity and vexation of spirit= (this clause being in this case the answer to the above. So curt and enigmatical a sentence was no doubt in some way intended to be equivocal).
10 That which hath been is │ What then is that which named already, and it is known │ will be? The present state that it _is_ man: neither may │ of things, called by its true he contend with him that is │ name, and known what it really mightier than he. │ is――Old Adam, unable to obtain │ a decision in a cause with a │ Power superior to himself.
(10.) =What is that which will be? The present= (compare chapter i. 10, references) =is called its name= (to be called by its name is of course equivalent to our ‘accurately described’), =and it is known= (subjectively) =what it is= (emphatic), =even man= (but here without the article, an ‘instance’ then of ‘an Adam’ or human person), =and not able to decide with the mightier than he= (emphatic, לדין, Psalms l. 4, Isaiah iii. 13; this the Authorized Version renders rightly ‘to contend with,’ because דון has the meaning of ‘judge’ in the sense of ‘decide in a court of justice.’ שֶׁה֯תַּקִּיף occurs Job xiv. 20, ♦xv. 24, and chapter iv. 12, and as an adjective in the hiphil form here only. The Masorets notice that the ה is superfluous; but this could only have been because they did not see, as the LXX. did [who add the article τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ, ‘the strong’], that it means ‘the strong one’ generically; ‘what is stronger,’ as we say, or, noticing the hiphil form, ‘what is _made_ stronger,’ and which is clearly man’s destiny, decided by an overruling providence which he cannot escape).
♦ “xvi” replaced with “xv”
11 ¶ Seeing there be many │ For there are numberless things that increase vanity, │ reasons, and they only what _is_ man the better? │ increase the demonstration of │ evanescence, and that there │ could be no profit to humanity.
(11.) =For there exist words= (reasonings, in the technical use of the word in this book) =the much= (_i.e._ to the full) =multiplying vanity, what is the profiting to humanity?= The meaning seems to be that there could be adduced a still greater number of reasons, all of which would show that human life was evanescent; but what is the profit, or use, of stating them to humanity, or bringing them forward? and as יותר naturally refers to דברים, the nearest nominative, it must be taken as a distributive singular; so that this interpretation is the simplest the grammar of the passage admits.
12 For who knoweth what _is_ │ For no one can tell what _is_ good for man in _this_ life, │ a real good to mankind in any ¹all the days of his vain life │ life: that life being a number which he spendeth as a shadow? │ of evanescent days, which for who can tell a man what │ he spends as a shadow, and shall be after him under the │ of which no one can tell to sun? │ any man what shall result │ to him――in this hot work-day ¹ _Hebrew_ the number of the │ world. days of the life of his │ vanity. │
(12.) =For= (another additional reason) =who knows what= is a =good to man= in =his lives= (אדם, followed by plural, ‘lives,’ in _any_ life, therefore), =the number of the days of his life= (_i.e._ as he passes the days of that life), =his vanity= (that evanescent life of his), =and he makes them= as a =shadow= (the LXX. render ἐν σκιᾷ, but this may be _ad sensum_ only, not because they read differently) =which= (full relative, because the whole idea is referred to, it may be best rendered ‘because’) =who= (repeated, and so giving emphasis) =tells to man what shall be after him= (_i.e._ what shall succeed him) =under the sun.= The limitation is necessary, and especially here, as this passage closes the argument thus far. What is to follow is in the nature of detached and paradoxical aphorisms, illustrating these truths: they are some of these many arguments demonstrating human evanescence and transitoriness, but stated less formally than heretofore.