Ecc 5:17-18 | KD | STEP | “Also all his life long he eateth in darkness and grieveth himself much, and oh for his sorrow and hatred!” We might place under the regimen of the שׁ of שׁיע of ; but the Heb. style prefers the self-dependent form of sentences to that which is governed. The expression has something strange. This strangeness disappears if, with Ewald and Heiligst., after the lxx and Jerome, for יאכל we read ואכל: καὶ ἐν πένθει; Böttch. prefers ואפל, “and in darkness.” Or also, if we read ילך for יאכל; thus the Midrash here, and several codd. by Kennicott; but the Targ., Syr., and Masora read יאכל. Hitzig gets rid of that which is strange in this passage by taking כּל־ימיו as accus. of the obj., not of the time: all his days, his whole life he consumes in darkness; but in Heb. as in Lat. we say: consumere dies vitae , ; , but not comedere ; and why should the expression, “to eat in darkness,” not be a figurative expression for a faithless, gloomy life, as elsewhere “to sit in darkness” (Mic 7:8), and “to walk in darkness”? It is meant that all his life long he ate אונים לחם, the bread of sorrow, or לחץ לחם, prison fare; he did not allow himself pleasant table comforts in a room comfortably or splendidly lighted, for it is unnecessary to understand חשׁך subjectively and figuratively (Hitz., Zöck.). In 16 b the traditional punctuation is וכעס. The perf . ruled by the preceding fut . is syntactically correct, and the verb כּעס is common with the author, Ecc 7:9. Hitzig regards the text as corrupt, and reads כּחליו and כּעס, and explains: and (he consumes or swallows) much grief in his, etc.; the phrase, “to eat sorrow,” may be allowed (cf. , cf. ); but יאכל, as the representative of two so bold and essentially different metaphors, would be in point of style in bad taste. If the text is corrupt, it may be more easily rectified by reading וק לו וחלי הרבה וכּעס: and grief in abundance, and sorrow has he, and wrath. We merely suggest this. Ewald, Burger, and Böttch. read only וכעס הרבה וחלי; but לו is not to be dispensed with, and can easily be reduced to a mere vav . Elster retains וכעס, and reads, like Hitzig, בחליו: he grieves himself much in his sorrow and wrath; but in that case the word וקצפו was to be expected; also in this way the ideas do not psychologically accord with each other. However the text is taken, we must interpret וחליו וקצף as an exclamation, like הף, ; תּף, ; Ewald, §328 a , as we have done above. That וח of itself is a subst. clause = וחלי לו is untenable; the rendering of the noun as forming a clause, spoken of under , is of a different character. He who by his labour and care aims at becoming rich, will not only lay upon himself unnecessary privations, but also have many sorrows; for many of his plans fail, and the greater success of others awakens his envy, and neither he himself nor others satisfy him; he is morbidly disposed, and as he is diseased in mind, so also in body, and his constantly increasing dissatisfaction becomes at last קצף, he grumbles at himself, at God, and all the world. From observing such persons, Paul says of them (1Ti 6:6.): “They have pierced themselves through ( transfoderunt ) with many sorrows.” In view of these great evils, with which the possession of riches also is connected: of their deceitful instability, and their merely belonging to this present life, Koheleth returns to his ceterum censeo .

‏ Ecclesiastes 5:17-18

Ecc 5:17 “Also all his life long he eateth in darkness and grieveth himself much, and oh for his sorrow and hatred!” We might place Ecc 5:16 under the regimen of the שׁ of שׁיע of Ecc 5:15; but the Heb. style prefers the self-dependent form of sentences to that which is governed. The expression Ecc 5:16 has something strange. This strangeness disappears if, with Ewald and Heiligst., after the lxx and Jerome, for יאכל we read ואכל: καὶ ἐν πένθει; Böttch. prefers ואפל, “and in darkness.” Or also, if we read ילך for יאכל; thus the Midrash here, and several codd. by Kennicott; but the Targ., Syr., and Masora read יאכל. Hitzig gets rid of that which is strange in this passage by taking כּל־ימיו as accus. of the obj., not of the time: all his days, his whole life he consumes in darkness; but in Heb. as in Lat. we say: consumere dies vitae, Job 21:13; Job 36:11, but not comedere; and why should the expression, “to eat in darkness,” not be a figurative expression for a faithless, gloomy life, as elsewhere “to sit in darkness” (Mic 7:8), and “to walk in darkness”? It is meant that all his life long he ate אונים לחם, the bread of sorrow, or לחץ לחם, prison fare; he did not allow himself pleasant table comforts in a room comfortably or splendidly lighted, for it is unnecessary to understand חשׁך subjectively and figuratively (Hitz., Zöck.).

In 16 b the traditional punctuation is וכעס. ^{▼▼Thus in correct texts, in H. with the note: כ מלרע, viz., here and at Psa 112:10, only there ע has, according to tradition, the Kametz. Cf. Mas. fin. 52 b, and Baer’s Ed. of Psalter, under Psa 112:10.}

The perf. ruled by the preceding fut. is syntactically correct, and the verb כּעס is common with the author, Ecc 7:9. Hitzig regards the text as corrupt, and reads כּחליו and כּעס, and explains: and (he consumes or swallows) much grief in his, etc.; the phrase, “to eat sorrow,” may be allowed (cf. Pro 26:6, cf. Job 15:16); but יאכל, as the representative of two so bold and essentially different metaphors, would be in point of style in bad taste. If the text is corrupt, it may be more easily rectified by reading וק לו וחלי הרבה וכּעס: and grief in abundance, and sorrow has he, and wrath. We merely suggest this. Ewald, Burger, and Böttch. read only וכעס הרבה וחלי; but לו is not to be dispensed with, and can easily be reduced to a mere vav. Elster retains וכעס, and reads, like Hitzig, בחליו: he grieves himself much in his sorrow and wrath; but in that case the word וקצפו was to be expected; also in this way the ideas do not psychologically accord with each other. However the text is taken, we must interpret וחליו וקצף as an exclamation, like הף, Isa 29:16; תּף, Jer 49:16; Ewald, §328 a, as we have done above. That וח of itself is a subst. clause = וחלי לו is untenable; the rendering of the noun as forming a clause, spoken of under Ecc 2:21, is of a different character. ^{▼▼Rashi regards וחליו as a form like חיתו. This o everywhere appears only in a gen. connection.}

He who by his labour and care aims at becoming rich, will not only lay upon himself unnecessary privations, but also have many sorrows; for many of his plans fail, and the greater success of others awakens his envy, and neither he himself nor others satisfy him; he is morbidly disposed, and as he is diseased in mind, so also in body, and his constantly increasing dissatisfaction becomes at last קצף, he grumbles at himself, at God, and all the world. From observing such persons, Paul says of them (1Ti 6:6.): “They have pierced themselves through (transfoderunt) with many sorrows.”

In view of these great evils, with which the possession of riches also is connected: of their deceitful instability, and their merely belonging to this present life, Koheleth returns to his ceterum censeo. Ecc 5:18 “Behold then what I have seen as good, what as beautiful (is this): that one eat and drink and see good in all his labour with which he wearieth himself, under the sun, throughout the number of the days of his life which God hath given him; for that is his portion.” Toward this seeing, i.e., knowing from his own experience, his effort went forth, according to Ecc 2:3; and what he here, Ecc 5:17, Ecc 5:18, expresses as his resultat, he has already acknowledged at Ecc 2:24 and Ecc 3:12. With “behold” he here returns to it; for he says, that from the observations just spoken of, as from others, no other resultat befell him. Instead of ר טובה (here and at Ecc 6:6), he as often uses the words טוב ראה, Ecc 3:13; Ecc 2:24, or בּטוב, Ecc 2:1. In רא, the seeing is meant of that of mental apperception; in לרא, of immediate perception, experience. Our translation above does not correspond with the accentuation of the verse, which belongs to the class of disproportionably long verses without Athnach; cf. Gen 21:9; Num 9:1; Isa 36:1; Jer 13:13; Jer 51:37; Eze 42:10; Amo 5:1; 1Ch 26:26; 1Ch 28:1; 2Ch 23:1. The sentence אני ... הנה (with pausal āni with Rebîa) constitutes the beginning of the verse, in the form, as it were, of a superscription; and then its second part, the main proposition, is divided by the disjunctives following each other: Telisha Gedhola, Geresh, Legarmeh, Rebîa, Tebir, Tifcha, Silluk (cf. Jer 8:1, where Pazer instead of Telisha Bedhola; but as for the rest, the sequence of the accents is the same). Among the moderns, Hengst. holds to the accents, for he translates in strict accordance therewith, as Tremmelius does: “Behold what I have seen: that it is fine and good (Trem. bonum pulchrum) to eat ... .” The asher in the phrase, tov asher-yapheh, then connects it together: good which is at the same time beautiful; Grätz sees here the Greek καλὸν κάγαθόν. But the only passage to which, since Kimchi, reference is made for this use of asher, viz., Hos 12:8, does not prove it; for we are not, with Drusius, to translate there by: iniquitas quae sit peccatum, but by quae poenam mereat. The accentuation here is not correct. The second asher is without doubt the resumption of the first; and the translation - as already Dachselt in his Biblia Accentuata indicated: ecce itaque quod vidi bonum, quod pulchrum (hoc est ut quis edat) - presents the true relation of the component parts of the sentence. The suffix of עמלו refers to the general subj. contained in the inf.; cf. Ecc 8:15. The period of time denoted by מספּר is as at Ecc 2:3; Ecc 6:12. Also we read חל ... כּי־, Ecc 3:22, in the same connection.