when he strengthened the fountains of the flood,
When he appointed to the sea his bound,
that the waters should not transgress his command,
when he fixed the foundations of the earth,
Then was I beside him as architect,
and was daily full of delight,
sporting[226] before him at all times,
I who (still) have sport with his fruitful earth,
and have my delight with the sons of men.
The bold originality of this passage requires no proof. It cuts away at
a blow the old mythical conception of the world as the work of God’s
hands, and of an arbitrary omnipotence. ‘God,’ as Hooker says, ‘is a law
both to himself and to all things beside;’ ‘his wisdom hath stinted the
effects of his power.’ ‘Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit
abated, let, or hindered, by means of this; because the imposition of
this law upon himself is his own free and voluntary act’ (‘Jehovah
produced me’). The idea, then, of the world as a Cosmos was not adopted
by the Jews from the Greeks; it arose of itself as soon as religious men
pondered over the phenomena of nature. The author of _Job_ took up the
idea, and reexpressed it worthily in xxviii. 12-28, the chief difference
between him and his predecessor being that he denies the attainableness
for man of wisdom in the larger sense, while the author of the ‘Praise
of Wisdom’ does not raise the question whether the higher department of
wisdom is open to human enquiry.
At the subsequent history of the conception of Wisdom we can barely
glance.[227] The cosmogonist in Gen. i., a sublime thinker, but
addressing untutored minds, preferred to convey truth in forms borrowed
from mythology. The moralists however saw the poetical and religious
importance of the personification of Wisdom, and repeatedly introduced
it into their didactic works (see Ecclus. i., xxiv., Wisd. vi.-ix.,[228]
and comp. Bar. iii. 29-37). Sirach even takes a step in advance of his
original, and at least for a moment identifies Wisdom with the Law of
Moses.[229] It became indeed a tradition of Jewish exegesis (see _Pirke
Aboth_, vi. 10) to interpret the absolute Khokma of the Tora, either in
opposition to Hellenistic views of the higher wisdom, or from a
practical instinct such as Wordsworth followed when in praise of Duty he
employed figures which had occurred long before in the ‘Praise of
Wisdom,’ or (a closer parallel) Richard Hooker, when he described the
Scripture as one embodiment of that divine Law which he so splendidly
eulogises at the close of his first book. That Jewish legalism
degenerated into a mechanical formalism, should not blind us to the
practical instinct in which it originated.
The title ‘The Praise of Wisdom’ has now, I hope, been justified. The
passage quoted above forms the high-water mark of this elevated poetry,
and points the way to the grand things in the poem of Job. Regularity of
structure is not a merit of our treatise, but the repetitions are not
feeble, and are perhaps deliberately made. The author is a _didactic_
poet, and only after he can presume that his lessons have been
assimilated will he venture on his highest flights. Does Ewald bear this
in mind when he divides the book into three sections, I. a general
exhortation to wisdom, in which the whole of the truth is touched upon,
but no part is completely unfolded (i. 8-iii. 35); II. an exhaustive
treatment of a few details (iv. 1-vi. 19); III. a gradual rise to the
highest and most universal truth, closing in almost lyric enthusiasm
(vi. 20-ix. 18)? Or Hitzig, when, to suit an artificial arrangement, he
omits as later additions iii. 22-26, vi. 1-19, viii. 4-12, 14-16, ix.
7-10? These are the two extremes of critical theory; their failure may
be taken as a proof that the only possible division is one like that of
Delitzsch into fifteen poems, rather loosely connected together, but
presenting the same peculiarities of style and diction. _Mashals_ we can
only term them in a wide sense of the word; not condensation but
expansion is the characteristic of this book; the discourse flows on
till the subject has been exhausted, and then, after a brief pause, it
gushes forth anew. One of the chapters (ii.) actually forms a single
carefully elaborated sentence. Now and then the matter is more broken
up; we meet with some small groups of detached sentences (e.g. iii.
27-35, vi. 1-11, 12-19), which introduce some variety into the style,
and suggest that the author revised his work with the view of making it
an ethical manual, as well as an introduction to the anthology. In one
of these groups we find the interesting similitude of the ant, which the
Septuagint has supplemented by one of purely Greek origin (see Hitzig
and Lagarde) on the bee.
The author has the pen of a ready writer, and his work shows that he has
studied the literature of his time. He was familiar[230] with the
phraseology of the ‘Solomonic’ proverbs, though he struck out a style of
his own, in harmony with the altered conditions of the teaching office.
He addresses those who have time to listen, and taste to appreciate his
flowing rhetoric. He implies throughout that his audience belongs to the
wealthier class, and his favourite images are drawn from the life of the
merchant.[231] Clearly too he has a strong hold upon the doctrine that
prosperity and adversity are indicative of moral character. Thus,
speaking of ethical Wisdom, he says,
Length of days is in her (Wisdom’s) right hand,
in her left riches and honour (iii. 16).[232]
And yet there is evidence, even in Prov. i.-ix., of a nascent scepticism
on this point, originating probably in some recent event, such as the
captivity of the Ten Tribes. In words which remind us of Psalms xxxvii.
and lxxiii. the writer exclaims—
Envy thou not the man of violence,
and have thou pleasure in none of his ways....
The curse of Jehovah is in the house of the ungodly,
but the habitation of the righteous he blesses (iii. 31, 33);
and to furnish his disciples with an answer to the sceptic—
Truly, whom Jehovah loves, he corrects,
and as a father the son in whom he delights
(iii. 12; comp. Job v. 17).
With this sweet saying I take leave for the present of this beautiful
work. How true it is that the doubts of a believer are the
stepping-stones to higher attainments of faith!
Footnote 219:
(Maspero) _Records of the Past_, ii. 9-16.
Footnote 220:
Its close relation to the first of the two great anthologies is shown
by the linguistic points of contact between the two works (see Chap.
VI.)
Footnote 221:
Rev. J. H. Thorn.
Footnote 222:
The poet, we can see, has not arranged the creative works as carefully
as the cosmogonist in Genesis.
Footnote 223:
Pleaseth him, the Eternal Child,
To play his sweet will, glad and wild.—Emerson, _Wood Notes_.
Footnote 224:
‘Produced’ seems the best rendering (Sept., ἔκτισε), in the sense of
‘creating,’ not (as Del.) of ‘revealing,’ for which there is no
authority. The secondary meaning ‘possessed’ (Aquila &c. ἐκτήσατο,
Vulg. _possedit_; comp. Eccles. xxiv. 6) is less agreeable to the
context (see Hitzig’s note). There is the same diversity of rendering
in Gen. xiv. 19-22. On the patristic expositions of this passage, see
Dean Goode, _The Divine Rule of Faith and Practice_, ed. 1, i. 299.
The ante-Nicene Fathers mostly apply it to the divine generation of
the Son, the post-Nicene to the generation of the human nature of
Christ. Basil and Epiphanius are exceptions. The former applies the
passage to ‘that wisdom which the apostle mentions’ (in 1 Cor. i. 21):
the latter expresses a strong opinion that ‘it does not at all speak
concerning the Son of God.’
Footnote 225:
Comp. Milton’s noble conception of the Creator’s golden compasses
(_Par. Lost_, vii. 225, 6).
Footnote 226:
Comp. Delitzsch, _System der christlichen Apologetik_, § 16, where the
history of this conception in Jewish literature is traced in
connection with that of the Logos-idea; also Ewald, _Die Lehre der
Bibel von Gott_, iii. 74-77.
Footnote 227:
In Wisd. vii. 22 &c. the language appears to some to rise above
poetical personification, and to imply a conscious hypostatising of
Wisdom. Dante, a good judge on this point, certainly thought otherwise
(_Convito_, iii. 15); he evidently holds that the Sophia of the Book
of Wisdom is precisely analogous to his own very strong
personification of divine Philosophy. Still such language may have
partly prepared the way for the well-known Gnostic myth of Achamoth or
Sophia (comp. Baur, _Three First Centuries_, E. T., i. 207). It was
well, as Plumptre remarks, that Philo adopted Logos rather than Sophia
as the name of the creative energy. A system in which Sophia had been
the dominant word might have led to an earlier development of
Mariolatry (Introduction to Proverbs in the _Speaker’s Commentary_).
Footnote 228:
Ecclus. xxiv. 23. (Comp. a sublime passage of E. Irving, identifying
the contents of the ‘sacred volume’ with ‘the primeval divinity of
revealed Wisdom,’ _Miscellanies_, p. 380 &c.) According to late Jewish
theology, the Law is one of the seven things produced before the
creation of the world. The alphabet-fables in Talmud and Midrash, in
which letters of the alphabet converse with God, presuppose the same
view (comp. the Mohammedan view of the Koran).
Footnote 229:
So Milton (a Hebraist), _Paradise Lost_, vii. 10 (‘didst play’), and
again in _Tetrachordon_ (‘God himself conceals not his own
recreations,’ &c.)
Footnote 230:
The proof of this cannot be given here.
Footnote 231:
See ii. 4, iii. 13-15, iv. 7, vii. 16, 17, 19, 20 (especially), viii.
10, 18-21.
Footnote 232:
Comp. i. 32, 33, ii. 21, 22, iii. 1-10, ix. 11, 12, 18.
CHAPTER VI.
SUPPLEMENTARY ON QUESTIONS OF DATE AND ORIGIN.
There are two extreme views on the date of the Book of Proverbs, between
which are the theories of the mass of moderate critics. The one is that
represented by Keil in his Introduction and Bishop Ellicott’s
Commentary, that the whole book except chaps. xxx., xxxi., and perhaps
the heading i. 1-6, is in substance of Solomonic origin;[233] the other
is that of Vatke and Reuss (the precursors of Kuenen and Wellhausen)
that our proverbs as a collection come from the post-Exile period. Much
need not be said on the first of these extreme views. It has been
pointed out already that the ethical and religious character even of the
earliest proverbial collection stands far removed from that of the
historical Solomon. It is indeed a pure hypothesis that any Solomonic
element survives in the Book of Proverbs. I doubt not that many bright
and witty _sayings_ of Solomon came into circulation, and some of them
might conceivably have been gathered up and included in the anthologies.
But have we any adequate means of deciding which these are? It would
appear from 1 Kings iv. 33 that the wisdom of the historical Solomon
expressed itself in _spoken_ fables or moralisations about animals and
trees. A few, a very few, of the proverbs in our book may perhaps
satisfy the test thus obtained, and be plausibly represented as a
Solomonic element. But why Solomon should be singled out as the author,
it would tax one’s ingenuity to say, and the judgment of Hitzig (in such
matters a conservative critic) must be maintained that the survival of
Solomonic proverbs is no more than a possibility.[234]
The other extreme view requires some little explanation. Vatke does not
deny that Solomon composed proverbs, but only that his proverbs can have
resembled those in the canonical book. Putting aside some sayings of
earlier date Vatke holds that the stamp of the post-Exile period (and
more particularly of the fifth century) is as marked in the Book of
Proverbs as it is, according to him, in that of Job; in short, that both
works imply, equally with the still later Ecclesiastes, a long and
earnest struggle between the principles represented respectively by the
higher prophets and by the priests. The result of this struggle has
become to the authors of these books an objective truth which it is
henceforth their business to realise as true subjectively.[235] The
existence of a free-minded school of thought in the post-Exile period is
very plausibly defended both by Vatke and by Kuenen,[236] and if our
only choice lay between the extreme alternatives mentioned above, we
should be shut up to the acceptance of the latter.
I shall not however discuss here the post-Exile origin of the Book of
Proverbs as a whole, but only that part of the hypothesis which relates
to the very interesting section designated by Ewald the ‘Praise of
Wisdom.’ If this portion is not of Exile or post-Exile origin, I do not
see how it can be maintained that any other part of the book is so,
except indeed the sayings of Agur and Lemuel (xxx. 1-xxii. 9).
The following are some of the leading arguments for the late origin of
Prov. i.-ix. I. These chapters are said to contain a few parallels to
passages in works belonging probably to the Exile or post-Exile period
(II. Isaiah,[237] Job). I lay no stress on the occurrence of Prov. i. 16
(with the addition of ‘innocent’) in Isa. lix. 7_a_, because this verse
is not in the rhythm of the rest of Prov. i.-ix., and is not found in
the Septuagint. There may however be a parallelism between Prov. ii. 15
and Isa. lix. 8; the prophet is, at any rate, influenced by some
proverbial work similar to Prov. i.-ix. There may also be one between
Prov, i. 24, 26, 27 and Isa. lxv. 12, lxvi. 4. More striking are the
affinities already pointed out between Prov. i.-ix. and the Book of Job,
which may be taken to prove that these works proceeded from the same
circle of ‘wise men,’ but not necessarily that they are of the same
period (see above, p. 85).
II. As to the religious ideas of these chapters, (_a_) The Theism
expressed is both pure and broad. Polytheism is not even worthy to be
the subject of controversy; the tone is throughout positive. Jehovah’s
vast creative activity fills the writer’s mind, and begins to stimulate
speculative curiosity; from this point of view comp. Prov. viii. 22-31
with Job xv. 7, 8,[238] xxxviii. 4-11, and Gen. i. (The affinities with
the cosmogony are only general,[239] but perhaps gain in importance when
taken together with the possible allusion to Gen. ii. in Prov. iii. 18,
‘She is a tree of life’ &c.) (_b_) It is no objection to the Exile or
post-Exile date that the doctrine of invariable retribution is
presupposed in this treatise. We find this doctrine both in the speeches
of Elihu (Job. xxxii.-xxxvii., a separate work in its origin) and in the
Wisdom of Sirach. There is some weight in these arguments. But it can, I
think, be shown that the age of Jeremiah contained the germs of various
mental products which only matured in the later periods, and Reuss seems
to me singularly wilful in assuming that the personification of Wisdom
of itself proves the late date of Prov. i.-ix.
III. The luxurious living implied in Prov i.-ix. would suit the Exile
and post-Exile period. As soon as the Jews had the chance of
participating in the world’s good things, they eagerly availed
themselves of it. The prominence of the retribution doctrine in these
nine chapters might possibly be accounted for by the prosperity of many
of the dispersed Jews. To me however the expression ‘peace-offerings’
(vii. 14) points away from Babylon, just as the expression ‘yarn of
Egypt’ in vii. 16 points away from Egypt.
IV. The phraseology of these chapters (as well as of the rest of the
book) is said by Hartmann[240] to be late. His instances of late and
Aramaising words and forms require testing; an argument of this sort
(except in more extreme cases) is not conclusive as to date. Reuss
appears to base his linguistic argument rather on the clearness of the
style, which ‘betrays this section to be the latest part of the
book.’[241] Nöldeke however more soberly infers, from the ‘flowingness
and facility of the language,’ that the author lived subsequently to
Isaiah.[242]
On the whole, I am compelled to reject the hypothesis of either the
Exile or the post-Exile origin of Prov. i.-ix. The Exile-date seems to
be excluded by Prov. vii. 14, which implies the sacrificial system; the
post-Exile by the want of any sufficient reason for descending so late
in the course of history. The fifth century in particular, to which
Vatke refers the whole Book of Proverbs, seems to me out of the question
for this section of the book. Before the time of Sirach, I cannot find a
period in the post-Exile history in which the life of Jerusalem can have
much resembled the picture given of it in Prov. i.-ix. But Sirach’s
evident imitation of the ‘Praise of Wisdom’ (we shall come back to this
in studying Ecclesiasticus) seems of itself to suggest that Prov. i.-ix.
is the monument of an earlier age, and this is confirmed by Sirach’s
different attitude towards ceremonial religion.
There remains the hypothesis that the treatise, Prov. i.-ix., was
written towards the close of the kingdom of Judah. There seems to me no
sufficient argument against this view, which agrees with the result
above attained on the relation of Prov. i.-ix. to the Book of Job (p.
85). The collapse of the state was sudden, and for some time after the
composition or at least promulgation of the Deuteronomic _Tōra_ the Jews
appeared to be in the enjoyment of national prosperity. Now the author
of Prov. i.-ix. depicts a state of outward prosperity and is evidently
familiar with the exhortations of Deuteronomy. Who, as Delitzsch
remarks, can fail to hear in Prov. i. 7-ix. an echo of the _Shemà_
(‘hear’), Deut. vi. 4-9 (comp. xi. 18-21)? This is quite consistent with
the opinion that Prov. i.-ix. is later than the proverbs in the two
principal collections of our book, an opinion which commends itself to
most[243] especially on account of the higher moral standard of Prov.
i.-ix., and its advance in the treatment of literary form.
I have said ‘the composition or at least promulgation’ of Deuteronomy.
If Deuteronomy was written (which is at least possible) as early as the
reign of Hezekiah,[244] we may perhaps follow Ewald, who places the
‘Praise of Wisdom’ in the period of relative prosperity which, he
thinks, closed the reign of Manasseh.[245] It is noteworthy that Mic.
vi., which Ewald plausibly assigns to the period of Manasseh’s
persecution, also presents some points of contact with Deuteronomy.[246]
And yet it seems to me safer to date the book in the reign of Josiah,
when, as we know from history and prophecy, the discourses of
Deuteronomy first became generally known.
* * * * *
Next, as to the body of the work. That the collection in x. 1-xxii. 16
is the earliest part of the book is admitted by most critics. The fact
that chaps. i.-ix. present linguistic points of contact with it, does
not prove the two parts to be of the same date, for the opening chapters
also display peculiarities quite unlike those of the ‘Solomonic’
anthology.[247] I have already set forth my own view on this and on
other critical points, and will now only register the results of Ewald
and of Delitzsch. Both are agreed that the older Book of Proverbs
extends from i. 1 to xxiv. 22, i. 1-6 (or 7) being the descriptive
heading of the work, and i. 7 (or 8)-ix. 18 a hortatory treatise, by the
author, more or less introductory to the sayings which follow. The date
of the collection of the latter Ewald places at the beginning of the
eighth century; that of the heading and introduction in the middle of
the seventh. Towards the end of the seventh century the three appendices
(xxii. 17-xxiv. 22, xxiv. 23-35, xxv. 1-xxix. 27) were added; the
contents of the two former were derived from two popular proverbial
collections, while the latter was a great and officially sanctioned
anthology dating from the end of the eighth century. The remaining parts
of the book (xxx. 1-xxxi. 9, and xxxi. 10-31) Ewald assigns to the
seventh century. Delitzsch (whose view is perhaps the most conservative
one still tenable) dates the publication of the first Book of Proverbs
as early as the reign of Jehoshaphat (referring to 2 Chr. xvii. 7-9). To
its editor he ascribes not only the authorship of i. 1-ix. 18 but the
conclusion of the ‘older book’ by the words of the wise, xxii. 17-xxiv.
22, while a later editor is responsible both for the supplementary
sayings of the wise, xxiv. 22-34, and for the great Hezekian collection,
of which he thus ensured the preservation. The same person probably
appended the obscure sayings of Agur (xxx.) and of Lemuel (xxxi. 1-9),
possibly too the closing alphabetic poem (xxxi. 10-31), which is
assigned by Delitzsch to the pre-Hezekian period. Both Ewald and
Delitzsch are substantially agreed as to the existence of a genuine
Solomonic element in both the great anthologies (especially in the
first), but upon very conjectural grounds.
One point only remains to be considered, however briefly. The Book of
Job has already furnished an example of the poetical fiction of the
non-Israelitish authorship of a Hebrew poem. It is possible enough that
this and the similar instance of the Balaam-oracles were not alone in
Hebrew literature. Nor are they so, if a view of the first words of the
headings in Prov. xxx. 1, xxxi. 1, which has found many friends, be
correct, and we may render in the one case, ‘The words of Agur the son
of Jakeh, of (the country of) Massa,’ reading either _mimmassā_ (or, as
Delitzsch proposes, _mimmēshā_ or _hammassā’ī_[248]); and in the other,
‘The words of Lemuel the king of Massa.’ Mühlau in his monograph on
‘Agur’ and ‘Lemuel’ thinks that both the contents and the language of
the sayings of Agur ‘almost necessarily point to a region bordering on
the Syro-Arabian wastes,’ but his theory of an Israelitish colony in a
certain Massa in the Hauran (comp. 1 Chr. v. 10), like a somewhat
similar theory of Hitzig’s (he places ‘Massa’ in N. Arabia, comparing 1
Chr. iv. 42, 43, where the Simeonites are said to have settled in _Mount
Seir_, and Isa. xxi. 11, 12[249]), is too conjectural to be readily
accepted. There is however much force in a part of the arguments of
Mühlau, especially in his first and second (referring to xxxi. 1), ‘The
word _melek_ in apposition to Lemuel cannot go without the
article,’[250] and _’Massā_ “utterance” is never used elsewhere except
of (prophetic) oracles.’ If any one therefore likes to adopt the above
renderings, taking Massa as the name of a country (comp. Gen. xxv. 14, 1
Chr. i. 30), I have no strong objection. Ziegler’s view cited by
Mühlau,[251] that Lemuel was an Emeer of an Arabian tribe in the east of
Jordan, and that an Israelitish wise man translated the Emeer’s sayings
into Hebrew, is perhaps not as untenable as Mühlau thinks, provided that
‘translation’ be taken to include recasting in accordance with the
spirit of the Old Testament religion. For my own part, however, I prefer
the simpler explanation given already in considering chaps. xxx., xxii.
1-9. I account for the Aramaisms, Arabisms, and other peculiarities of
these sections by their post-Exile origin, with which the character of
the contents of the most striking portion, xxx. 1-6, appears to me to
harmonise (notice e.g. the strong faith in the words of revelation in
xxx. 5). But I am not writing a commentary, and can only draw the
reader’s attention to some of the most important exegetical phenomena.
Let me refer in conclusion to a critical note on p. 175, which has a
bearing on the question raised by some whether Job and this part of
Proverbs may fitly be called Hebræo-Arabic works. It is strange that
Hitzig should have renounced the support for his theory (see p. 171) to
be obtained from Prov. xxx. 31.
Footnote 233:
Keil qualifies this however by admitting that Solomon may have
incorporated many sayings of other wise men.
Footnote 234:
_Die Sprüche Salomo’s_, v. xvii.
Footnote 235:
_Die biblische Theologie_, i. 563.
Footnote 236:
_The Religion of Israel_, ii. 242.
Footnote 237:
The passages in II. Isaiah referred to in this paragraph belong to
sections most probably of post-Exile origin. (See art. ‘Isaiah’ in
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, new ed.)
Footnote 238:
We should perhaps read here _v’thigga’_ for _v’thigra’_, following
Sept.’s εἰς δε σε ἀφίκετο σοφία; so Merx and Bickell.
Footnote 239:
Were the affinities with Gen. i. more definite, critics of
Wellhausen’s school would naturally derive from them an argument for
the post-Exile origin of Prov. i.-ix. I do not myself attach much
weight to these slight parallelisms.
Footnote 240:
_Die enge Verbindung des A. T. mit dem Neuen_, pp. 148-9.
Footnote 241:
_Geschichte der heiligen Schriften Alten Testaments_, p. 494.
Footnote 242:
_Die alttestamentliche Literatur_ (1868), p. 159.
Footnote 243:
Hitzig, however, almost alone among recent critics, regards the
opening chapters as the oldest part of the book.
Footnote 244:
This seems to me the earliest probable date, but does not exclude the
possibility that early traditional material has been worked into the
book.
Footnote 245:
_History of Israel_, iv. 219. It should be mentioned however that
Ewald places Job (except the Elihu-portion), Prov. i.-ix., and, last
in order, Deuteronomy _all in the reign of Manasseh_. He fails to
recognise the influence of Deuteronomy on the ‘Praise of Wisdom.’
Footnote 246:
See _Micah_ in the Cambridge School and College Bible.
Footnote 247:
Delitzsch, _Proverbs_, i. 33; Kuenen, _Onderzock_, iii. 75.
Footnote 248:
In the version known as the _Græcus Venetus_ (14th or 15th cent.) xxx.
1_a_ runs thus, Λόγοι ἀγούρου υἱέως ἰακώως τοῦ μασάου (Jakeh the
Massaite). Delitzsch’s view, given above, is taken from his art. on
‘Proverbs’ in Herzog-Plitt’s Encyclopædia; he refers to Friedrich
Delitzsch’s _Paradies_, p. 303; comp. 243.
Footnote 249:
On Isa. xxi. 11, 12, see _The Prophecies of Isaiah_, i. 129, ii. 152.
Hitzig’s theory, originally stated in Zeller’s _Theol. Jahrbücher_,
1844, pp. 269-305, will be found in the well-known short commentary
(_Kurzgefasstes exeg. Handbuch_, 1847) by Bertheau, who substantially
accepts it.
Footnote 250:
This is a little too strong. We should certainly have expected _melek
Lemuel_ (or _Lemoel_) rather than _Lemuel melek_, on the analogy of
_melek Yārēb_, Hos. v. 13, x. 6. As it stands in the text, _melek_
(after _Lemuel_, and without the article) can only be a definition of
class. The Lemuel spoken of was quite unknown to the reader, and
therefore the editor appends the descriptive title ‘king.’ Comp. Ex.
xxxii. 11, where Joshua, son of Nun, being introduced for the first
time, is described as _na’ar_ ‘a squire.’
Footnote 251:
Referring to _Neue Uebersetzung der Denksprüche Salomo’s_, 1791, p.
29.
CHAPTER VII.
THE TEXT OF PROVERBS.
The sense of proverbs is naturally most difficult to catch when there
has been no attempt to group them by subjects. Hence the textual
difficulties of so large a part of the earliest anthology. Grätz has
made some valuable among many too arbitrary corrections; but a
systematic use of the ancient versions is still a desideratum. Lagarde,
Oort, Bickell, and others have led the way; but much yet remains to be
done. My space only allows me to give some preliminary hints, which may
at least stimulate further inquiry, on the relation of the Hebrew text
to the versions, especially the Septuagint version (if I should not
rather speak of ‘versions’). How comes it, we may ask first of all, that
the Septuagint contains so many passages not found in the Hebrew? One
answer is that in a foreign land, with a new language and a new circle
of ideas, explanation was as necessary to the Hellenistic Jews as
translation. Hence the tendency of the Septuagint translators to
introduce glosses. But the form of the Book of Proverbs specially
favoured interpolations. Sometimes only a few words were inserted to
make the text more distinct (e.g. i. 22, xii. 25, xxiv. 23); at other
times explanatory or suggested remarks were added, at first perhaps in
the margin. Of course, it is perfectly conceivable that the received
Hebrew text itself may contain similar additions; the analogy of other
books, in which such interpolations occur, even favours this idea. One
such insertion is patent; there can be no doubt that i. 16 was added in
the Hebrew, to the detriment of the connection, from Isa. lix. 7. As
this passage is wanting in the best MSS. of the Septuagint, we might be
tempted to use this version as a means of detecting other interpolations
in the Hebrew. This however would lead us into researches of too much
complexity.
Some of the Septuagint additions are also found in the Vulgate, some
again also in the Peshitto; and where a Septuagint addition is not found
in the Vulgate we may, at least in some cases, assume that the
Septuagint text did not in St. Jerome’s time contain the additional
matter. Among the most interesting passages from a text-critical point
of view peculiar to the Septuagint are those found at iii. 15, iv. 27,
vi. 8, 11, vii. 2, ix. 12,[252], 18, xi. 16, xii. 13, xv. 18, xvi. 5,
xix. 7, xxvi. 11, xxvii. 20, 21, xxviii. 10. Most of these can be
rendered back into Hebrew, though this is difficult with vi. 11_b_ as it
stands, and impossible with vi. 8 (‘the bee’). In any case the Hebrew
origin of a proverb does not prove that it was inserted by the original
collector or collectors. With regard to the Targum and its deviations
from the Hebrew text, it is to be observed that this version has the
same relation to the Peshitto as the Vulgate to the old Latin version on
which it is based. The Peshitto translates from a Hebrew text
substantially the same as our own; though the translator has consulted
the Septuagint (according to Hitzig) in the portion of the book
beginning at vii. 23.
There are also some remarkable transpositions in the Septuagint
Proverbs, reminding us of those in the Septuagint Jeremiah. The three
appendices to the Hezekian collection are given in a very different
order from that of the Hebrew. The first fourteen verses of chap. xxx.
are inserted between ver. 22 and ver. 23 of chap. xxiv., and all the
remainder, together with xxxi. 1-9, is placed before chap. xxv. The
treatment of the headings in the Septuagint is also remarkable, and
seems arbitrary; e.g. it looks as if the translator had expunged all
those peculiarities in the superscriptions which suggested a variety of
authorship. The proper names in chaps. xxx., xxxi. have been explained
away, and the heading in x. 1, which limits the Solomonic authorship too
much for the translator, has been actually omitted.
On the Septuagint additions to Proverbs, comp. Deane in _Expositor_,
1884, pp. 297-301; on the larger subject of the Greek and the Hebrew
text, see introduction to Hitzig’s commentary, Lagarde’s _Anmerkungen
&c._, and a series of papers, thorough but less masterly than Hitzig’s
or Lagarde’s work, by Heidenheim (title in ‘Aids to the Student,’
below).
NOTE ON PROVERBS XXX. 31.
Some assume here a corruption of the text, but the margin of the Revised
Version gives an appropriate sense. It implies indeed the admission of a
downright Arabism, but there are parallels for this in vv. 15, 16, 17,
and _alqūm_ for the Arabic _al-qaum_ is (see Gesenius) like _elgābhīsh_
(Ezek. xiii. 11, 13, xxxviii. 22) and _almōdād_ (Gen. x. 26). ‘The king
when his army is with him’ may very fitly be adduced as a specimen of
the ‘comely in going.’ M. Halévy indeed has suggested that _qūm_ in
_alqūm_ may be the _Qāvam_ or _Qājam_ often mentioned in the Sinaitic
inscriptions (_Bulletin_ No. 28 of the Société de Linguistique; see
_Academy_, March 27, 1886). But the former view is still the more
plausible one. Why should a king with whom is ‘God Qavam’ be described
as specially ‘comely in going’? Wetzstein too has stated that _alqaum_
is still pronounced _al-qōm_ by the Bedawins. Comp. Blau, _Zeitschr. d.
deutschen morg. Ges._, xxv. 539.
Footnote 252:
The addition here is very poetical, and may, as Ewald says, have been
extracted from an ancient anthology. But it disturbs the connection.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RELIGIOUS VALUE OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS.
It is only in modern times that the Book of Proverbs has been
disparaged; the early Christian Fathers considered it to be of much
ethico-religious value. Hence the sounding title, first used by Clement
of Rome (_Cor._, c. 57), ἡ πανάρετος σοφία. From our point of view,
indeed, the value of the book is different in its several parts, but no
part is without its use. Can any Christian help seeing the poetic
foregleams of Christ in the great monologue of Wisdom in chap. viii.?
Dorner may be right in maintaining that the idea of the Incarnation
cannot have been evolved from Hebraism or Judaism, and yet the
description of Wisdom, ‘sporting with Jehovah’s world’ and ‘having her
delights with the sons of men’ (viii. 31), cannot but remind us of the
sympathetic, divine-human Teacher, who ‘took the form of a servant.’ How
deeply this great section has affected the theology of the past, I need
not here relate. Will it ever lose its value as a symbolic picture of
the combined transcendence and immanence of the Divine Being?
Turning to the other parts of the book, do they not furnish abundant
justification of that type of Christianity which accepts but does not
dwell on forms, so bent is it upon moral applications of the religious
principle? Do they not show that the ‘fear of the Lord’ is quite
compatible with a deep interest in average human life and human nature?
The Book of Proverbs, taken as a whole, seems to supply the necessary
counterweight to the psalms and the prophecies. The psalmists love God
more than aught else; but must every one say, ‘Possessing this, I have
pleasure in nothing upon earth’ (Ps. lxxiii. 26)? Would it be good to be
always in this mood? Is there not something more satisfactory in the
Pauline saying, ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s’? And as for
the prophets—do they not (we may conjecture and perhaps partly prove
this) depreciate too much the morality and religion of their neighbours?
The Book of Proverbs gives us only average morality and religion; yet,
if we judge it fairly, how pleasing on the whole is the picture! Taking
it as equally authoritative with the psalms and prophecies, shall we not
rise to a more comprehensive religion than a mere pupil of psalmists or
prophets knew—to one that charges us, not to love God less, but our
neighbour more? It would no doubt be easy to criticise the Book from a
New Testament point of view. But the New Testament itself has absorbed
much that is best in it, and quotations from it occur not unfrequently,
especially in the Epistles. Nor can any teacher of the people afford to
neglect its stores of happily expressed practical wisdom. We must not
even despise its ‘utilitarianism.’ The awful declarations of ‘Wisdom’ in
Prov. i. 24-32 are simply the voice of the personified laws of God[253]
warning men that the consequences of their acts, even if they may be
overruled for good, yet cannot by any cunning be escaped. Does the New
Testament quite supersede this form of teaching? And does not the Hebrew
sage once at least give a suggestion of that very overruling love of God
which is among the characteristic ideas of Christian lore (see Prov.
iii. 11)?
Footnote 253:
So we may venture to paraphrase ‘Wisdom’ in this connection.
AIDS TO THE STUDENT.
The ‘aids’ here mentioned are such as might otherwise escape notice.
W. Nowack, _Die Sprüche Salomo’s u.s.w._ (a recast of Bertheau’s
commentary in the _Kurzgefasstes Exeg. Handbuch_), 1883; H. Deutsch,
_Die Sprüche Salomo’s nach der Auffassung im Talmud und Midrasch
dargestellt und kritisch untersucht_ (erster Theil, 1885); Bickell,
‘Exegetisch-kritische Nachlese: Proverbien und Job,’ in _Zeitschr. fur
kathol. Theologie_, 1886, pp. 205-208; Aben Ezra’s commentary on
Proverbs, edited by Chaim M. Horowitz, 1884; Loewenstein, _Die
Proverbien Salomo’s, mit Benutzung älterer und neuerer Manuskripte_,
1837 (text and commentary in Hebrew, with German metrical version;
contains valuable contributions to a more critical Massoretic text from
the papers of W. Heidenheim); M. Heidenheim, ‘Zur Textkritik der
Proverbien,’ in his _Vierteljahresschrift_ for 1865 and 1866; Lagarde,
_Anmerkungen sur griechischen Uebersetzung der Proverbien_, 1863; Grätz,
‘Exegetische Studien zu den Salomonischen Sprüchen,’ in his
_Monatsschrift_, 1884; Dijserinck, ‘Kritische Scholien,’ in _Theologisch
Tijdschrift_, 1883, p. 577 &c.; Oort, ‘Spreuken I.-IX.,’ in same
periodical, 1885, p. 379 &c.; Böttcher, _Aehrenlese_, part iii., 1865
(contains 39 pages on Proverbs); Mühlau, _De proverbiorum Agur et Lemuel
origine_, 1869; Bruch, _Weisheitslehre der Hebräer_, 1851; Hooykaas,
_Gesch. van de beoefening der Weisheid onder de Hebreen_, 1862; Dukes,
_Rabbinische Blumenlese_, 1844 (includes Talmudic proverbs; comp. the
older works of Drusius, 1590-1, and Brüll’s supplement in his
_Jahrbücher_, 1885); Delitzsch, art. ‘Sprüche Salomo’s,’ in
Herzog-Plitt’s _Real-Encyklopädie_, ed. 2, vol. xiv.; and the works of
Oehler and Schultz on Old Testament Theology (the former in Clark’s
Library).
THE WISDOM OF JESUS THE SON OF SIRACH.
CHAPTER I.
THE WISE MAN TURNED SCRIBE. SIRACH’S MORAL TEACHING.
The inclusion of Sirach within our range of study, as an appendix and
counterpart to the canonical Book of Proverbs, requires no long
justification. The so-called ‘Wisdom of Solomon’ is in form and
colouring almost as much Greek as Hebrew, and has no place in a survey
of the wisdom of Palestine. But the ‘Wisdom’ more modestly ascribed to
the son of Sirach is a truly Israelitish production, though as yet none
but the masters of our subject have recognised its intrinsic importance.
Whence comes this prevalent neglect of a work still known as
‘Ecclesiasticus’ or a ‘church-book’? Doubtless it has fallen in
estimation from being combined with books more difficult to appraise
fairly and consequently regarded with suspicion. The objection which
some Jewish doctors entertained to recommending parts of the Hagiographa
has been felt by many moderns with regard to the Apocrypha. The
objection is too strong and general not to have some foundation, but it
implies an unhistorical habit of mind. Granted that the Apocryphal
writings of the Old Testament belong in the main to a period of outer
and inner decadence (though the noble Maccabean days may qualify this);
yet periods of decadence are often also periods of transition to some
new and better thing, which cannot be understood or appreciated without
them. Ewald has suggested the title of ‘intermediate writings’
(_Zwischenschriften_[254]) as a substitute for Apocrypha, to indicate
that transitional character which gives these books so high a value for
the student of both Testaments.
The book now before us—the largest and most comprehensive in the
Wisdom-literature—is one of these ‘intermediate writings,’ but in what
sense beyond the most superficial one remains to be seen. It is
mentioned here first of all because of the proof which it gives of the
great literary force of the canonical Book of Proverbs. But no product
of literature could maintain itself as Sirach has done if it were a mere
imitation; Sirach, not less than the Wisdom-books of the Old Testament
proper, is at least a partial reflection of the life of the times. Its
date indeed has been disputed. Suffice it to say here that the author
was, beyond reasonable doubt,[255] a contemporary of ‘Simon the high
priest, the son of Onias.’ Now there were five high priests who bore the
name of Simon or Simeon, two of whom, Simon I. (B.C. 310-290) and Simon
II. (B.C. 219-199), have by different critics been thought of. The
weight of argument is in favour of the second of the name, who was
certainly the more important of the two, and who is referred to in the
Talmud under the name of Simeon the Righteous.[256] This is in
accordance with the Greek translator’s statement in his preface that he
was the grandson of the author, and we may conjecturally fix the
composition of the book at about 180 B.C. The translator himself came
into Egypt, as he tells us, in the 38th year of king Euergetes[257]
(comp. Luke xxii. 25). Now Euergetes II. Physkon, who must be here
intended, began to reign jointly with his brother Philometor B.C. 170;
his brother died B.C. 145, and he reigned alone for twenty-five years
longer (till B.C. 116). Hence the translator’s arrival in Egypt and
possibly the translation itself fall within the year 132. The object of
his work, we gather from the preface, was to correct the inequalities of
moral and religious culture (παιδεία) among the Jews of Egypt, by
setting before them a standard and a lesson-book of true religious
wisdom.
Let us pause a little over these dates. It has been well observed by
Mommsen that the foundation of Alexandria was as great an event in the
history of the people of Israel as the conquest of Jerusalem. It must
indeed have seemed to many Israelites more fraught with danger than with
hope. Never before had Paganism presented itself to their nation in so
attractive a guise. Would their religion exhibit sufficient power of
resistance on a foreign soil? The fears, however, were groundless; at
any rate, for a considerable time. The forms of Egyptian-Jewish
literature might be foreign, but its themes were wholly national. Even
in that highly original synthesis of Jewish, Platonic, and Stoic
elements—the Book of Wisdom—the Jewish spirit is manifestly predominant.
In Palestine there was also a Hellenic movement, though less vigorous
and all-absorbing than in Egypt. Without a spontaneous manifestation of
Jewish sympathy, Antiochus Epiphanes would never have made his abortive
attempt to Hellenise Judæa. Girt round by a Greek population, the
Palestinian Jews, in spite of Ezra’s admirable organisation, could not
entirely resist the assaults of Hellenism. It is probable that not
merely Greek language, but Greek philosophy, exerted a charm on some of
the clearest Jewish intellects. But we are within the bounds of
acknowledged fact in asserting that the ardour of Judæan piety, at least
in the highest class, greatly cooled in the age subsequent to Ezra’s,
and in ascribing this to Greek influences. The high priest Simeon
II.,[258] surnamed the Righteous (i.e. the strict observer of the Law),
of whom so glowing an account is given by Sirach (chap. i.), is the
chief exception to this degeneracy; yet he was powerless to stem the
revolutionary current even within his own family. His cousin Joseph was
the notorious farmer of the taxes of Palestine, who by his public and
private immorality[259] sapped the very foundations of Jewish life,
while two of Simeon’s sons, Jason and Menelaus, became the traitorous
high priests who promoted the paganising movement under Antiochus. It is
well known that many critics refer the Book of Ecclesiastes to the
period immediately preceding this great movement. The deep and almost
philosophical character of the unknown author’s meditations seems to be
in harmony with this date. On the other hand, there is the
well-ascertained fact that the Book of Sirach shows no trace of really
philosophical thought; it is little more than a new version of the
ordinary proverbial morality. It is to this book, the ‘Doppelgänger des
kanonischen Spruchbuchs,’ as Schürer calls it, the work, as a Greek
writer puts it, of an attendant (ὀπαδός) of Solomon, that these pages
are devoted. Nothing is more remarkable (and it ought to make us very
deliberate in determining dates upon internal evidence) than the
appearance of such a book at such a time.
The name of the author in full is Joshua (Jesus) ben Sira (Sirach),[260]
but he may be called Sirach for shortness, this being the form of his
family-name in the Greek translation. He tells us himself that he was of
Jerusalem; that from his youth up his desire was for wisdom; that he
laboured earnestly in searching for her; and that the Lord gave him a
tongue for his reward (l. 27; li.) Sirach, in fact, is one of those
‘wise men’ to whom was entrusted so large a part of the religious
education of the Jewish people. The remarkable fact that ‘wise men’
exist so long after the time of their prototype Solomon, proves that
their activity was an integral part of the Jewish national life. The
better class of ‘wise men’ gave an independent support to the nobler
class of prophets. With their peremptory style, the prophets would never
have succeeded in implanting a really vigorous religion, had not the
‘wise men,’ with their more conciliatory and individualising manner of
teaching, supplemented their endeavours. The Babylonian Exile introduced
a change into the habits of the ‘wise men,’ who, though some of them
used the pen before the overthrow of the state, became thenceforward
predominantly, if not entirely, writers on practical moral philosophy.
Such was Sirach. He is not indeed a strictly original writer, nor does
he lay claim to this. This is how he describes the nature of his work
(xxxiii. 16)—
I too, as the last, bestowed zeal,
and as one who gleans after the vintage;
By the blessing of the Lord I was the foremost,
and as a grape-gatherer did I fill the winepress.
Sirach, then, was first of all a collector of proverbs, and he found
that most of the current wise sayings had been already gathered. It is
not likely that up to xxxvi. 22 he merely combined two older books of
proverbs (as Ewald supposed[261]), though it is more than probable that
older proverbs do really lie imbedded in his work. But whether old
proverbs or new, Sirach has this special characteristic, that he loves
to arrange his material by subjects. This was already noticed by the
early scribes,[262] and is well brought out by Holtzmann in Bunsen’s
_Bibelwerk_, and I will merely refer to chap. xxii. 1-6, ‘On good and
bad children;’ 7-18, ‘The character of the fool;’ 19-26, ‘On
friendship;’ 27-xxiii. 6, ‘Prayer and warning against sins of the tongue
and lusts of the flesh;’ 7-15, ‘The discipline of the mouth;’ 16-27, ‘On
adultery;’ xxix. 1-20, ‘On suretyship;’ 21-28, ‘An independent mode of
life.’[263] The plan of grouping his material is not indeed thoroughly
carried out, but even the attempt marks a progress in the literary art.
This is one of the points in which Sirach differs from his canonical
predecessors.
In other respects his indebtedness is manifest. Night and day he must
have studied his revered models to have attained such insight into the
secrets of style. But, so far from affecting originality, he delights in
allusions to the older proverbialists. Many parallelisms occur in the
sayings on Wisdom (comp. Sir. i. 4, Prov. viii. 22; Sir. i. 14, Prov, i.
4, ix. 10; Sir. iv. 12, 13, Prov. iv. 7, 8; Sir. xxiv. 1, 2, Prov. viii.
1, 2; Sir. xxiv. 3, Prov. ii. 6; Sir. xxiv. 5, Prov. viii. 27). This we
might expect; for Wisdom in a large sense is more persistently the
object of Sirach than it was at any rate of the earlier writers in
Proverbs. But, besides this, points of contact abound in very ordinary
sayings. Thus compare, among many others which might be given,
(_a_) Better a mean man that tills for himself
than he that glorifies himself and has no bread
(Prov. xii. 9, Sept. &c.)
Better he that labours and abounds in all things
than he that glorifies himself and has no bread
(Sir. x. 27, Fritzsche).
(_b_) A merry heart makes a cheerful face,
but with sorrow of heart is a crushed spirit (Prov. xv. 13).
The heart of a man alters his face,
as well for good cheer as for bad;
A merry face betokens a heart in good case (Sir. xiii. 25,
26a).
(_c_) A passionate man stirs up strife,
and one that is slow to anger allays contention (Prov. xv.
18).
Abstain from strife, and thou shalt diminish thy sins,
for a passionate man will kindle strife (Sir. xxviii. 8).
(_d_) An intelligent servant rules over the son that causes shame
(Prov. xviii.
2).
Unto the wise servant shall free men do service (Sir. x. 25).
(_e_) Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Prov. xviii.
21).
Good and evil, life and death;
and the tongue rules over them continually (Sir. xxxvii. 18).
(_f_) Golden apples in silver salvers;
a word smoothly spoken (Prov. xxv. 11).
Golden pillars upon a silver pediment;
fair feet upon firm soles (Sir. xxvi. 18, Fritzsche).
(_g_) He who digs a pit shall fall therein,
and he who rolls a stone, upon himself it shall return
(Prov. xxvi. 27).
He who casts a stone on high, casts it on his own head;
He who digs a pit shall fall therein (Sir. xxvii. 25_a_,
26_a_).
(_h_) The crucible for silver, and the furnace for gold,
and a man is tried by his praise (Prov. xxvii. 21).
The furnace proves the potter’s vessels,
the trial of a man is in his discourse (Sir. xxviii. 5).
It will be seen from these examples that, though Sirach adapted and
imitated, he did so with much originality. His style has colour,
variety, and vivacity, and though Hengstenberg accuses the author of too
uniform a mode of treatment, yet a fairer judgment will recognise the
skill with which the style is proportioned to the subject; now
dithyrambic in his soaring flight, now modestly skimming the ground, the
author of the πανάρετος σοφία (for so Sirach, no less than Proverbs, was
called[264]) is never feeble and rarely trivial. ‘Its general tone,’
says Stanley, ‘is worthy of that first contact between the two great
civilisations of the ancient world.’ ‘Nothing is too high, nor too
mean,’ says Schürer, ‘to be drawn within the circle of Sirach’s
reflections and admonitions.’ I have elsewhere spoken of his
comprehensiveness. This quality he partly owes to his being so steeped
in the Scriptures. One result of this is that he is more historical than
his predecessors, and connects his wisdom with those narratives of early
times, which were either but little known to or valued by the
proverb-writers of antiquity. The earlier psalmists and prophets indeed
show the same neglect of the traditions of the past: they lived before
the editing and gradual completion of any roll of ‘Scriptures.’ Sirach
on the other hand (see his preface) had ‘the Law and the Prophets, and
the rest of the books,’ the latter collection being a kind of appendix,
still open to additions. He was a true ‘scribe,’ and gloried in the name
(xxxviii. 24), not in the New Testament sense, but in one not unworthy
of a religious philosopher; he gave his mind to the wisdom both of the
Scriptures and of ‘all renowned men,’ and travelled through strange
countries, trying the good and evil among men. If parts at least of the
Book of Job probably contain an autobiographical element, it is still
more certain that the chapter (xxxix.) which closes the book before us
expresses the ideal of the author’s life. And if he _does_ sometimes
take delight in his own attainments, yet why is this to be censured as
mere ‘böse Selbstgefälligkeit?[265] A deep consciousness of moral
imperfection is not equally to be expected in the Old Testament and in
the New, nor should the philosophic writings in the former be appealed
to for striking anticipations of fundamental Gospel ideas. Sirach does
no doubt in some sense claim inspiration (xxiv. 32-34, l. 28, 29), and
place his own work in a line with the prophecies (xxiv. 33), but why
should this be set down to arrogant inflation? Lowth, with more charity,
quotes similar language of Elihu (Job xxxii. 8, xxxvi. 4) in proof of
the speaker’s _modesty_ (_Prælect._ xxxiv.) It was probably a
characteristic of the later ‘wise men’ so to account for their wisdom
(see above, p. 43), and surely in that wide sense recognised by the
Anglican Prayerbook he _was_ ‘inspired,’ he _was_ a ‘son of the
prophets.’ I am only sorry that he forgot the lesson of Ex. xxxi. 2 when
he wrote so disparagingly of trades (xxxviii. 25 &c.), and agree with
Dr. Edersheim[266] that the Jewish teachers of the time of Christ and
afterwards were more advanced on this point than the son of Sirach.
It is true enough that there are sayings in this book which offend the
Christian sentiment, and which serve to show how great was the spiritual
distress which the Gospel alone could relieve. For instance,
(_a_) He who honours his father shall make atonement for sins (iii.
3).
Water will quench a flaming fire,
and alms make atonement for sin (iii. 30).
Brethren and help are against time of trouble;
but alms deliver more than both (xl. 24).
Here is one of those ‘false beacon lights’ of which Prof. Bissell speaks
(_Apocrypha_, p. 282). But in arrest of judgment remember that long
discipline in the duties spoken of has produced some of the finest
qualities in the Jewish character.
(_b_) Happy the man who has not offended in his speech,
and is not pricked with grief for sins (xiv. 1).
(_c_) Gain credit with thy neighbour in his poverty,
that thou mayest rejoice in his prosperity;
abide stedfast unto him in the time of his affliction,
that thou mayest be heir with him in his heritage (xxii. 23).
(_d_) Nine things I in my heart pronounce happy, ...
and he that lives to see the fall of enemies
(xxiv. 7; comp. also xii. 10-12, xxx.
6).
(_e_) Who will praise the Most High in Hades,
instead of those who live and give praise? (xvii. 27.)
For man cannot do everything,
because the son of man is not immortal (xvii. 30).
With the latter saying, contrast Wisd. of Sol. ii. 23, ‘For God created
man for immortality.’
(_f_) (Give me) any plague but the plague of the heart,
and any wickedness but the wickedness of a woman &c.
(xxv. 13-26).
This opening verse might perhaps be otherwise rendered,
Any wound but a wound in the heart,
and any evil but evil in a wife.
The misfortune of having a bad wife is often touched upon in the Talmud.
Ewald’s sentence is however just, that Sirach’s ‘estimate of women, and
sharp summary counsel concerning divorce (see ver. 26), place [him] far
below the height of the Hebrew Bible.’[267]
I admit the imperfection of these moral statements; but can they not
several of them be paralleled from the Psalms, Proverbs, and
Ecclesiastes? And can we not find as many more anticipations of the
moral teaching of the Synoptic Gospels and St. James (e.g. iv. 10, vii.
11, 14, xi. 18, 19, xv. 14, xvii. 15, xxiii. 4, 11, 18)? Do not let us
undervalue any foregleams of the coming dawn.
Footnote 254:
_Revelation_, p. 365; _Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott_, i. 378.
Footnote 255:
Note the phrase in i. 1, ‘who _in his life_ repaired the house,’
implying ‘now indeed he is dead.’ Grätz in fact is the only scholar
who doubts the author’s contemporaneousness with Simon
(_Monatsschrift_, 1872, p. 114).
Footnote 256:
See, besides the well-known passage in _Pirke Aboth_ (i. 2), the
legendary extracts from (_Bab._) _Yoma_, 39_b_, translated by Wünsche,
_Der bab. Talmud_, i. 1, pp. 368-9; and comp. Derenbourg, _Hist. de la
Palestine_, i. 44 &c.
Footnote 257:
So we must paraphrase ἐν τῷ ὀγδόῳ καὶ τριακοστῷ ἔτει ἐπὶ τοῦ Εὐεργέτου
Βασίλεως. See Stanley’s note in _Jewish Church_, iii. 235, and Abbot’s
note in the American edition of Smith’s _Bible Dict._ (I am indebted
to Bissell for the latter reference). Comp. Wright, _The Book of
Koheleth_, p. 34 n.
Footnote 258:
The Mishna (_Pirke Aboth_, i. 2) ascribes this saying to Simeon the
Righteous: ‘On three things the world stands—revelation (_tōra_),
worship, and the bestowal of kindnesses.’
Footnote 259:
See Jos., _Ant._, xii. 4.
Footnote 260:
On the identity of the Ben Sira of the Talmud and our Sirach, see
Horowitz in Frankel’s _Monatsschrift_, 1865, p. 181 &c. The _ch_ in
the form Sirach may be due to an old error in the Greek text.
Footnote 261:
_Hist. of Israel_, v. 263-4. Ewald includes xxxix. 12-35 in the
portion belonging to the second (supposed) collection.
Footnote 262:
See the headings at certain points of the Greek version.
Footnote 263:
With vv. 21, 23 comp. St. Paul, Phil. iv. 11, 12.
Footnote 264:
See St. Jerome, _Præf. ad Libros Salomonis_, and comp. Lightfoot’s
_Clement of Rome_, p. 164 &c.
Footnote 265:
Keerl, _Die Apokryphenfrage_ (1855), p. 214.
Footnote 266:
_Sketches of Jewish Social Life_, p. 189.
Footnote 267:
Ewald, _Revelation_, p. 364 n.
CHAPTER II.
SIRACH’S TEACHING (_continued_). HIS PLACE IN THE MOVEMENT OF THOUGHT.
Passing now from Sirach’s moral statements to those which are concerned
with doctrine, an honest critic must admit that the author is here even
less progressive. The Messianic hope, in the strict sense of the word,
has faded away.[268] In xlv. 25 (comp. xlviii. 15) the ‘covenant with
David’ is described as being ‘that the inheritance of the king should be
only from father to son;’ similarly in xlvii. 22 the ‘root of David’
denotes Rehoboam and his descendants. But this want of a definite
Messianic hope is characteristic of the age; it is no special defect of
Sirach. But what shall we say of another charge brought against our
author, viz. that he has unbiblical conceptions of the Divine nature?
One of these (xi. 16; see A.V.) may be dismissed at once, the passage
having insufficient critical authority. Another—
We may speak much and not attain;
indeed to sum up, He is all (xliii. 27)—
has been misapprehended. The _Bereshith Rabba_ says (c. 68), ‘Why is the
Holy One also called _Mākōm_ (place)? Because He is the place of the
world; His world is not His place.’ This is all that Sirach means, and
Philo, too, who uses similar words, accused by Keerl of heresy, and
adds, ἅτε εἶς καὶ τὸ πᾶν αὐτὸς ὤν.
The doctrines of the Satan and the Resurrection, which Sirach probably
regarded somewhat as we regard the ‘developments’ of the Papal Church,
he appears studiously to ignore[269]—more especially the latter—and he
thereby puts himself into direct opposition to the newer popular
orthodoxy. For though not the invention (as M. Renan regards it) of the
Maccabean period, there can be no doubt that the doctrine of the
Resurrection became then for the first time an article of the popular
creed. Instead of the ‘awakening to everlasting life’ (Dan. xii. 2), it
is the peaceful but hopeless life of the spirits in Sheól to which he
resignedly looks forward.
Weep for the dead, for he hath lost the light,
and weep for the fool, for he wanteth understanding:
make little weeping for the dead, for he is at rest,
but the life of the fool is worse than death.[270]
This, however orthodox (as former generations had counted orthodoxy),
was rank Sadduceanism, and hence (for how otherwise to interpret the
glosses of the Greek and Syriac versions of xlviii. 11_b_[271] it is
difficult to see) very early readers of Sirach, especially perhaps
well-meaning but unscrupulous Christian readers, effected an entrance
for their cherished beliefs by violence.
Another point on which Sirach is equally—shall we say orthodox, or
reactionary?—is the connection between piety and temporal prosperity. He
really seems to be no more troubled by doubts on this ancient doctrine
than the author of the beautiful, but in this respect naïvely simple,
introduction to the Book of Proverbs. This perhaps was strange under
Sirach’s circumstances. How striking and even painful is the contrast
between Josephus’ vivid and truthful comparison of Judæa at this period
to ‘a ship in a storm, tossed by the waves on both sides,’[272] and that
proverb of Sirach, worthy, considering the times, of the ‘miserable
comforters’ of Job—
The gift of the Lord remains with the godly,
and his favour brings prosperity for ever.[273]
In short, Sirach represents the reconciliation between the practical
ethics of the inspired ‘wise men’ of old and the all-embracing demands
of the Law. Himself only in a comparatively low sense inspired—for we
should not hastily reject his claim to a ‘tongue’ from above—he did
nothing, on the ethical side, but repeat the old truths in their old
forms, though one gladly admits that he shows a genuine and unassumed
interest in the varieties of human character. But on the religious side
he is really in a certain sense original, in so far as he combines the
traditional ‘wisdom’ with a heartfelt regard for the established forms
of religion, such as the older ‘wise men’ scarcely possessed. On the
latter point he would sympathise with the author of Ps. cxix. Unlike the
older proverb-writers, he recommends the punctual observance of rites
and ceremonies. These however are to be penetrated by a moral spirit;
hence he says,
Do not [seek to] corrupt [the Lord] with gifts, for he receives them
not;
and trust not to unrighteous sacrifices.
He who serves acceptably shall be received,
and his prayer shall reach unto the clouds (xxxv. 12, 16).
By Greek philosophy Sirach, as far as we can see, was wholly
uninfluenced.
And yet Sirach cannot have been entirely unacquainted with Greek
culture, in the more general sense of the word. One striking proof of
this is his attitude towards medical science,[274] which is exactly the
opposite of the Chronicler’s (2 Chr. xvi. 12). It seems as if the older
generation were offended by human interference with the course of
nature, appealing perhaps to Ex. xv. 26; a curious Talmudic tradition
ascribes a similar view to Hezekiah and his wise men. Sirach, however,
appealing to the passage preceding that referred to above (see Ex. xv.
23-25), seeks to reconcile the opposing parties (xxxviii. 1-15). No
doubt he had learned this at Alexandria: he tells us himself that he had
travelled and learned many things (xxxiv. 9-11), and from xxxix. 4 we
may even infer that he had appeared at court, where probably his life
was endangered by calumnious accusations (li. 6). There, perhaps, he
acquired his taste for the Greek style of banquet, with its airy talk
and accompaniment of music, a taste which seems to have inspired a
piquant piece of advice to the kill-joys of his time, who insisted on
talking business out of season (xxxii. 3-5)—
Speak, O elder, with accurate knowledge, for it beseemeth thee,
but be not a hindrance to music.[275]
When playing is going on, do not pour out talk;
and show not thyself inopportunely wise.
A seal-ring of carbuncle set in gold,
[such is] a concert at a banquet of wine.
In a similar mood he writes (xiv. 14)—
Defraud not thyself of a joyous day,
and let not a share of a lawful pleasure escape thee.
But his tone is commonly more serious. Though no ascetic, he cautions
his readers against the unrestrained manners which had invaded Judæa,
especially against consorting with the singing and dancing girls (μετὰ
ψαλλούσης, ix. 4, includes both; Vulg. _cum saltatrice_), and draws a
picture of the daughters of Israel (xlii. 9, 10) which forms a
melancholy contrast with the Old Testament ideal. His prayer to be
guarded from the infection of lust (xxiii. 4, 5) finds its commentary in
the story already mentioned of Joseph the tax-farmer. He notes with
observant eye the strife of classes. What bitter sighs must have
prompted a saying like this (xiii. 2, 3)—
A burden that is too heavy for thee take not up,
and have no fellowship with one that is stronger and richer than
thyself:
For what fellowship hath the kettle with the earthen pot?
this will smite, and that will be broken.
The rich man doth wrong, and _he_ snorteth with anger,
the poor man is wronged, and _he_ entreateth withal.
And again (xiii. 18)—
What peace hath the hyæna with the dog?
and what peace hath the rich man with the poor?
He is painfully conscious of the deserved humiliation of his country,
and the only reason which he can urge why God should interpose is the
assured prophetic word (xxxvi. 15, 16 = 20, 21). Elsewhere he ascribes
all the evil of his time to the neglect of the Law (xli. 8), which, by a
strong hyperbole, he almost identifies with personified Divine Wisdom
(xxiv. 23; see above on Prov. viii.) Not however without a noble
introduction leading up to and justifying this identification. In the
true _māshāl_-style he describes how Wisdom wandered through the world
seeking a resting-place,—
Then the Creator of all gave me a commandment,
and he that made me caused my tent to rest,
and said, Let thy dwelling be in Jacob,
and thine inheritance in Israel (xxiv. 8).
And after a series of wondrous images, all glorifying the Wisdom
enthroned in Jerusalem, he declares—
All this [is made good in] the book of the covenant of the Most High
God,
the Law which Moses commanded us
as a heritage unto the congregations of Jacob (xxiv. 23).
This remarkable chapter deserves to be studied by itself; it is most
carefully composed in 72 στίχοι. Lowth and Wessely[276] have with
unequal success retranslated it into Hebrew. I have already spoken (on
Proverbs) of its interest for the student of doctrine; it has indeed
been thought to show clear traces of Alexandrinism, but this is
improbable and unproved.
It remains to notice the author’s interest in nature and history.
The hymn of praise for the works of creation (xlii. 15-xliii. 32) is
only poor if compared with parts of the Book of Job. But perhaps
more interesting is the panegyric of ‘famous men’ (xliv.-l.), from
Enoch the patriarch to Simeon the Righteous, whose imposing
appearance and beneficent rule are described with the enthusiasm of
a contemporary.[277] It is worth the student’s while to examine the
contents of this roll of honour. A few corrections of the text may
be noticed as a preliminary. At xlviii. 11_b_, the Greek has ‘for we
shall surely live (again).’ But the Latin has, ‘nam nos vitâ vivimus
tantum, post mortem autem non erit tale nomen nostrum.’ There is
good reason in this instance, as we shall see presently, to prefer
the reading of the Latin to that of the Greek. At l. 1, after ‘son
of Onias,’ it is well to remove the abruptness of the transition by
inserting from the Syriac, ‘was the greatest of his brethren and the
crown of his people.’ At l. 26 (27), for ‘Samaria’ we should
probably read ‘Seir’ (else how will there be three nations?), and
for ‘foolish,’ ‘Amoritish’ (with the Ethiopic version and Ewald,
comp. Ezek. xvi. 3). Turning to the names of the heroes
commemorated, it is startling to find no mention made of Ezra, the
second founder of Jewish religion. Aaron, on the other hand, is
celebrated in no fewer than seventeen verses. This cannot be a mere
accident, for the veneration of the later Jews for Ezra was hardly
less than that which they entertained for Moses. Notice, however,
that Moses himself is only praised in five verses. It seems as if
Aaron better than Moses symbolised those ritual observances in which
Sirach perhaps took a special delight. The name of Ezra, too, may
have had its symbolic meaning to the author. He may have had
deficient sympathy with those elaborators of minute legal precepts,
who took Ezra as their pattern. Not that he disbelieved in the
continuity of inspiration—for in some sense he claims it for himself
(e.g. xxiv. 33), but that he did not fully recognise the workings of
the spirit in the ‘fence about the Law.’ Other names which he passes
over in silence are Daniel and Mordecai. Does this mean that he was
unacquainted with the Books of Daniel and Esther? Whatever be the
date of these books, so much as this is at least a probable
inference.
The panegyric seems to have originally closed with the ancient
liturgical formula in verses 22-24. But the writer could not resist the
temptation of giving a side-blow to the hated Samaritans (those
‘half-Jews,’ as Josephus the historian calls them), called forth perhaps
by the dispute respecting the rival temples held at Alexandria before
Ptolemy Philometor.[278] The last chapter of all (chap. li.) contains
the aged author’s final leave-taking. It is a prayer of touching
sincerity and much biographical interest. The immediateness of the
religious sentiment is certainly greater in this late ‘gatherer’ than in
many of the earlier proverb-writers.
Enough has been said of the contents of the book to give a general idea
of its moral and religious position. Let us now consider its outward
form. The work, as we have seen, was originally written in Hebrew. This
indeed was to have been expected. For although the influence of the
Seleucidæ had greatly strengthened the hold of Aramaic on the Jewish
population of Palestine, Hebrew was still, and for a long time
afterwards remained, the language of scholars and _littérateurs_. The
author of the ‘Wisdom of Sirach’ was both. He was thoroughly penetrated
with the spirit and style of the Scriptures, especially of those of the
_Khokma_, and he would have thought it as much a descent to lavish his
great powers on Aramaic as Dante did at first to write in Italian. Is
this Hebrew original still extant? Alas! no; Hebrew literature, so
scantily represented for this period, has to mourn this great loss. A
page of fragments, gathered from the Talmud and the Midrāshīm,[279] is
all that we can, with some occasional hesitation, plausibly regard as
genuine. There is indeed a small work, called the Alphabet of Ben Sira,
consisting of two series of proverbs, one in Aramaic, and one in Hebrew.
But no significance can be attached to this. The genuineness of many of
the Hebrew proverbs is guaranteed by their occurrence in the Talmud, but
the form in which the alphabetist quotes them is often evidently less
authentic than that in the Talmud. The original work must have been lost
since the time of Jerome, if we may trust his assurance[280] that he had
found it in Hebrew, and that it bore the name ‘Parables’ (_m’shālīm_).
Of the ancient versions, the Syriac and the Old Latin are (after the
Greek) the most important; the former is from the Hebrew, the latter
from a very early form of the Greek text. Neither of them is always in
accordance with the Greek as we have it, but such differences are often
of use in restoring the original text. All the versions appear to
contain alterations of the text, dictated by a too anxious orthodoxy,
and in these the one may be a check upon the other. Bickell indeed goes
further than this, and states that an accurate text of Sirach can only
be had by combining the data of the Greek and the Syriac. Lowth, in his
24th Lecture, strongly urges the retranslation of Sirach into Hebrew.
Such an undertaking would be premature, if Bickell’s judgment be correct
that the book consists of seven-syllabled verses or στίχοι, grouped in
distichs,[281] except in the alphabetic poem on wisdom (li. 13-20). The
latter, consisting of 22 στίχοι, he has translated into German from his
own corrected text, dividing it into four-lined strophes, as also the
preceding, ‘alphabetising’ poem, consisting of 22 distichs (li. 1-12),
in the _Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie_, 1882, pp. 326-332.
We must reserve our opinion on Bickell’s theory till the appearance of a
complete edition from his pen. Meantime three passages (xxiv. 27, xxv.
15, xlvi. 18) may be referred to as giving striking proof of the Hebrew
original of the work. In xxiv. 27 the translator seems to have found in
his Hebrew copy כאר, i.e. properly כַּיְאׂר ‘as the Nile’ (the weak
letter י being elided in pronunciation as in כאר, Am. viii. 8), but as
he supposed כָּאוׂר ‘as the light.’ In xxv. 15, he found ראשׁ, which in
the context can only mean ‘poison,’ but which he inappropriately
rendered ‘head.’ In xlvi. 18, the Hebrew had צרים, i.e. צָרִים
‘enemies,’ but, according to the translator, צֹרִים ‘Tyrians.’ Compare
also in this connection the allusions to the meanings of Hebrew words in
vi. 22 (‘wisdom’) and xliii. 8 (‘the month’). There are still questions
to be decided which can only be adverted to briefly here. Did the
translator make use of the Septuagint, and more particularly of the
portion containing the prophets? He certainly refers to a translation of
the Scriptures in his preface, but Frankel thinks that a Targum may be
meant, and even doubts the genuineness of the passage; he explains the
points of contact with the Septuagint which are sometimes so
interesting[282] in the Greek version of Sirach by _Ueberarbeitung_,
i.e. the ‘working over’ of the version by later hands.[283] This seems
to me a forced view. It is more probable that a Greek version is meant,
or perhaps we may say Greek _versions_; no special honour is given to
any one translation. Next, as to the position accorded to the Wisdom of
Sirach. It is often cited in the Talmud with formulæ which belong
elsewhere to the Scriptures, and was therefore certainly regarded by
many as worthy to be canonical (see Appendix). In strict theory, this
was wrong. According to the _Tosephta Yadayim_, c. 2, the book of Ben
Sira, though much esteemed, stood on the border between the canonical
and extraneous or non-canonical books. Such books might be read
cursorily, but were not to be studied too much.[284] Sirach neither
claimed the authorship of a hero of antiquity, nor was it, according to
the rising Pharisaic school, orthodox; thus perhaps we may best account
for the fact that a work, regarded in itself in no way inferior to the
Book of Proverbs, was left outside the sacred canon.
No certain allusions to our book are traceable in the New Testament; the
nearest approach to a quotation is James i. 19; comp. Ecclus. v. 13.
Clement of Alexandria is the first Christian writer who quotes directly
from Sirach. From its large use in the services of the Church the book
received the name Ecclesiasticus, to distinguish it perhaps from the
canonical book which was also often called ‘Wisdom.’ In later times, it
half attracted, but—owing to the corrupt state of the text—half
repelled, the great Hellenist Camerarius, the friend of Melancthon, who
published a separate edition of Sirach (the first) at Basle in 1551. It
appears from his preface that it was highly valued by the reformers from
an educational point of view. Bullinger proposes it as a less dangerous
text book of moral philosophy than the works of Plato and Aristotle, and
Luther admits it to be a good household book, admired however too much
by the world, which ‘sleepily passes by the great majestic word of
Christ concerning the victory over death, sin, and hell.’
No impartial critic will place the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach on
the same literary eminence with the so-called Wisdom of Solomon. It is
only from its greater fidelity to the Old Testament standard, or at
least to a portion of this standard, that it can claim a qualified
superiority. A few noble passages of continuous rhetoric it no doubt
contains, especially the noble Hymn of Praise on the works of creation
(xxxix. 16-xliii. 33); and a few small but exquisite gems especially the
sayings on friendship (counterbalanced, I admit by those on the
treatment of one’s enemies, xii. 10-12, xxv. 7, xxx. 6), e.g.—
Forsake not an old friend,
for the new is not comparable to him.
A new friend is as new wine,
when it is old, thou wilt drink it with pleasure (ix. 10),
with which we may bracket the noble passage on the treatment of a
friend’s trespass (xix. 13-17). One of the fine religious passages has
been quoted already (xliii. 27; comp. Job xxvi. 14); we may couple
this[285] with it—
As a drop from the sea, and a grain of sand,
so are a few years in the day of eternity (xviii. 9).
Still the chief value of the book is, historically, to fill out the
picture of a little known period, and doctrinally, to show the
inadequacy of the old forms of religious belief, and the moral distress
from which the Christ was a deliverer.
Footnote 268:
Ewald (_History_, v. 263, n. 3) refers to iv. 15, x. 13-17, xi. 5 sq.,
xxxii. 17-19, xxxiii. 1-12, xxxvi. 11-17, xxxvii. 25, xxxix. 23,
xlviii. 10 sq., but only for a vague Messianism (in the last passage
the Greek seems to be interpolated). I would add xxxv. 17-19, xxxvi.
1-10.
Footnote 269:
True, the Greek version of Sirach has, at xxi. 27, the words, ‘When
the ungodly curseth the Satan, he curseth his own soul;’ but ‘the
Satan’ may here be synonymous with the depraved will, the _yéçer rā_
(this seems to have Talmudic authority; see Weber, _System der
altsynag. pal. Theol._, pp. 228-9). In _Baba bathra_, 15_a_, Satan is
not distinguished from the _yéçer rā_.
Footnote 270:
Chap. xxii. 11. Comp. xiv. 11-19 (correcting by the help of the
Syriac), xvii. 27, 28, 30. Contrast the glowing language of the
‘Wisdom of Solomon,’ iii. 1-4.
Footnote 271:
The Syriac has, ‘Nevertheless he dieth not, but liveth indeed.’ The
Greek version I have quoted farther on. Also the Latin, which probably
corresponds most to the original. See Geiger, _Zeitschr. d. d. morg.
Ges._, xii. 536. The false reading κεκοιμημένοι, adopted by A.V., for
κεκοσμημένοι, in xlviii. 11a, is due to the same theological motive.
Footnote 272:
_Antiquities_, xii. 3, 3.
Footnote 273:
Ch. xi. 17; comp. ii. 7 &c.; xvi. 6 &c.; xl. 13, 14. There are,
however, passages in which Sirach betrays some little feeling of the
practical difficulties of the older form of the doctrine of
retribution: see xxxv. 18 [xxxii. 18].
Footnote 274:
See Dukes, _Rabbinische Blumenlese_, pp. 29, 30; Grätz, _Schir
ha-schirim_, p. 86. Grotius even supposed the author to be a
physician.
Footnote 275:
καὶ μὴ ἐμποδίσῃς μουσικά. So xlix. 1. ὡς μουσικὰ ἐν συμποσίῳ οἴνου;
comp. Ex. xxxii. 18 Sept. That Greek music was known in Palestine
_very shortly afterwards_ may be inferred from the Greek names of
musical instruments in the Book of Daniel.
Footnote 276:
Wessely was one of the most eminent fellow-workers of the great Moses
Mendelssohn. See Wogue, _Histoire de la Bible et de l’exégèse
biblique_ (1881), pp. 334-337.
Footnote 277:
The Mussaph prayer in the liturgy of the Day of Atonement (German
ritual) contains a striking imitation of Sirach’s eloquent description
of the high priest (see Delitzsch, _Gesch. der jüd. Poesie_, p. 21),
every verse of which closes with the refrain _mar’eh kōhēn_ ‘the
appearance of the priest;’ Meshullam bar-Kleonymos is known to be the
author.
Footnote 278:
Jos., _Ant._, xiii. 3, 4.
Footnote 279:
See Zunz, _Gottesdienstliche Vorträge_, p. 102; Delitzsch, _Zur Gesch.
der jüdischen Poesie_, p. 204 (comp. p. 20, note 5); Dukes,
_Rabbinische Blumenlese_, p. 67 &c. It should be noticed that among
these Talmudic _m’shālīm_ there are some, and even long ones, which do
not occur in the Greek Sirach.
Footnote 280:
_Præf. in libr. Sal._ ‘Fertur et πανάρετος Jesu filii Sirach liber et
alius ψευδεπίγραφος liber .... Quorum priorem Hebraicum reperi, non
Ecclesiasticum, ut apud Latinos, sed _parabolas_ prænotatum, cui
juncti erant Ecclesiastes et Canticum canticorum.’ Nowhere since has
Sirach been found in this position, nor with this title.
Footnote 281:
But is not a strophic division sometimes visible, e.g. ii. 7-17? See
Seligmann, _Das Buch der Weisheit des J. S._, &c., p. 34.
Footnote 282:
See especially xlvi. 19, with which comp. the Septuagint of 1 Sam.
xii. 3.
Footnote 283:
_Vorstudien zu der Septuaginta_ (1841), p. 21, note _w_.
Footnote 284:
Wright, _Koheleth_, p. 48 n.; Strack, art. ‘Kanon des A. T.’ in
Herzog-Plitt, _Realencyclopädie_, vii. 430, 431; Gratz, _Kohelet_, p.
48.
Footnote 285:
Bishop Butler, who is fond of Sirach, quotes this saying in his 4th
sermon.
AIDS TO THE STUDENT.
Besides the commentaries of Bretschneider (1806), Fritzsche (1859), and
Bissell (in the American edition of Lange), see Gfrörer, _Philo_, ii.
(1831), pp. 18-52; Dähne, _Geschichtliche Darstellung der
jüdischalexandrin. Religionsphilosophie_, ii. (1834), pp. 126-150; Zunz,
_Die gottesdienstl. Vorträge der Juden_ (1832), pp. 100-105; Ewald,
_Jahrbücher der bibl. Wissenschaft_, iii. (1851), pp. 125-140; _History
of Israel_, v. 262 &c.; Jost, _Gesch. des Judenthums_, i. (1857), p. 310
&c.; Herzfeld, _Gesch. des Volkes Jisrael_, iii. (1863), see Index;
Horowitz, _Das Buch Jesus Sirach_ (1865); Dyserinck, _De Spreuken van
Jesus den zoon van Sirach vertaald_ (1870); Grätz, _Monatsschrift_ for
1872, pp. 49 &c., 97 &c.; Seligmann, _Das Buch der Weisheit des Jesus
Sirach_ (1883); Fritzsche, art. in Schenkel’s _Bibellexikon_, iii. 252
&c.; Stanley, _Jewish Church_, vol. iii. (see Index); Westcott, art.
‘Ecclesiasticus’ in Smith’s _Bible Dictionary_; Deane, ‘The Book of
Ecclesiasticus: its Contents and Character,’ _The Expositor_, Nov. 1883;
Wright, _The Book of Koheleth_, 1883, chap. ii. (decides, perhaps, too
hastily that Sirach in many passages imitates Koheleth).
THE BOOK OF KOHELETH; OR, ECCLESIASTES.
CHAPTER I.
THE WISE MAN TURNED AUTHOR AND PHILOSOPHER.
... Il mondo invecchia,
E invecchiando intristisce.—TASSO, _Aminta_.
In passing from the book of Ecclesiasticus to that of Ecclesiastes, we
are conscious of breathing an entirely different intellectual
atmosphere. ‘Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee,’ said
Sirach, ‘for thou hast no need of the secret things’ (iii. 21, 22), but
the book now before us is the record of a thinker, disappointed it is
true, but too much in earnest to give up thinking. Of meditative minds
there was no lack in this period of Israel’s history. The writers of the
119th and several other Psalms, as well as Jesus the son of Sirach, had
pondered over the ideal life, but our author (the only remaining
representative of a school of writers[286]) was meditative in a
different sense from any of these. He could not have said with the
latter, ‘I prayed for wisdom before the temple’ (Ecclus. li. 14), nor
with the former, ‘Thy commandment is exceeding broad’ (Ps. cxix. 96).
The idea of the religious primacy of Israel awakened in his mind no
responsive enthusiasm. We cannot exactly say that he conceals the place
of his residence,[287] but he has certainly no overpowering interest in
the scene of his life’s troublesome drama. In this feature he resembles
to a considerable extent the humanists of an earlier date (see p. 119),
but in others, and those the most characteristic, he differs as widely
from them as the old man from the child. They believed that virtue was
crowned by prosperity; even the writer of _Job_, as some think, had not
wholly cast off the consecrated dogma; but the austere and lonely
thinker who has left us Ecclesiastes finds himself utterly unable to
harmonise such a theory with facts (viii. 14). To him, living during one
of the dreariest parts of the post-Exile period, it seemed as if the
past aspirations of Israel had turned out a gigantic mistake. That
home-sickness which impelled, if not the Second Isaiah himself, yet many
who were stirred by his eloquence, to exchange a life of ease and luxury
for one of struggle and privation—in what had it issued? In ‘vanity and
pursuit of wind’ (comp. Isa. xxvi. 18). To quote a great Persian poet,
who in some of his moods resembles Koheleth (see end of Chap. IX.),
The Revelations of Devout and Learn’d,
Who rose before us and as Prophets burn’d,
Are all but Stories, which, arose from Sleep,
They told their fellows, and to Sleep return’d.
Such thoughts as these made the history of Israel an aid to scepticism
rather than to faith; added to which it is probable that society in
Koheleth’s[288] time seemed to him too corrupt to admit of an idealistic
theory of life. For an individual to seek to put in practice such a
theory would expose him to hopeless failure and misery. Therefore, ‘be
not righteous overmuch,[289] neither pretend to be exceedingly wise; why
wilt thou ruin (lit. desolate) thyself?’ (vii. 16). Some, no doubt, as
the Soferim or Scripturists, had tried it, but they had only succeeded
in making their lives ‘desolate,’ without any compensating advantage.
Nor can we say that Ecclesiastes had given up theistic religion. He does
not indeed believe in immortality and a future judgment, and is thus
partly an exception to the rule of Lucretius,
... nam si certam finem esse viderent
Aerumnarum homines, aliqua ratione valerent
Religionibus atque mineis obsistere vatum.
(_De rerum naturâ_, i. 108-110.)
He mentions God twenty-seven times, but under the name Elohim, which
belonged to Him as the Creator, not under that of Yahveh, which an
Israelite was privileged to use; and his one-sided supernaturalism
obscured the sense of personal communion with God. He accepts only the
first part of the great proclamation concerning the dwelling place of
God in Isa. lxvii. 15 (see Eccles. v. 2). It is no doubt God who
‘worketh all’ (xi. 5), but there are nearer and almost more formidable
potentates, an oppressive hierarchy of officials ranging from the
taxgatherer to the king, ‘a high one watching above the high, and high
ones over both’ (v. 8). True, our author seems to admit—at least if the
text be sound (iii. 17; comp. viii. 12, 13)—that ‘God will judge the
righteous and the wicked’ (i.e. in this life, for he does not believe in
another), but the comfort of this thought is dashed with bitterness by
an unspoken but distinctly implied complaint, which may perhaps be well
expressed in the language of Job (xxiv. 1), ‘Why are judgments laid up
(so long) by the Almighty,[290] and (why) do they that know him not see
his days?’ or in other words, Why is divine retribution so tardy? It is,
in fact, this extreme tardiness of God’s judicial interpositions which
our author considers one of the chief causes of the prevalence of
wickedness;—
‘Because sentence against the work of wickedness is not speedily
executed, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in
them to do evil’ (viii. 11).
On the whole, we may say that the older humanists were sincere
optimists, while Koheleth, though theoretically perhaps an optimist
(iii. 11), constantly relapses into a more congenial ‘malism.’ I use
this word designedly. Koheleth can only be called a pessimist loosely.
Bad as things are, he does not believe that the world is getting worse
and worse and hasting to its ruin. He believes in revolutions, some for
evil, some for good, some for ‘rending’ or ‘breaking down,’ others for
‘sewing’ or ‘building up.’ He believes, in other words, that God brings
about recurrent changes in human circumstances. But (like another wise
man, Prov. xxv. 21) he does not trust revolutions of human origin (‘evil
matters’ he calls them, viii. 3); he is no _carbonaro_ (x. 20). And so
for the present he is a ‘malist,’ and having no imaginative faculty he
cannot sympathise with the ‘Utopian’ prospects for the future contained
in the prophetic visions.
Yet, in spite of appearances, Koheleth builds upon a true Israelitish
foundation. It is already something that he cannot bear to plunge into
open infidelity, that he is still (as we have seen) a theist, though his
theism gives him but little light and no comforting warmth. Now and then
he alludes to the religious system of his people (see v. 1-5, 17, viii.
10). A stronger proof of his Israelitish sympathies is his choice of
Solomon as the representative of humanity; I say, of humanity, because
the author evidently declines to place himself upon the pedestal of
Israelitish privilege. (Perhaps, too, as Herzfeld thinks,[291] he would
console his people by showing them that they have companions in
misfortune everywhere ‘under the sun;’ and we have already seen Job
snatch a brief alleviation of pain from the thought of suffering
humanity.) Koheleth is not only a Jew, but a man of culture. He cannot
perhaps entirely defend himself from the subtle influence of the Greek
view of life, and is even willing to associate from time to time with
the ministers of alien sovereigns. True, he has noted with bitter irony
the absurd and capricious changes in the government of Palestine (x.
5-7), but he has no spark of the spirit of the Maccabees, unless indeed
in viii. 2-5, x. 4, 20, beneath the garb of servile prudence we may
(with Dr. Plumptre) detect the irony of indignation. To the
simple-minded reader at any rate he appears to counsel passive
obedience, and a cautious crouching attitude towards those in power. I
suspect myself that either the advice is but provisional, or else
Koheleth still feels the power of the prophetic Utopia: _ce peuple rêve
toujours quelque chose d’international_.[292] Nay; shall we not carry
our generosity even farther? That ‘last word,’ which he would have
spoken had he lived longer, may possibly not have been that which the
Soferim have forced upon him. Not a future judgment, but a return of
prosperity to a wiser though sadder Israel, may have been his silent
hope, and in this prosperity we may be sure that a wider and more
philosophic culture would form a principal ingredient. This is by no
means an absurd fancy. Koheleth firmly believed in recurrent historical
cycles, and if there was ‘a time to break down,’ there was also ‘a time
to build up’ (iii. 3). Sirach knows no future life and no Messiah; but
he believes in the eternity of Israel; why, on the ground of his
fragmentary remains, deny the same consolation to Koheleth? Much as I
should prefer to imagine a far more satisfactory close for his troubled
life (see Chap. IX.), I think we ought to admit the possibility of this
hypothesis.
As an author, the characteristics of Koheleth are in the main Hebraic,
though not without vague affinities to the Greek philosophic spirit. His
work is without a model, but the dramatic element in it reminds us
somewhat of the Book of Job. Just as the writer of that great poem
delineates his own spiritual struggles—not of course without poetic
amplification—under the assumed name of Job, so our author, with a
similar poetical license, ascribes his difficulties to the imaginary
personage Koheleth (or Ecclesiastes). There are also passages in which,
like Job, he adopts the tone, style and rhythm[293] of gnomic poetry,
though far from reaching the literary perfection of Job or of the
proverbial collections. The attempt of Köster and Vaihinger to make him
out an artist in the management of strophes is a sport of fancy. Unity
and consistency in literary form were beyond the reach, if not of his
powers, yet certainly of his opportunities; even his phraseology, as a
rule, is in the highest degree rough and unpolished. This is the more
striking by contrast with the elegant workmanship of Sirach. But the
unknown author has very strong excuses. Thus, first, the negative tone
of his mind must have destroyed the cheerful composure necessary to the
artist. ‘The burden of the mystery’ pressed too heavily for him to think
much of form and beauty. His harp, if he ever had one, he had long since
hung up upon the willows. Next, it is highly probable that he was
interrupted in the midst of his literary preparations. Nöldeke has
remarked[294] that his object was not to produce ‘ein literarisches
Schaustück.’ That is perfectly true; his primary object was ‘to scatter
the doubts of his own mind.’ But he did not despise the literary craft;
he was well aware that even ‘the literature of power’ may increase its
influence by some attention to form. It seems to me that the ‘labour of
the file’ has brought the first two chapters to a considerable degree of
perfection; but the rest of the book, upon the whole, is so rough and so
disjointed, that I can only suppose it to be based on certain loose
notes or _adversaria_, written solely with the object of dispersing his
doubts and mitigating his pains by giving them expression. The thread of
thought seems to break every few verses, and attempts to restore it fail
to carry conviction to the unbiassed mind. The feelings and opinions
embodied in the book are often mutually inconsistent; in Ibn Ezra’s
time, and long before that, the Jewish students of the book were puzzled
by this phenomenon, so strange in a canonical Scripture. Not a few
scattered remarks have absolutely no connection with the subject. The
style, too, is rarely easy and natural, and sometimes (especially in
viii. 16, 17) we meet with a sentence which would certainly not have
passed an author’s final revision. The most obvious hypothesis surely is
that from chap. iii. onwards we have before us the imperfectly worked-up
meditations of an otherwise unknown writer, found after his death in
proximity to a highly finished fragment which apparently professed to be
the work of king Solomon. The meditations and the fragment were
circulated in combination (for which there was much excuse, especially
as some parts of the notes seemed to be in the narrative and even
autobiographic style), and were received with much favour by the
students of ‘wisdom,’ more, I should think, owing to the intrinsic
interest of the book than to the literary fiction of Solomonic
authorship. If this hypothesis be correct, we need not be surprised
either at the author’s inconsistencies in opinion, or at the general
roughness of his style. The book may not even be all one man’s work.
Luther has already brought Ecclesiastes into connection with the
Talmud.[295] Now the proverbial sayings which interrupt our thinker’s
self-questionings on ‘vanity of vanities’ are like the Haggadic passages
which gush forth like fountains in the weary waste of hair-splitting
Talmudic dialectics. No one has ever maintained the unity of the Talmud,
and no one should be thought unreasonable for doubting the absolute
freedom of Ecclesiastes from interpolations.[296]
The third and last excuse which I have to offer is that the meditations
of Koheleth partake of the nature of an experiment. He may indeed (as I
have remarked) be a member of a school of writers, but his strikingly
original manner compels us to regard him as a master rather than a
disciple. No such purely reflective work had, so far as we know, as yet
been produced in Hebrew literature. Similar moral difficulties to those
which preoccupied our author had no doubt occurred to some of the
prophets and poets, but they had not been sounded to their depths. Even
in the Book of Job the reflective spirit has very imperfect scope. The
speeches soon pass into a lyric strain, and Jehovah Himself closes the
discussion by imposing silence. But the author of Ecclesiastes was a
thinker, not a lyrist, and was compelled to form his own vehicle of
thought. He ‘sought,’ indeed, ‘to find out pleasant words’ (xii. 10),
but had to strain the powers of an unpliant language to the uttermost,
to coin (presumably) new words, and apply old ones in fresh senses, till
he might well have complained (to apply Lucretius) ‘propter egestatem
linguae et rerum novitatem.’[297] He deserves great praise for his
measure of success; Luzzatto in his early work failed to do him justice.
He is not ambitious; as a rule, he abstains from fine writing. Once
indeed he attempts it, but, as I venture to think, with but ill
success—I refer to the closing description of old age (xii. 4-9), which
has a touch of the extravagant euphuism of late Arabic literature.[298]
From a poetical point of view, the prelude (i. 4-8) is alone worthy to
be mentioned, though not included either by Renan or by Bickell among
the passages poetical in form (for a list of which see below[299]). Let
us mark this fine passage, that we may return to it again in another
connection.
Footnote 286:
The ‘many books’ spoken of in xii. 12 were probably less orthodox than
Ecclesiastes, but in so far as Ecclesiastes, especially in its
uncorrected state, is sceptical, it may be grouped with them.
Footnote 287:
In common with most interpreters, I regard Ecclesiastes as a Judæan
work.
Footnote 288:
Following the precedent of the Epilogue (xii. 9), I designate the
author by the name which he has invented for his hero.
Footnote 289:
There is a touch of humour in the expression, which can perhaps best
be reproduced in our northern Doric, ‘Be not unco’ guid.’
Footnote 290:
I follow Sept. and Dr. Merx. The received reading is very harsh.
Footnote 291:
_Geschichte des Volkes Jisrael_, iii. 30.
Footnote 292:
Renan, _L’Antéchrist_, p. 228.
Footnote 293:
On the rhythm, comp. Bickell, _Der Prediger_ (1884), pp. 27, 46-53.
Footnote 294:
_Die alttestamentliche Literatur_, p. 173.
Footnote 295:
‘Dazu so ist’s wie ein Talmud aus vielen Büchern zusammengezogen.’
Luther’s _Tischreden_, quoted in Ginsburg, p. 113.
Footnote 296:
See Supplementary Chapter.
Footnote 297:
_De rerum naturâ_, i. 140 (appositely quoted by Mr. Tyler).
Footnote 298:
See the passage quoted from Chenery’s translation of Hariri by Dr.
Taylor (_Dirge of Coheleth_, p. 55); comp. Rückert’s rhyming
translation (_Hariri_, i. 104-5).
Footnote 299:
Renan’s list is i. 15, 18; ii. 2, 14; iii. 2-8, iv. 5, 14; v. 2; vii.
1-6; 7, 8; 9_b_; 13_b_; 24; viii. 1, 4; ix. 16, 17; x. 2, 12, 18; xi.
4, 7; xii. 3-5; 10; 11, 12. Bickell’s, i. 7, 8; 15; 18; ii. 2; v. 9;
vi. 7; iv. 5; ii. 14; viii. 8; ix. 16-x. 1; vii. 1-6, vi. 9, vii. 7-9;
vii. 11, 12; vii. 20; v. 2; x. 16-20; xi. 6; xi. 4; viii. 1-4, x. 2,
3; x. 6, 7; x. 10-15; ix. 7; xi. 9, 10, xii. 1_a_; xii. 1_b_-5; 6.
(The order of these passages arises out of Bickell’s critical theory;
on which see Chap. XII.)
CHAPTER II.
‘TRUTH AND FICTION’ IN AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
Let us now take a general survey of this strange book, regarding it as a
record of the conflicting moods and experiences of a thoughtful man of
the world. The author is too modest to appear in his own person (at
least in i. 1-ii. 12), but, like Cicero in his dialogues, selects a
mouthpiece from the heroic past. His choice could not be doubtful. Who
so fit as the wisest of his age, the founder and patron of gnomic
poetry, king Solomon (1 Kings iv. 30-32)? After the preluding verses,
from which a quotation has been given above, Ecclesiastes continues
thus:—
I Koheleth have been[300] king over Israel in Jerusalem; and I gave
my mind to making search and exploration, by wisdom, concerning all
that is done under heaven; that is a sore trouble which God hath
given to the sons of men to trouble themselves therewith! I saw all
the works which are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity
and pursuit of wind.
That which is crooked cannot be straightened,
and a deficiency cannot be reckoned (i. 12-15).
The name or title ‘Koheleth’ is obscure. According to the Epilogue
‘Koheleth was a wise man’ (xii. 9)—a statement which confirms the
explanation of the name as meaning ‘one who calls an assembly.’[301] The
‘wise men’ of Israel gathered their disciples together, and such an able
teacher as Koheleth would fain gather all who have ears to hear around
his seat. But Koheleth is also Solomon (though only for a short time—the
author did not, I suppose, live long enough thoroughly to fuse the
conceptions of king and philosopher[302]). The wise king is to be
imagined standing on the brink of the grave, and casting the
clear-sighted glance of a dying man on past life, somewhat as Moses in
parts of Deuteronomy or David in 2 Sam. xxii., xxiii. 1-7. A subtle and
poetic view of Solomon’s career is thus opened before us. He is not here
represented in his political relation, but as a specimen of the highest
type of human being, with a boundless appetite for pleasure and every
means of gratifying it. But even such a man’s deliberate verdict on all
forms of pleasure is that they are utterly unsubstantial, mere vanity
(lit. a vapour—Aquila, ἀτμίς; comp. James iv. 14). Neither pure
speculation (i. 13-18), nor riotous mirth (ii. 1, 2), nor even the
refined voluptuousness consistent with the free play of the
intellect[303] (ii. 3), could satisfy his longing, or enable him, with
Goethe’s Faust, to say to the flying moment, ‘Ah! linger yet, thou art
so fair.’ It is true that wisdom is after all better than folly; Solomon
from his ‘specular mount’ could ‘see’ this to be a truth (ii. 13); but
in the end he found it as resultless as ‘the walking in darkness’ of the
fool.
‘And I myself perceived that one fate befalleth them all. And I said
in my heart, As the fate of the fool will be the fate which shall
befall me, even me; and why have I then been exceeding wise? and I
said in my heart that this also is vanity’ (ii. 14_b_, 15), i.e.
that this undiscriminating fate is a fresh proof of the delusiveness
of all things.
And in this strain Koheleth runs on to nearly the end of the chapter,
with an added touch of bitterness at the thought of the doubtful
character of his successor (ii. 18, 19). Then occurs one of those abrupt
transitions which so often puzzle the student of Ecclesiastes. In ii.
1-11 Koheleth has rejected the life of sensuous pleasure, even when
wisely regulated, as ‘vanity.’ He now returns to the subject, and
declares this to be, not of course the ideally highest good, but the
highest good open to man, if it were only in his power to secure it. But
he has seen that both sensuous enjoyment and the wisdom which regulates
it come from God, who grants these blessings to the man who is good in
his sight, while profitless trouble is the portion of the sinner. He
repeats therefore that even wisdom and knowledge and joy, the highest
attainable goods, are, by reason of their uncertainty, ‘vanity and
pursuit of wind’ (ii. 26).
At the end of this long speech of Koheleth, we naturally ask how far it
can be regarded as autobiographical. Only, I think, in a qualified
sense. Its psychological depth points to similar experiences on the part
of the author, but to experiences which have been deepened in their
imaginative reproduction. It is truth mingled with fiction—_Wahrheit und
Dichtung_—which we meet with in the first two chapters. A more strictly
biographical narrative appears to begin in chap. iii., from which point
the allusions to Solomon cease, and are replaced by scattered references
to contemporary history. The confidences of the author are introduced by
a passage (iii. 1-8) in the gnomic style, containing a catalogue of the
various actions, emotions, and states of feeling which make up human
life. Each of these, we are told, has its own allotted season in the
fixed order of nature, but as this is beyond the ken and influence of
man, the question arises, ‘What profit hath he that worketh in that
wherewith he wearieth himself?’ (iii. 9.) Thus, the ‘wearisome trouble’
of the ‘sons of men’ has no permanent result. All that you can do is to
accustom yourself to acquiesce in destiny: you will then see that every
act and every state in your ever-shifting life is truly beautiful or
seemly (iii. 11), even if not profitable to the individual (iii. 9).
More than this, man has been endowed with the faculty of understanding
this kaleidoscopic world, with the drawback that he cannot possibly
embrace it all in one view:—[304]
Also he hath put the world into their heart (i.e. mind), except that
man cannot find out from beginning to end the work which God hath
made (iii. 11).
In fact, to quote Lord Bacon’s words in the _Advancement of Learning_,
‘God has framed the mind like a glass, capable of the image of the
universe, and desirous to receive it, as the eye to receive the light.’
But here a dark mood interrupts the course of our author’s meditations;
or perhaps it is the record of a later period which is but awkwardly
attached to the previous passages. ‘To rejoice and to fare well’—sensual
(or, let us say, sensuous) pleasure, in short—is now represented as the
only good for man, and even that is not to be too absolutely reckoned
upon, for ‘it is the gift of God’ (iii. 12, 13, 22; comp. ii. 24).
Certainly our author at any rate did not succeed in drowning care in the
wine-cup: he is no vulgar sensualist. His merriment is spoiled by the
thought of the misery of others, and he can find nothing ‘under the sun’
(a passionate generalisation from life in Palestine) but violence and
oppression. In utter despair he pronounces the dead happier than the
living (iv. 1, 2). In fact, he says, neither in life nor in death has
man any superiority over the other animals, which are under no
providential order, and have no principle of continuance. Such is the
cynical theory which tempts Koheleth; and yet he seems to have hesitated
before accepting it, unless we may venture with Bickell to strike out
iii. 17, as the work of a later editor who believed in retributions
hereafter (like xi. 9_b_ xii. 7, 13, 14). I confess that consistency
seems to me to require this step; the verse is in fact well fitted to be
an antidote to the following verse, which seems to have suggested the
opening phrase. This is how the text runs at present:—
I said in my heart, The righteous and the wicked shall God judge;
for there is a time for every purpose and for every work _there_
(emphatically for ‘in the other world;’ or read, hath he appointed).
I said in my heart, (It happens) on account of the sons of men, that
God may test them, and that they may see that they are but beasts.
For the sons of men are a chance (comp. Herod. i. 32), and beasts
are a chance; yea, all have one chance: as the one dies, so dies the
other; yea, they all have one spirit; and advantage of the one over
the other there is none, for all is vanity. All go unto one place;
all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether
the spirit of man goes upward, and whether the spirit of the beast
goes downward to the earth?[305] (iii. 17-21.)
Our author’s abiding conviction is that ‘the spirit does but mean the
breath’ (_In Memoriam_, lvi.), so that man and the lower animals have
‘one spirit’ and alike end in dust. ‘_Pulvis et umbra sumus._’ It is
true, some of his contemporaries hold the new doctrine of Immortality,
but Koheleth, in his cool scepticism, hesitates to accept it. Which
indeed of its enthusiastic advocates can claim to ‘know’ that which he
asserts; or can prove to Koheleth’s satisfaction that God (as a psalmist
in Ps. xlix. 15 puts it) will ‘receive’ the spirit of man, in spite of
the fact that the vital principle of beasts loses itself in the dust of
death? It is no doubt an awkward construction which Koheleth adopts: he
_seems_ to express an uncertainty as to the fate of the lower animals.
To convey the meaning which I have given, the construction ought to have
been disjunctive, as in this line from a noble modern poem,
Friend, who knows if death indeed have life, or life have death for
goal?[306]
But there is, or rather there ought to be, no doubt as to Koheleth’s
meaning. Dean Plumptre frankly admits that ‘it is not till nearly the
close of the book, with all its many wanderings of thought, that the
seeker rests in that measure of the hope of immortality which we find’
[but this is open to considerable doubt] ‘in xii. 7.’
Footnote 300:
See the fantastic legend to account for the past tense in _Midrash
Koheleth_ (transl. Wünsche), or Ginsburg (p. 268; comp. p. 38).
Footnote 301:
Dean Plumptre thinks Koheleth (like ἐκκλησιαστής), which is rendered
by him ‘the Debater,’ means rather a member of an assembly, than a
teacher or preacher, and compares Ecclus. xxxviii. 33, where the son
of Sirach says of labourers and artisans that they ‘shall not sit high
in the congregation,’ i.e. in the _ecclesia_ or academy of sages. But
judging from the parallel line the ‘congregation’ is rather that of
the people in general (comp. Ecclus. xv. 5). The Dean’s view that the
book embodies the inward debates of a Jewish philosopher may be to a
great extent true, but for all that Koheleth is throughout represented
as speaking alone and with authority. On the philological explanation
of the word, see Appendix.
Footnote 302:
This seems a reasonable view. Bickell boldly maintains that i. 1, 12,
16, ii. 7, 8, 9 [12] are interpolations (made presumably to facilitate
the recognition of the book as canonical). Observe however that the
(fictitious) author is nowhere declared to be Solomon, but only
ben-David (i. 1). He claims attention merely as a private person, as
an interpreter of the complaints of humanity. Though he does once
expressly refer to his royal state (i. 12), it is only to suggest to
his readers what ample opportunities he has enjoyed of learning the
vanity of earthly grandeur. So, very plausibly, Bloch (_Ursprung des
Kohelet_, p. 17).
Footnote 303:
The passage indeed is obscure and possibly corrupt (so Bickell), but
the above words probably do justice to the mood described.
Footnote 304:
Among the many other interpretations of this difficult passage, two
may be mentioned here. (1) ‘He has also set worldliness in their
heart, without which man cannot understand the work that God does,
from beginning to end.’ So Kalisch (_Path and Goal_, frequently). This
is an improvement upon the translation of Gesenius and others, who
render, not ‘without which’ &c., but ‘so that man may not’ &c. The
objection to the latter rendering is that it gives ‘worldliness’ a New
Testament sense (comp. 1 John ii. 15). Kalisch, however, in full
accord with the spirit of Judaism, makes Koheleth frankly accept
‘worldliness’ as a good, understanding by ‘worldliness’ a sense of
worldly duties and enjoyments. Had this however been Koheleth’s
meaning, would he not have coined another of his favourite abstract
terms (comp. the Peshitto’s _’olmoyuthō_ = αἰὼν in Eph. ii. 2)? (2)
‘Also he has put eternity into their heart, but so that man cannot’
&c. So Ginsburg and Delitzsch (_desiderium æternitatis_, taking
‘eternity’ in a metaphysical sense = ‘that which is beyond time’); so
also Nowack (taking it in the popular sense of years following upon
years without apparent limit). Ginsburg’s view is against the context,
in which the continuance of the human spirit is doubted; but Nowack’s
explanation is not unacceptable. Man has been enabled to form the idea
of Time (for the popular view of ‘eternity’ comes practically to
this), and has divided this long space into longer and shorter
periods; what happens in one period or season, he can compare with
what happens in another, thus finding all well-adapted and
‘beautiful.’ But he cannot grasp the whole of Time in one view. But I
still prefer the explanation given in the text, as being simpler, in
spite of the fact that _’ōlām_ nowhere else occurs in the sense of
‘world’ (or the present order of things), so common in later Hebrew.
Footnote 305:
This is the rendering of the four principal versions and of all the
best critics, including Mercier, Ewald, Ginsburg, Grätz and Delitzsch;
it agrees with the general tendency of Koheleth, and in particular
with vii. 5, where the grave is called man’s ‘eternal home’ (see
below). It is no doubt opposed by the vowel-points, which are followed
in King James’s Bible. But it is more than probable (considering other
parallel phenomena) that the authors of the points were directed by a
theological and therefore uncritical motive, that, namely, of effacing
as far as possible a trace of Koheleth’s opposition to the doctrine,
by that time recognised as orthodox, of the immortality of the soul.
Footnote 306:
Swinburne, _On the Verge_.
CHAPTER III.
MORE MORALISING, INTERRUPTED BY PROVERBIAL MAXIMS.
Let us now resume the thread of Koheleth’s moralising. Violence and
oppression were two of the chief evils which struck an attentive
observer of Palestinian life. But there were two others equally worthy
of a place in the sad picture—the evils of rivalry and isolation. First,
with regard to rivalry (iv. 4-6). What is ‘skilful work,’ or art, but an
‘envious surpassing of the one by the other’? This also is ‘pursuit of
wind;’ it gives no permanent satisfaction. True, indolence is
self-destruction: but on the other hand a little true rest is better
than the labour of windy effort, urged on by rivalry yielding no rest
(Delitzsch). Such at least is the most probable connection, supposing
that vv. 5 and 6 are not rather interpolated or misplaced. If however it
be objected (here Koheleth passes to a second great evil—that of
isolation) that a man may labour for his child or his brother, yet who,
pray, is benefited by the money-getting toils of one who has no near
relative, and stands alone in the world? A pitiable sight is such
unprofitable toil! The fourth chapter closes with maxims on the
blessings of companionship (iv. 9-12), followed by a vivid description
of the sudden fall of an old and foolish king (iv. 13-16), who had not
cared to appropriate one of the chief of these blessings, viz. good
advice. There is much that is enigmatical in the last four verses. We
should expect the writer to be alluding to some fact in contemporary
history, but no plausible parallel has yet been indicated.[307] Ver. 16
is certainly either corrupt or mutilated. Bickell thinks that it must
originally have run somewhat as follows:—
There was no end of all the people, even of all those who [applauded
him and cast reproaches on the old king. For because he had despised
the counsel of the prudent, to rule foolishly and to oppress the
people, therefore they hated him, even as those had hated him] who
were before them; they also that came afterwards did not rejoice in
him.
At this point the ideal autobiography of Koheleth is interrupted. From
v. 1 (= iv. 17 in the Hebrew) to vii. 14 we are presented with a mixture
of proverbial sayings (such perhaps as Koheleth was continually framing
and depositing in his note-books) and records of the wise man’s personal
experience. Notice especially the reappearance of the old Israelitish
instinctive sympathy with husbandmen (or, shall I say, with yeomen) in
ver. 9. Both proverbs and personal records are the offspring of
different moods, and therefore not always consistent. Thus at one time
our author repeats his preference of sensuous enjoyment to any other
mode of passing one’s life.
For (then) he will not think much on the (few) days of his life,
because God responds to the joy of his heart (v. 20).
But the writer is too pessimistic to rest long in this thought. It is a
‘common evil among men’ to have riches without the full enjoyment of
them: ‘better an untimely birth,’ he cries, than to be in such a case
(vi. 3). Note here in passing the fondness of our author for using a
comparison in expressing an emphatic judgment (comp. iv. 9-16, vii.
1-8). Better, he continues, is a momentary experience of real happiness
than to let the desire wander after unattainable ends. ‘There are many
things that increase vanity;’ with the reserve of good taste, he
understates his meaning, for what human object, according to Koheleth,
is not futile? That gift which to the Christian is so wondrously
fair—the gift of life—to him becomes ‘the numbered days of his life of
vanity;’ and ‘who knows what is good for man in life, which he spends as
a shadow? For who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?’
(vi. 12.) Koheleth, we see, has no faith in his nation, nor in humanity.
I do not feel sure that we may say with Dean Bradley that ‘out of this
very gloom and sadness come forth in the next chapter thoughts that have
gone, some of them, the round of the world.’ No doubt there is more than
a mere tinge of the same midnight gloom in some of these proverbial
sayings. But surely there is a complete break in the thread of thought
of vi. 12, and a fresh collection of looser notes has found a place at
the head of chap. vii. At any rate, these sayings supply a convincing
proof that Koheleth was not a mere hedonist or Epicurean. He recalls in
vii. 2 his former commendation of feasting, and declares,
It is better to go into the house of mourning than to go into the
house of feasting, inasmuch as that is the end of all men, and the
living can lay it to his heart (vii. 2).