for he recognises the claims of Duty and of Charity. These keep his
pleasures sweet and wholesome, prevent them from usurping the whole
man, and landing him in the satiety and weariness of dissipation. But
lest even these safeguards should prove insufficient, he has also
this: he knows that "God will bring him into judgment;" that all his
works, whether of charity or duty or recreation, will be weighed in
the pure and even balance of Divine Justice (ver. 9). _This_ is the
secret of the pure heart--the heart that is kept pure amid all labours
and cares and joys. But the intention of the Preacher in thus
adverting to the Divine Judgment has been gravely misconstrued,
wrested even to its very opposite. We too much forget what that
Judgment must have seemed to the enslaved Jews;--how weighty a
consolation, how bright a hope! They were captive exiles, oppressed by
profligate despotic lords. Cleaving to the Divine Law with a
passionate loyalty such as they had never felt in happier days, they
were nevertheless exposed to the most dire and constant misfortunes.
All the blessings which the Law pronounced on the obedient seemed
withheld from them, all its promises of good and peace to be
falsified; the wicked triumphed over them, and prospered in their
wickedness. Now to a people whose convictions and hopes had suffered
this miserable defeat, what truth would be more welcome than that of a
life to come, in which all wrongs should be both righted and avenged,
and all the promises in which they had hoped should receive a large
fulfilment that would beggar hope? what prospect could be more
cheerful and consolatory than that of a day of retribution on which
their oppressors would be put to shame, and _they_ would be
recompensed for their fidelity to the law of God? This hope would be
sweeter to them than any pleasure; it would lend a new zest to every
pleasure, and make them more zealous in good works.
Nay, we know, from the Psalms composed during the Captivity, that the
judgment of God _was_ an incentive to hope and joy; that, instead of
fearing it, the pious Jews looked forward to it with rapture and
exultation. What, for example, can be more riant and joyful than the
concluding strophe of Psalm xcvi.?
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof;
Let the field exult and all that therein is;
And let all the trees of the wood sing for joy
Before Jehovah: for He cometh,
For He cometh _to judge the earth,
To judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with his truth_;
or than the third strophe of Psalm xcviii.?
Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof;
The world, and they that dwell therein;
Let the floods clap their hands,
And let the hills sing for joy together
Before Jehovah: _for He cometh to judge the earth;
With righteousness shall He judge the world,
And the peoples with equity_.
It is impossible to read these verses, and such verses as these,
without feeling that the Jews of the Captivity anticipated the Divine
Judgment, not with fear and dread, but with a hope and joy so deep
and keen as that they summoned the whole round of Nature to share in
it and reflect it.
If we remembered this, we should not so readily agree with the
Preachers and Commentators who assume Coheleth to be speaking
ironically in this verse, and as though he would defy his readers to
enjoy their pleasures with the thought of God and his judgment of them
in their minds. We should rather understand that he was making life
more cheerful to them; that he was removing the blight of despair
which had fallen on it; that he was kindling in their dreary prospect
a light which would shine even into their darkened present with
gracious and healing rays. All wrongs would be easier to bear, all
duties would be faced with better heart, all alleviating pleasures
would grow more welcome, if once they were fully persuaded that there
was a life beyond death, a life in which the good would be "comforted"
and the evil "tormented." It is on the express ground that there is a
Judgment that the Preacher, in the last verse of this chapter, bids
them banish "care" and "sadness," or, as the words perhaps mean,
"moroseness" and "trouble;" though he also adds another reason which
no longer afflicts him much, viz., that "youth and manhood are
vanity," soon gone, never to be recalled, and never enjoyed if the
brief occasion is suffered to pass.
Mark how quickly the force of this great hope has reversed his
position. Only in ver. 8, the very instant before he discloses his
hope, he urges men to enjoy the present "because all that is coming is
vanity," because there were so many dark days, days of infirm
querulous age and silent dreary death before them. But here, in ver.
10, the very moment he has disclosed his hope, he urges them to enjoy
the present, not because _the future_ is vanity, but because _the
present_ is vanity, because youth and manhood soon pass and the
pleasures proper to them will be out of reach. Why should they any
longer be fretted with care and anxiety when the lamp of Revelation
shone so brightly on the future? Why should they not be cheerful when
so happy a prospect lay before them? Why should they sit brooding over
their wrongs when their wrongs were so soon to be righted, and they
were to enter on so ample a recompense of reward? Why should they not
travel toward a future so welcome and inviting with hearts attuned to
mirth and responsive to every touch of pleasure?
But is the thought of Judgment to be no check on our pleasures? Well,
it is certainly used here as an incentive to pleasure, to
cheerfulness. We are to be happy _because_ we are to stand at the bar
of God, because in the Judgment He will adjust and compensate all the
wrongs and afflictions of time. But it is not every one who can take
to himself the full comfort of this argument. Only he can do that who
makes it his ruling aim to do his duty and help his neighbour. And no
doubt even he will find the hope of judgment--for with him it is a
hope rather than a fear--a valuable check, not on his pleasures, but
on those base counterfeits which often pass for pleasures, and which
betray men, through voluptuousness, into satiety, disgust, remorse.
Because he hopes to meet God, and has to give account of himself to
God, he will resist the evil lusts which pollute and degrade the soul:
and thus the prospect of Judgment will become a safeguard and a
defence.
But he has a safeguard of even a more sovereign potency than this. For
he not only looks forward to a future judgment, he is conscious of a
present and constant judgment. God is with him wherever he goes. From
"the days of his youth" he has "remembered his Creator" (chap. xii.,
ver. 1). He has remembered _Him_, and given to the poor and needy. He
has remembered Him and, doing all things as to Him, duty has grown
light. He has remembered Him, and his pleasures have grown the sweeter
because they were gifts from Heaven, and because he has taken them, in
a thankful spirit, for a temperate enjoyment. Of all safeguards to a
life of virtue, this is the noblest and the best. We can afford,
indeed, to part with none of them, for we are strangely weak, often
where we least suspect it, and need all the helps we can get: but
least of all can we afford to part with this. We need to remember that
every sin is punished here and now, inwardly if not outwardly, and
that these inward punishments are the most severe. We need to remember
that we must all appear before the judgment-seat of God, to render an
account of the deeds done in the body. But above all--if love, and not
fear, is to be the animating motive of our life--we need to remember
that God is always with us, observing what we do; and that, not that
He may spy upon us and accumulate heavy charges against us, but that
He may help us to do well; not to frown upon our pleasures, but to
hallow, deepen, and prolong them, and to be Himself our Chief Good and
our Supreme Delight.
"'Live while you live,' the Epicure would say,
'And seize the pleasure of the present day.'
'Live while you live,' the Sacred Preacher cries,
'And give to God each moment as it flies.'
Lord, in my view let both united be:
I live in pleasure while I live in Thee."[48]
[48] _Dum vivimus vivamus._--Doddridge.
Finally, the Preacher enforces this early and habitual reference of
the soul to the Divine Presence and Will by a brief allusion to the
impotence and weariness of a godless old age, and by a very striking
description of the terrors of the death in which it culminates.
While "the dew of youth" is still fresh upon us we are to "remember
our Creator" and his constant judgment of us lest, forgetting Him, we
should waste our powers in sensual excess; lest temperate mirth should
degenerate into an extravagant and wanton devotion to pleasure; lest
the lust of mere physical enjoyment should outlive the power to enjoy,
and, groaning under the penalties our unbridled indulgence has
provoked, we should find "days of evil" rise on us in long succession,
and draw out into "years" of fruitless desire, self-disgust, and
despair (ver. 1). "Before the evil days come," and that they may not
come; before "the years arrive of which we shall say, I have no
pleasure in them," and that they may not arrive, we are to bethink us
of the Pure and Awful Presence in which we daily stand. God is with us
that we may not sin; with us in youth, that "the angel of his
Presence" may save us from the sins to which youth is prone; with us,
to save us from "the noted slips of youth and liberty," that our
closing years may have the cheerful serenity of a happy old age.
To this admonition drawn from the miseries of godless age, the
Preacher appends a description of the terrors of approaching death
(vv. 2-5),--a description which has suffered many strange torments at
the hands of critics and commentators. It has commonly been read as an
allegorical, but singularly accurate, diagnosis of "the disease men
call death," as setting forth in graphic figures the gradual decay of
sense after sense, faculty after faculty.[49] Learned physicians have
written treatises upon it, and have been lost in admiration of the
force and beauty of the metaphors in which it conveys the results of
their special science, although they differ in their interpretation of
almost every sentence, and are driven at times to the most gross and
absurd conjectures in order to sustain their several theories. I need
not give any detailed account of these speculations, for the simple
reason that they are based, as I believe, on an entire misconception
of the Sacred Text. Instead of being, as has been assumed, a
figurative description of the dissolution of the body, it sets forth
the threatening approach of death under the image of a tempest which,
gathering over an Eastern city during the day, breaks upon it toward
evening: so, at least, I, with many more, take it. And I do not know
how we can better arrive at it than by considering what would be the
incidents which would strike us if we were to stroll through the
narrow tortuous streets of such a city as the day was closing in.
[49] It may be worth while to specify some of the gross and absurd
conjectures, some also of the strange differences, into which what may
be called the _medical_ reading of this passage has betrayed its
advocates. Ginsburg has a marvellous collection of them in his "notes"
to these verses. I select and combine only a few of them. The
darkening of the light, the sun, the moon, and the stars (ver. 2) is
taken by one great authority (the Talmud) to mean the darkening _of
the forehead_, _the nose_, _the soul_, _and the teeth_; by another
(the Chaldee Paraphrast), the obscuring of _the face_, _the eyes_,
_the cheeks_, _and the apples of the eyes_; by a third (Dr. Smith, in
his "Portraiture of Old Age"), _for the decay of all the mental
faculties_. That "the clouds return after the rain" signifies,
according to Ibn Ezra, _the constant dimness of the eyes_; according
to Le Clerc, _a bad influenza, accompanied with unceasing snuffling_.
"The keepers of the house" (ver. 3) are _the ribs and the loins_
(Talmud), _the knees_ (Chaldee), and _the hands and arms_ (Ibn Ezra).
"The men of power" are _the thighs_ (Talmud) and _the arms_ (Chaldee).
"The grinding maids" are _the teeth_, and "the ladies who look out of
the lattices" are _the eyes_, by general consent. "The door closed on
the street" is _the pores of the skin_ (Dr. Smith), _the lips_ (Ibn
Ezra), and _the eyes_ (Henstenberg). That "the noise of the mills
ceases" or "grows faint" (ver. 4) means that _the mastication of food_
becomes imperfect (Dr. Smith), that _the appetite_ fails (Chaldee),
that _the voice_ grows feeble (Grotius). That "the songbirds descend
to their nests" signifies that _music and songs are a bore_ to the
aged man (Talmud), that he is _no longer able to sing_ (Chaldee), that
_his ears are heavy_ (Grotius). The allusion to "the almond" (ver. 5)
denotes that _the haunch-bone shall come out from leanness_ (Talmud),
or (Reynolds) it denotes _the hoary hair which comes quickly on a man_
just as the almond-tree thrusts out her blossoms before any other
tree; while at least half-a-dozen scholars and physicians take it as
pointing to _membrum genitale_ or _glans virilis_. That "the locust
becomes a burden" means that _the ankles swell_ (Chaldee), _gout in
the feet_ (Jerome), _a projecting stomach_ (Le Clerc), _the dry
shrivelled frame of an old man_ (Dr. Smith). Almost all modern
commentators take the reference to "the caper-berry" as marking the
fact that condiments lose their power to provoke appetite with the
aged, while many of the ancients took it as marking the failure of
sexual desire. The "silver cord" and "golden bowl" of ver. 6 are _the
tongue and the skull_ (Chaldee), _backbone and brain_ (Dr. Smith),
_urine and bladder_ (Gasper Sanctius); while the "bucket" is either
_the gall_ or _the right ventricle of the heart_, and "the wheel" that
draws the water stands for _the air-inspiring lungs_.
Now of course it would not be just to condemn any interpretation
simply because it is weighted with absurdities and contradictions such
as these, though it surely requires a very strong reading to carry
them. But when an interpretation is so obviously forced and fanciful,
when it is so remarkably ingenious and leaves to ingenuity so wide and
lawless a scope, we shall do well to hesitate before accepting it. And
if another interpretation be offered us, as in the text, which gives a
literal rendering to every phrase instead of a figurative one, which
bases itself on the common household facts of Eastern experience
instead of on the technicalities of Western science, which instead of
being so indeterminate and fanciful as at times to be
self-contradictory and grotesque, is coherent and impressive, we
really have no alternative before us. We cannot but choose the one and
reject the other.
As we passed along we should find small rows of houses and shops,
broken here and there by a wide stretch of blank wall, behind which
were the mansions, harems, courtyards of its wealthier inhabitants.
Round and within the low narrow gates which gave access to these
mansions, we should see armed men lounging whose duty it is to guard
the premises against robbers and intruders; these are "the keepers of
the house," over whom, as over the whole household, are placed
superior officials--members of the family often--or "men of power."
Going through the gates and glancing up at the latticed windows, we
might catch glimpses of the veiled faces of the ladies of the house
who, not being permitted to stir abroad except on rare occasions and
under jealous guardianship, are accustomed to amuse their dreary
leisure, and to learn a little of what is going on around them, by
"looking out of the windows." Within the house, the gentlemen of the
family would be enjoying the chief meal of the day, provoking appetite
with delicacies such as "the locust,"[50] or condiments such as "the
caper-berry,"[51] or with choice fruit such as "the almond."[52]
Above all the shrill cries and noises of the city you would hear a
loud humming sound rising on every side, for which you would be sorely
puzzled to account if you were a stranger to Eastern habits. It is the
sound of the cornmills which, towards evening, are at work in every
house. A cornmill was indispensable to every Eastern family, since
there were no public mills or bakers except the King's. The heat of
the climate makes it necessary that corn should be ground and bread
baked every day. And as the task of grinding at the mill was very
irksome, only the most menial class of women, often slaves or
captives, were employed upon it. Of course the noise caused by the
revolution of the upper upon the nether millstone was very great when
the mills were simultaneously at work in every house in the city. No
sound is more familiar in the East; and, if it were suddenly stopped,
the effect would be as striking as the sudden stoppage of all the
wheels of traffic in an English town. So familiar was the sound,
indeed, and of such good omen, that in Holy Writ it is used as a
symbol of a happy, active, well-provided people; while the cessation
of it is employed to denote want, and desolation, and despair. To an
Oriental ear no threat would be more doleful and pathetic than that in
Jeremiah (xxv. 10), "I will take from them the voice of mirth and the
voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the
bride, _the sound of the millstones_, and the light of the candle."
[50] This locust (_chagab_) is one of the four kinds which the Law of
Moses marked out as fit for human food. To this day several kinds of
locust are held to be an agreeable and nutritious diet. There are many
ways of preparing them for the table. They may be pounded with flour
and water, and made into cakes. They may be smoked, boiled, roasted,
stewed, and fried in butter. They may be salted with salt; and thus
treated are eaten by the Arabs as a great delicacy. Or they may be
dried in the sun, and then steeped in wine: baskets of them, prepared
in this way, are to be commonly seen in Eastern markets. Dr. Kitto,
who often ate them, says that they taste like shrimps; Dr. Shaw says
that they are quite as good as our freshwater crayfish.
[51] The caper-plant grows abundantly in Asia, as it does also in
Africa and Southern Europe. It commonly springs in the crevices of
walls, on heaps of ruins, or on barren wastes, and forms a diffuse
many-branched shrub. Its flowers are large and showy: the four petals
are white, but the long numerous stamens have their filaments tinged
with purple, and terminate in yellow anthers. As the ovary ripens it
droops and forms a pear-shaped berry, which holds in its pulp many
small seeds. Almost every part of the shrub has been used as a
condiment by the ancients. The stalk and seed were salted, or
preserved in vinegar or wine. Its buds are still held to be an
agreeable sauce--we eat them with boiled mutton. And the berries
possess irritant properties which win them high esteem among the
Orientals as a provocative to appetite.
[52] The fruit of the almond-tree is still reckoned one of the most
delicate and delicious fruits in the East. We may fancy that we are
acquainted with it, that we know "almonds" at least as well as we know
"raisins." But, I believe, that the almond we eat is only the kernel
of the stone in the true almond; the fruit itself is of the same order
with apricots, peaches, plums.
Now suppose the day on which we rambled through the city had been
boisterous and lowering; that heavy rain had fallen, obscuring all the
lights of heaven; and as the evening drew on, the thick clouds,
instead of dispersing, had "returned after the rain," so that setting
sun and rising moon, and the growing light of stars, were all blotted
from view (ver. 2). The tempest, long in gathering, breaks on the
city; the lightnings flash through the darkness, making it more
hideous; the thunder crashes and rolls above the roofs; the tearing
rain beats at all lattices and floods all roads. If we cared to abide
the pelting of the storm, we should have before us the very scene
which the Preacher depicts. "The keepers of the house," the guards and
porters, would quake. "The men of power," the lords or owners of the
house, or the officials who most closely attended on them, would
crouch and tremble with apprehension. The maids at the mill would
"stop" because one or other of the two women--two at least--whom it
took to work the heavy millstone had been frightened from her task by
the gleaming lightning and the pealing thunder. The ladies, looking
out of their lattices, would be driven back into the darkest corners
of the inner rooms of the harem. Every door would be closed and barred
lest robbers, availing themselves of the darkness and its terrors,
should creep in (ver. 3). "The noise of the mills" would grow faint or
utterly cease, because the threatening tumult had terrified many, if
not all, the grinding-maids from their work. The strong-winged
"swallow," lover of wind and tempest, would flit to and fro with
shrieks of joy; while the delicate "song-birds" would drop, silent and
alarmed, into their nests. The gentlemen of the house would soon lose
all gust for their delicate cates[53] and fruits; "the almond" would
be pushed aside, "the locust loathed," and even the stimulating
"caper-berry provoke no appetite," fear being a singularly unwelcome
and disappetising guest at a feast. In short, the whole people,
stunned and confused by the awful and stupendous majesty of a tropical
storm, would be affrighted at the terrors which come flaming from "the
height" of heaven, to confront them on every highway (vv. 4, 5).
[53] Sir Henry Rawlinson says: "At the present day, among the _bons
vivants_ of Persia, it is usual to sit down for hours before dinner,
drinking wine, and eating dried fruits, such as filberts, almonds,
pistachio-nuts, melon-seeds, etc. A party, indeed, often sits down at
seven o'clock, and the dinner is not brought in till eleven. The
dessert dishes, intermingled as they are with highly seasoned
delicacies, are supposed to have the effect of stimulating the
appetite."--Notes to Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, vol. i., p. 274.
Such and so terrible is the tempest that at times sweeps over an
Eastern city.[54] Such and so terrible, adds the Preacher, is death to
the godless and sensual. They are carried away as by a storm; the wind
riseth and snatcheth them out of their place. For if we ask, "Why, O
Preacher, has your pencil laboured to depict the terrors of a
tempest?" he replies, "Because man goeth to his long home, and the
mourners pace up and down the street" (ver. 5). He leaves us in no
doubt as to the moral of the fable, the theme and motive of his
picture. While painting it, while adding touch to touch, he has been
thinking of "the long home"--or, as the Hebrew has it, "the house of
eternity;" a phrase still used by the Jews as a synonym for "the
grave"--which is appointed for all living, and of the mercenary
professional mourners who loiter under the windows of the dying man in
the hope that they may be hired to lament him. To the expiring sinner
death is simply dreadful. It puts an end to all his activities and
enjoyments, just as the tempest brings all the labours and recreations
of the city to a pause. He has nothing before him but the grave, and
none to mourn him but the harpies who already pace the street, longing
for the moment when he will be gone, and who value their fee far above
his life. If we would have death shorn of its terrors for us, we must
"remember our Creator" before death comes; we must seek by charity, by
a faithful discharge of duty, by a wise use and a wise enjoyment of
the life that now is, to prepare ourselves for the life which is to
come.
[54] It should be borne in mind that the comparative rarity of
thunderstorms in Syria and the adjacent lands makes them much more
dreadful to the inhabitants of those countries. Throughout the Old
Testament, and especially in the Psalms, we find many traces of the
dread which such storms inspired--a dread almost unaccountable to our
accustomed nerves.
Death itself, as Coheleth proceeds to remind us (ver. 6), cannot be
escaped. Some day the cord _will_ break and the lamp fall; some day
the jar or pitcher must be broken, and the wheel, shattered, fall into
the well. Death is the common event. It befalls not only the sinful
and injurious, but also the useful and the good. Our life may have
been like a "golden" lamp suspended by a silver chain, fit for the
palace of a king, and may have shed a welcome and cheerful light on
every side and held out every promise of endurance but, none the less,
the costly durable chain will be snapped at last, and the fair costly
bowl be broken. Or our life may have been like the "pitcher" dipped,
by village maidens, into the village fountain; or, again, like "the
wheel" by which water is drawn, by a thousand hands, from the city
well; it may have conveyed a vital refreshment to the few or to the
many around us: but, none the less, the day must come when the pitcher
will be shattered on the edge of the fountain, and the time-worn wheel
fall from its rotten supports. There is no escape from death. And,
therefore, as we must all die, let us all live as cheerfully and
helpfully as we can; let us all prepare for the better life beyond the
grave, by serving our Creator before "the body is cast into the earth
from which it came, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (ver.
7).
* * * * *
This, then, according to the Hebrew Preacher, is the ideal man, the
man who achieves the Quest of the Chief Good:--Charitable, dutiful,
cheerful, he prepares for death by a useful and happy life, for future
judgment by a constant reference to the present judgment, for meeting
God hereafter by walking with Him here.