much study is a weariness of the flesh.—That which the word 'all is vanity' comes to:[1] it is understood (thus), Fear God, and keep His commandments. For this (concerns) every man. For every work shall God bring into the judgment (which shall be) upon all that is concealed and all that is manifest, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
This translation has not been reached without some emendations
of the text. It seems to me that everything in this
Epilogue ought to be clear. There is but one verse which
contains figurative expressions; the rest is simple prose. It
is only fair, however, to give one of the current renderings of
those verses in which an emendation has been attempted
above.
Koheleth sought to find out pleasant words and that which was
written down frankly, words of truth. Words of wise men are like
goads, and like nails driven in are those which form collections [or,
the well-compacted sayings, Ewald; or, the well-stored ones, Kamphausen]—they
have been given by one shepherd. . . . Final result,
all having been heard:—Fear God and keep His commandments,
for this (concerns) every man.[2]
The first scholar to declare against the genuineness of the
Epilogue was Döderlein (Scholia in libros V. T. poeticos, 1779),
who was followed by Bertholdt (Einleitung, p. 2250 &c.),
Umbreit, Knobel, and De Jong.[3] It was however a Jewish
scholar, Nachman Krochmal,[4] who first developed an elaborate
theory to account for the Epilogue. According to him, it
- ↑ So Klostermann, regarding this verse down to 'commandments' as an additional note on this difficult saying of Koheleth's, which was liable to give offence to orthodox readers. The word '(is) vanity' is supposed to have dropped out of the text. The object of the note is to show under what limitations it can be admitted that 'all is vanity.' Then the writer continues, 'For this (concerns) every man; for every work' &c., to show that the limiting precept is not less universally applicable than Koheleth's melancholy formula.
- ↑ Thus Delitzsch, who takes the 'words of the wise' and the 'collections' in ver. 11 to refer at least in part, the former to the detached sayings, and the latter to the continuous passages, which together make up Ecclesiastes. The 'one shepherd' is held to be God, so that the clause involves a claim of divine inspiration.
- ↑ De Jong's discussion of the Epilogue deserves special attention (De Prediker, p. 142 &c.); comp. however Kuenen's reply, Onderzoek, iii. 196 &c.)
- ↑ Krochmal died in 1840, but his view on the Epilogue first saw the light in 1851 in vol. xi. of the Hebrew journal Morè nebūkē hazzemān (see Grätz, Kohelet, p. 47). His life is to be found in Zunz, Gesammelte Schriften, ii. 150 &c.
