Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/2495

 to be supplied after Ecc 8:13, so that האריך signifies to live long, as at Pro 28:2, to last long; the ''dat. ethic''. gives the idea of the feeling of contentment connected with long life: he thereupon sins wantonly, and becomes old in it in good health. That is the actual state of the case, which the author cannot conceal from himself; although, on the other hand, as by way of limitation he adds ki ... ani, he well knows that there is a moral government of the world, and that this must finally prevail. We may not translate: that it should go well, but rather: that it must go well; but there is no reason not to interpret the fut. as a pure indic.: that it shall go well, viz., finally, - it is a postulate of his consciousness which the author here expresses; that which exists in appearance contradicts this consciousness, which, however, in spite of this, asserts itself. That to ליר האל the clause אשׁר מלּ, explaining idem per idem, is added, has certainly its reason in this, that at the time of the author the name “fearers of God” [Gottesfürchitige] had come into use. “The fearers of God, who fear before (מלּפני, as at Ecc 3:14) Him,” are such as are in reality what they are called. In Ecc 8:13, Hitzig, followed by Elster, Burg., and Zöckl., places the division at ימים: like the shadow is he who fears not before God. Nothing can in point of syntax be said against this (cf. 1Ch 29:15), although אשׁר כּצּל, “like the shadow is he who,” is in point of style awkward. But that the author did not use so rude a style is manifest from Ecc 6:12, according to which כצל is rightly referred to ימים ... ולא־. Is then the shadow, asks Hitzig, because it does not “prolong its days,” therefore ימים קצר? How subtle and literal is this use of ימים! Certainly the shadow survives not a day; but for that very reason it is short-lived, it may even indeed be called קצר ימים, because it has not existence for a single day. In general, qetsel, ὡς σκιά, is applicable to the life of all men, Psa 144:4, Wisd. 2:5, etc. It is true of the wicked, if we keep in view the righteous divine requital, especially that he is short-lived like the shadow, “because he has no fear before God,” and that in consequence of this want of fear his life is shortened by his sin inflicting its own punishment, and by the act of God. Asher, Ecc 8:13, as at Ecc 8:11, Ecc 8:12, is the relative conj. Also in Ecc 8:14, אשׁר (שׁ) as a pronoun, and אשׁר (שׁ) as a conj., are mixed together. After the author has declared the reality of a moral government of the world as an inalienable fact of human consciousness, and particularly of his own consciousness, he places over against this fact