Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/2536

 =Chap. 11=

Verse 1
Ecc 11:1 “Let thy bread go forth over the watery mirror: for in the course of many days shalt thou find it.” Most interpreters, chiefly the Talm., Midrash, and Targ., regard this as an exhortation to charity, which although practised without expectation of reward, does not yet remain unrewarded at last. An Aram. proverb of Ben Sira's (vid., Buxtorf's Florilegium, p. 171) proceeds on this interpretation: “Scatter thy bread on the water and on the dry land; in the end of the days thou findest it again.” Knobel quotes a similar Arab. proverb from Diez' Denkwürdigkeiten von Asien (Souvenirs of Asia), II 106: “Do good; cast thy bread into the water: thou shalt be repaid some day.” See also the proverb in Goethe's ''Westöst. Divan'', compared by Herzfeld. Voltaire, in his Précis de l'Ecclésiaste en vers, also adopts this rendering:''Repandez vos bien faits avec magnificence, Même aux moins vertueux ne les refusez pas. Ne vous informez pas de leur reconnaissance - Il est grand, il est beau de faire des ingrats''. That instead of “into the water (the sea)” of these or similar proverbs, Koheleth uses here the expression, “on the face of (על־פּני) the waters,” makes no difference: Eastern bread has for the most part