THE BOOK or ECCLESIASTES EXPLAINED. BY JAMES M. MAflDONALD, D.D., It la not the Expectation of living that makes Men infer the Beuonablenefis or Necessity of a Judgment, bat the reasonableness and natural Expectation of Judgment which makes them infer the Necessity and Reality of a future Life. — Suuii <» K'B SmioHB, vol. L, p. 195. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, BBICK CHURCH CHAPEL. 1856. \&5G> Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the fear 1SS6, by It. W. DODD, la the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. ft. CRA1GHRAD, . millTEft. ■ Viae j St. N. T. y TO STEPHEN ALEXANDER, LL.D., PBorRBbos or moHAirioai. fbilobopqt and aateonokt IN THE COLLEGE OF NEW JEB6ET, RESPECTED AND BELOVED AS A MEMBEB AND OFFICES IN THE CHURCH OF WHICH THE AUTHOR IS MINISTER, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. PKEFACE. OF commentaries there are several distinct kinds. Some are de signed to be mainly practical and devotional. To this class belong the excellent works of Henry and Scott, ahd the' family Commen taries in general ; for while they undertake to give the meaning of the inspired writers, and, in many instances, have done it admirably, they not (infrequently present lessons which can not always be legitimately derived from the text, but are only natur ally suggested by certain phrases of our incomparable common version, which, in process of time, have come to be appropriated to express pious emotion, or to illustrate Christian experience. Again, some commentaries are almost strictly philological and grammatical. Their authors attend principally to the derivation, sense, and construction of the original words, and thus seek to ascertain the exact meaning of the sacred writers. As they are avowedly commenting on the original, and only incidentally on translations, and for the benefit of those acquainted with, or who are studying the tongues in which the Scriptures were originally written, they do not scruple to introduce the Hebrew and Greek into their pages as freely as the vernacular words. The value of comment aries of this class, prepared by competent scholars, can not of course be easily overstated. Then, there is another class in which the writers are equally critical, and attentive to the exact meaning, which may be described as exegetical, without being philological and gram matical ; i. e., they state the results of critic'sm on the Hebrew, or the Greek, without giving the process by which it has been reached. By leaving it to scholars to recur to authorities, and refer to the original for themselves, they make their works useful to those who are not capable of appreciating criticisms upon the etymology of words, and the construction of sentences in these languages. This method has, perhaps, another advantage, to wit, that of a more distinct and enlarged statement of the practical teachings, and devotional bearings of the Scriptures. To this latter class, the work which is herewith offered to the VI PKEFACE. public professes to belong. It claims to present the precise mean ing of the inspired writer, rather than to have engrafted on his words the thoughts and speculations of the author's own mind. The author is well aware that he may have failed to accomplish what he proposed, but it has been his aim throughout to interpret rigidly the words, given by inspiration of the Spirit of God, in this part of Scripture. It was not his object, even had he been competent to the undertaking, (which he is very far from being), to prepare a grammatical praxis for students in Hebrew. This has been so ably and fully done by such scholars as Vander Palm, Des- voeux, Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, Hitzig, Herzfeld, Knobel, Burger, Holden, and our own Professors Stuart and Noyes, that a work on Ecclesiastes in which criticism of the original is made a prominent feature must necessarily, to no small extent, be but a reproduction of the labours of one or another of these critics. The author has preferred, instead of such a reproduction, to avail himself of all the critical helps that were accessible to him in the preparation of this work ; but indebted as he is, he is not willing to make any one who has preceded him responsible for the particular scheme of interpretation presented in this volume. So far as he knows, it has never before been set forth ; whatever, therefore, may be its defects, he alone is responsible for them. If it shall serve to render a difficult portion of the Scriptures more edifying, by making its interpretation more consistent and plain, he will feel that he is richly rewarded. Certainly, if he has succeeded in showing that the doctrine of future retribution lies at the basis of this book, it must in future be ranked among the most practical and profitable portions of the word of God. A peculiarity (perhaps it will be regarded as a novelty in a work of this description), will be observed in the First Part, viz., the Scopes of Argument, as they are styled, which follow the respective divisions in this Part. The writer of Ecclesiastes dis cusses, or philosophizes after the ancient, oriental manner, t. «., although the discussion is consecutive — logically consecutive — he gives us no formal statement of his proposition, no signs of divi sions and transitions from one topic, or from one thought to another. It is, therefore, the object of these portions of the vol ume to present the subject in a form more natural to us, or more in consonance with the habits of the modern mind trained under PREFACE. Vii rules— of dialectics and rhetoric — which were unknown among the ancient Hebrews. Although the author felt that this feature might lay his -work open to the charge of being repetitious, and interfere, in appearance at least, with its professedly critical char acter, he was convinced that it would render it useful to a larger class of readers ; and this decided the point with him not to ex clude these portions of the book. A new or revised version is printed in parallel columns with the authorized version ; but the attentive reader will observe that there are very few instances in which any essential change in the translation is proposed. The changes are mainly confined to such as greater simplicity, or the idiom and laws of the English lan guage, seemed to require. The author has risen from his work with the conviction that it would be impossible for a synod or assembly of the most learned biblical scholars of our day, to make a translation, which, as a whole, would be likely to prove as ac ceptable to the religious, or even learned world, as that contained in our authorized English Bibles. It is important not to overlook the principle that to exhaust an inspired writer's own meaning, i. e., the meaning of his language to himself, is not always or necessarily to reach the full mean ing of the Spirit of inspiration. We are not to suppose that the writers of the different books of the Bible in all cases com prehended the full import of the language they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to employ. We are not to suppose that Daniel and John could fully and infallibly, except as they were specially inspired for this very purpose, have interpreted their own visions ; nor are we to suppose that inspiration, in the case of the sacred writers in general, was the same as the gift of interpretation, or implied the possession of this latter gift. As the latter may be possessed without the former, why may not the former be possessed without the latter ? Why might not an in telligent, sincere, yet wholly uninspired believer, have been as capable of understanding the Epistles of Paul, as Peter was of understanding them? He confessedly found in them "some things hard to be understood," 2 Peter, iii. 16. It follows, then, that in his case the gift of inspiration did not involve the posses sion of the gift of interpretation, so far as the writings of another Vlll PKEFACB. inspired man were concerned ; how then could it have insured a full comprehension of the meaning of the Spirit of inspiration, even in respect to his own writings ? The books of Moses to us contain a clearer revelation than they did to David and Solomon (and may we not add to Moses himself?) for we can study their meaning in the light of a completed revelation ; and in like man ner the writings of David and Solomon are clearer to us than they were to Jeremiah and Isaiah, for the same reason. The doc trines of the New Testament do not supersede, but they com plete, they perfect the revelations contained in the Old, and thus make them more plain. The doctrine of Christ illuminates all the shadows, types and ceremonies of the old dispensation. When he appeared he so brought life and immortality to the knowledge of men that the light was reflected back on the past, and they saw how the same blessed doctrines which fell from his lips had been taught by holy men, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The question, then, as to what the Jewish Scrip tures reveal might be answered somewhat differently, when con sidered as having reference to those who possess the New Testa ment, instead of the ancient Jews. It might be truly said that the books of Moses, and especially the book of Ecclesiastes, and the writings of the Prophets, however they may have been un derstood prior to the advent of Christ, clearly reveal the immor tality of the soul, and a future state of retribution, to us who possess the New Testament, and acknowledge its authority.