Ecclesiaste 7:29 Commento

Solomon had given many proofs and instances of the vanity of this world and the things of it; now, in this chapter, I. He recommends to us some good means proper to be used for the redress of these grievances and the arming of ourselves against the mischief we are in danger of from them, that we may make the best of the bad, as 1. Care of our reputation (Ecc 7:1). 2. Seriousness (Ecc 7:2-6). 3. Calmness of spirit (Ecc 7:7-10). 4. Prudence in the management of all our affairs (Ecc 7:11, Ecc 7:12). 5. Submission to the will of God in all events, accommodating ourselves to every condition (Ecc 7:13-15). 6. A conscientious avoiding of all dangerous extremes (Ecc 7:16-18). 7. Mildness and tenderness towards those that have been injurious to us (Ecc 7:19-22). In short, the best way to save ourselves from the vexation which the vanity of the world creates us is to keep our temper and to maintain a strict government of our passions. II. He laments his own iniquity, as that which was more vexatious than any of these vanities, that mystery of iniquity, the having of many wives, by which he was drawn away from God and his duty (Ecc 7:23-29).

INTRODUCTION TO ECCLESIASTES 7 The wise man having exposed the many vanities to which men are subject in this life, and showed that there is no real happiness in all outward enjoyments under the sun; proceeds to observe what are remedies against them, of which he had interspersed some few hints before, as the fear and worship of God, and the free and, moderate use of the creatures; and here suggests more, and such as will protect from them, or support under them, or teach and instruct how to behave while attended with them, and to direct to what are proper and necessary in the pursuit of true and real happiness; such as care of a good name and reputation, Ecc 7:1; frequent meditation on mortality, Ecc 7:2; listening to the rebukes of the wise, which are preferable to the songs and mirth of fools, Ecc 7:5; avoiding oppression and bribery, which are very pernicious, Ecc 7:7; patience under provocations, and present bad times, as thought to be, Ecc 7:8; a pursuit of that wisdom and knowledge which has life annexed to it, Ecc 7:11; submission to the will of God, and contentment in every state, Ecc 7:13; shunning extremes in righteousness and sin, the best antidote against which is the fear of God, Ecc 7:15; such wisdom as not to be offended with everything that is done, or word that is spoken, considering the imperfection of the best of men, the weakness of others, and our own, Ecc 7:19; and then the wise man acknowledges the imperfection of his own wisdom and knowledge, notwithstanding the pains he had taken, Ecc 7:23; and laments his sin and folly in being drawn aside by women, Ecc 7:26; and opens the cause of the depravity of human nature, removes it from God, who made man upright, and ascribes it to man, the inventor of evil things, Ecc 7:29.

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright,.... The first man Adam, as the Targum and Jarchi interpret it; and not Adam only, but Eve also with him; for these were both made by the Lord, and on the same day, and in the same image, and had the same common name of Adam given them, Gen 1:27; And they were both made "upright"; which is to be understood, not of the erectness of their bodies, but of the disposition of their minds; they were "right and innocent before him,'' or in the sight of God, as the Targum; which is best explained by their being made in the image and likeness of God, Gen 1:26; and which, according to the apostle, lay in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, Eph 4:24; agreeably to which Plato (o) make likeness to God to be righteous and holy, with prudence: for this likeness of Adam and Eve to God; lay not in the shape of their bodies, for God is a spirit, and not a corporeal being, as the Anthropomorphites imagined, and so fancied men to be made like unto him in this respect; but in their souls, and it consisted of knowledge; of the knowledge of the creatures, their nature, use, and ends for which they were made, and put under their government; and of God, and his perfections, as made known in the creatures; and of his mind and will, and manner of worshipping him, he revealed unto them; and they might know the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, who were concerned in the making of them, though they seem not to have known Christ, as Mediator and Saviour, which was not necessary previous to their fall; nor evangelical truths suited to a fallen state: also this image lay in righteousness and true holiness, which was original, natural, and created with them; it was with them as soon as they were; not acquired, but infused; not a habit obtained, but a quality given; and this not supernatural, but natural; it was perfect in its kind, and entirely agreeable to the holy, just, and good law of God; it had no defects in it, yet was but the righteousness of a creature, and loseable, as the event showed; and so very different from the righteousness of Christ, man is justified by. Likewise, this uprightness is no other than the rectitude of human nature, of all the powers and faculties of the soul of man, as they were when he was created; his understanding clear of all errors and mistakes, either about divine or human things; his affections regular and ordinate, no unruly passion in him, no sinful affection, lust, and desire; he loved God with all his heart and soul, and delighted in him, and communion with him; the bias of his will was to that which is good; the law of God was written on his heart, and he had both power and will to keep it; and, during his state of integrity, was pure and sinless; yet he was not impeccable, as the confirmed angels and glorified saints are; nor immutable, as God only is; but being a creature, and changeable, he was liable to temptation, and subject to fall, as he did. Now Solomon, with all his diligent search and scrutiny, could not find out the infinity of sin, the boundless extent of it among mankind, the exceeding sinfulness of it, which he sought after, Ecc 7:25; yet this he "found" out, and this "only", the fountain of all sin, the origin of moral evil; namely, the corruption of human nature through the fall of Adam: this he found by reading the Scriptures, the three first chapters of Genesis; and by consulting human nature he found some remains of the image of God, and of the law that was in man's heart; whereby he perceived that man was once another man than he is now; and that this corruption is not owing to God, who is not the author of any thing sinful, he made man upright; but to himself, his own sin and folly: and this he found confirmed by sad experience; in himself and others, and by observing the history of all ages, from the times of the first man; and as this was notorious, it was worth knowing and observing, and therefore he calls upon others to take notice of it; lo, behold, consider it, as well as what follows; but they have sought out many inventions; that is, Adam and Eve, not content with their present knowledge and happiness, they sought out new ways and means of being wiser and happier than God made them, or it was his will they should be. "They sought out the inventions of the many", or "great things", or "of the mighty and great ones" (p), as it may be rendered, the eternal Three in One; they sought to be as wise as God himself; or, however, as the great and mighty ones, the angels, who excelled them, as in strength, so in knowledge; see Gen 3:5; or they sought out thoughts of sin, as Jarchi says it is interpreted in the Midrash. Sins are the inventions of men, and these are many and numerous; they sought to gratify their senses, on which followed innumerable evils; and then they sought for shifts and evasions to excuse themselves; the man shifting it from himself, and throwing the blame upon the woman, and the woman upon the serpent: and so sinning, they lost the knowledge they had; their righteousness and holiness, the rectitude of their nature; the moral freedom of their will to that which is good, and their power to perform it; and they lost the presence of God, and communion with him: and so their posterity are not only inventors of evil things, of sins, but of new ways of happiness; some placing it in riches; others in honours; others in pleasures; and some in natural wisdom and knowledge; and some in their own works of righteousness; the vanity of all which Solomon has before exposed. (o) Theaeteto, p. 129. (p) "cogitationes magnatum", De Dieu; "ratiocina multarum, magnarumque rerum", so some in Rambachius; see Luke x. 41, 42. Next: Ecclesiastes Chapter 8

For [the soul] is made to see God and to be enlightened by him; but of its own accord in God’s stead it has sought corruptible things and darkness, as the Spirit says somewhere in writing, “God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.” Thus it has been then that people from the first discovered and contrived and imagined evil for themselves. But it is now time to say how they came down to the madness of idolatry, that you may know that the invention of idols is wholly due not to good but to evil. But what has its origin in evil can never be pronounced good in any point—being evil altogether.

"Behold, I have found this, says the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account. Which still my soul seeks, but I have not found it. I have found one man among a thousand, but one woman among all those I have not found. Only this have I found: that God has made man righteous, but he has sought out many inventions. "He says, "I found this", teaching all things diligently, that by sinning little by little, and adding one crime on top of another, we amass a great number of sins for ourselves. '"esebon"' even, which all translate as "logismon" in Greek, according to the ambiguity of the Hebrew language can be said by us to be 'number', 'sum', 'account', and 'consideration'. But, he says, my spirit sought even this question of whether woman is rightly found to be guilty. And although I found scarcely any men to be good, thus so that only one from a thousand can be found, I couldn't even find one woman to be completely good. For all of them have led me not to virtue but to self-indulgence. And because man's heart is predisposed towards wickedness from boyhood, and almost all of us offend God in some way, in this failing of mankind, women are more prone to this fate. The famous poet says about this: "inconstant and always changeable is woman" [Virg. Aen. 4. 569/70.]. And the apostle says, "always learning yet never arriving at the knowledge of the truth" [II Tim. 3.7.]. But he does not condemn this nature as being common to all mankind, or say that God the creator does evil things, because he is the creator of these things, but he warns subtly those who are not able to avoid evil, and says that we are created good by God; but he also says that because we are left with our own free-will to deteriorate into a worse and worse state through our own vices, while we seek greater things and contemplate many things beyond our strength. Differently: while I consider the reason behind each and every one of these verses, I have found no thought, which is not perturbed from outside by wicked thoughts. But in a thousand men I have found one man, who is made in the image of his creator; and not in a thousand of any kind, but of one thousand "men". There is not a like number of women corresponding to men. In the thousand, those who have not been close to a woman have therefore remained the most pure. But all this must be taken as a metaphor. In many though, who enthuse and every day sweat in their thinking, scarcely can there be found one pure thought, that is worthy of the name of man. We can take thoughts for men though, and women for work, and say that the thoughts of man can only be seen as pure with great difficulty. But since the body does work, it is always mixed up with some fault. But instead of that which we said above interpreting the Hebrew phrase, "one upon another, so that a great accumulation is made" we could either say 'account', or 'thought'; Symmachus interprets this more clearly, saying, "one upon another makes an amount". And we are accustomed to call this complete and neutral, which I sought and had wanted to find. The Hebrews name this in the case of females, just as in the phrase "I sought one from God, this I ask" [Ps. 26, 4.], in place of that which is one. [[lit. "pro eo quod est unum"]] <h2>CHAPTER 8</h2>

The reason that we, being bad, have a good Father is in order that we may not always remain bad. No bad person can make a good one. If no bad person can make a good one, how can a bad man make himself good? The only one who can make a good person out of a bad one is the one who is always good. “Heal me, Lord,” he says, “and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved.” Why do they say to me, silly people saying silly things, “You can save yourself if you want to”? “Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed.” We were created good by the good God, seeing that “God made man upright.” But by our own decision we became bad. We were able to change from good to bad, and we shall be able to change from bad to good. But it is the one who is always good that can change bad to good, because man, by his own will, cannot heal himself. You don’t look for a doctor to wound you; but when you have wounded yourself, you look for one to heal you.

Let us be displeased with ourselves when we sin, because sins displease God. And because we are not in fact without sin, let us at least be like God in this respect, that what displeases him displeases us. Now you are displeased with that in yourself which he also hates who made you. He designed and constructed you; but take a look at yourself and eliminate from yourself everything that does not come from his workshop. For God, as it says, “created man upright.”

There is also a good world consisting of people, but made so out of a bad one. The whole world, you see, if you take the world as meaning people, leaving aside world in the sense of heaven and earth and all things that are in them; if you mean people by world, then the whole world was made bad by the one who first sinned. The whole mass is vitiated in its root. God made man good; that is what Scripture says: “God made man upright, and they themselves have sought out many devices.”

The Manichaeans deny that to a good man the beginning of evil came from free will; the Pelagians say that even a bad man has free will sufficiently to perform the good commandment. The Catholic church condemns both, saying to the former, “God made man upright,” and saying to the latter, “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

God has created human beings straightforward, that is, morally perfect without anything crooked or oblique. But they themselves found many thoughts.… They did not devise one thought but many. Evil, thus, is manifold.… There is only one single human form that makes a person like God, but there are many into which he can transform himself. If he is cunning, he has the face of a fox; if he shows a poisonous, dangerous face, he has the face of a snake; if he looks wild, he has the face of a lion; if his face is ungovernable, flattering and desiring pleasures, he has the face of a dog. Generally out of one human being and one form emerge a whole plurality of characters and forms. Thus it is the goal to get rid of all forms—even if some people do not share this opinion—in order to show that he has the face that God created.

But because [God] knows that some humans act according to his will and some do not, for that very reason he proclaims the virtue of the one part in order to incite the others to a zeal for the good from the womb. In the same way too, concerning those others, he proclaims their worthlessness. It is not as if he creates one worthless from the womb, and another useful. And if such were the case, why would it be necessary to praise the worthy and to blame the worthless if he himself is the creator of worthiness and worthlessness? Thus one ought not to be held blameable for that worthlessness if he had created him so from the womb.And now it is clear that God’s saying before-hand, “Jacob I have loved and Esau have I hated” means that this one will become beloved by his conduct, and that one hateful.… As it also says elsewhere: “God made man upright, and they thought a thought of evil.”

Our struggle against the vices has not been naturally implanted in us by God our Father and Creator but is proved to have befallen us from our love of this world, which we preferred to our Creator. For God made human beings upright, and they have involved themselves in endless questions, as Solomon bears witness. Hence James also says, “Let no one, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not the instigator of evil, for he himself tempts no one. Each one, in fact, is tempted, drawn on and lured by his own concupiscence.”

(Ecc. 7:1-29) (See on Ecc 6:12). name--character; a godly mind and life; not mere reputation with man, but what a man is in the eyes of God, with whom the name and reality are one thing (Isa 9:6). This alone is "good," while all else is "vanity" when made the chief end. ointment--used lavishly at costly banquets and peculiarly refreshing in the sultry East. The Hebrew for "name" and for "ointment," have a happy paronomasia, Sheem and Shemen. "Ointment" is fragrant only in the place where the person is whose head and garment are scented, and only for a time. The "name" given by God to His child (Rev 3:12) is for ever and in all lands. So in the case of the woman who received an everlasting name from Jesus Christ, in reward for her precious ointment (Isa 56:5; Mar 14:3-9). Jesus Christ Himself hath such a name, as the Messiah, equivalent to Anointed (Sol 1:3). and the day of [his] death, &c.--not a general censure upon God for creating man; but, connected with the previous clause, death is to him, who hath a godly name, "better" than the day of his birth; "far better," as Phi 1:23 has it.

The "only" way of accounting for the scarcity of even comparatively upright men and women is that, whereas God made man upright, they (men) have, &c. The only account to be "found" of the origin of evil, the great mystery of theology, is that given in Holy Writ (Gen. 2:1-3:24). Among man's "inventions" was the one especially referred to in Ecc 7:26, the bitter fruits of which Solomon experienced, the breaking of God's primeval marriage law, joining one man to "one" woman (Mat 19:4-6). "Man" is singular, namely, Adam; "they," plural, Adam, Eve, and their posterity. Next: Ecclesiastes Chapter 8

"Lo, this only have I found, that God created man upright; but they seek many arts." Also here the order of the words is inverted, since זה, belonging as obj. to מץ (have I found), which is restricted by לבד, is amalgamated with ראה (Lo! see!). The author means to say: Only this (solummodo hocce) have I found, that ...; the ראה is an interjected nota bene. The expression: God has made man ישׁר, is dogmatically significant. Man, as he came from the Creator's hand, was not placed in the state of moral decision, nor yet in the state of absolute indifference between good and evil; he was not neither good nor bad, but he was טוב, or, which is the same thing, ישׁר; i.e., in every respect normal, so that he could normally develope himself from this positively good foundation. But by the expression ישׁר `שׁ, Koheleth has certainly not exclusively his origin in view, but at the same time his relative continuation in the propagation of himself, not without the concurrence of the Creator; also of man after the fall the words are true, ישׁר עשׂה, in so far as man still possesses the moral ability not to indulge sinful affections within him, nor suffer them to become sinful actions. But the sinful affections in the inborn nature of weak sinful man have derived so strong a support from his freedom, that the power of the will over against this power of nature is for the most part as weakness; the dominance of sin, where it is not counteracted by the grace of God, has always shown itself so powerful, that Koheleth has to complain of men of all times and in all circles of life: they seek many arts (as Luther well renders it), or properly, calculations, inventions, devices (hhishshevonoth, (Note: If we derive this word from hhěshbon, the Dagesh in the שׁ is the so-called Dag. dirimens.) as at Ch2 26:15, from hhishshevon, which is as little distinguished from the formation hhěshbon, as hhizzayon from hhězyon), viz., of means and ways, by which they go astray from the normal natural development into abnormities. In other words: inventive refined degeneracy has come into the place of moral simplicity, ἁπλότης (Ch2 11:3). As to the opinion that caricatures of true human nature, contrasts between the actual and that which ought to be (the ideal), are common, particularly among the female sex, the author has testimonies in support of it from all nations. It is confirmed by the primitive history itself, in which the woman appears as the first that was led astray, and as the seducer (cf. Psychol. pp. 103-106). With reference to this an old proverb says: "Women carry in themselves a frivolous mind," Kiddushin 80b. (Note: Cf. Tendlau's Sprichw. (1860), No. 733.) And because a woman, when she has fallen into evil, surpasses a man in fiendish superiority therein, the Midrash reckons under this passage before us fifteen things of which the one is worse than the other; the thirteenth is death, and the fourteenth a bad woman. (Note: Duke's Rabb. Blumenl. (1844), No. 32.) Hitzig supposes that the author has before him as his model Agathoclea, the mistress of the fourth Ptolemy Philopator. But also the history of the Persian Court affords dreadful examples of the truth of the proverb: "Woe to the age whose leader is a woman;" (Note: Ibid. No. 118.) and generally the harem is a den of female wickedness.