《The Pulpit Commentaries–Ecclesiastes (Vol. 1)》(Joseph S. Exell)
Contents and the Editors
One of the largest and best-selling homiletical commentary sets of its kind. Directed by editors Joseph Exell and Henry Donald Maurice Spence-Jones, The Pulpit Commentary drew from over 100 authors over a 30 year span to assemble this conservative and trustworthy homiletical commentary set. A favorite of pastors for nearly 100 years, The Pulpit Commentary offers you ideas and insight on "How to Preach It" throughout the entire Bible.
This in-depth commentary brings together three key elements for better preaching:
- Exposition-with thorough verse-by-verse commentary of every verse in the Bible.
- Homiletics-with the "framework" or the "big picture" of the text.
- Homilies-with four to six sermons sample sermons from various authors.
In addition, this set also adds detailed information on biblical customs as well as historical and geographical information, and translations of key Hebrew and Greek words to help you add spice to your sermon.
All in all, The Pulpit Commentary has over 22,000 pages and 95,000 entries from a total of 23 volumes. The go-to commentary for any preacher or teacher of God's Word.
About the Editors
Rev. Joseph S. Exell, M.A., served as the Editor of Clerical World, The Homiletical Quarterly and the Monthly Interpreter. Exell was also the editor for several large commentary sets like The Men of the Bible, The Pulpit Commentary, Preacher's Homiletic Library and The Biblical Illustrator.
Henry Donald Maurice Spence-Jones was born in London on January 14, 1836. He was educated at Corpus Christi, Cambridge where he received his B.A. in 1864. He was ordered deacon in 1865 and ordained as a priest is the following year. He was professor of English literature and lecturer in Hebrew at St. David's College, Lampeter, Wales from 1865-1870. He was rector of St. Mary-de-Crypt with All Saints and St. Owen, Gloucester from 1870-1877 and principal of Gloucester Theological College 1875-1877. He became vicar and rural dean of St. Pancras, London 1877-1886, and honorary canon since 1875. He was select preacher at Cambridge in 1883,1887,1901, and 1905, and at Oxford in 1892 and 1903. In 1906 he was elected professor of ancient history in the Royal Academy. In theology he is a moderate evangelical. He also edited The Pulpit Commentary (48 vols., London, 1880-97) in collaboration with Rev. J. S. Exell, to which he himself contributed the section on Luke, 2 vols., 1889, and edited and translated the Didache 1885. He passed away in 1917 after authoring numerous individual titles.
00 Introduction
Introduction.
§ 1. TITLE OF THE BOOK
THE book is called in the Hebrew Koheleth, a title taken from its opening sentence, "The words of Koheleth, the son of David, King in Jerusalem." In the Greek and Latin Versions it is entitled 'Ecclesiastes,' which Jerome elucidates by remarking that in Greek a person is so called who gathers the congregation, or ecclesia. Aquila transliterates the word, κωλεì<sup>θ</sup>; what Symmachus gave is uncertain, but probably παροιμιαστηì<sup>ς</sup>, 'Proverb-monger.' The Venetian Greek has ̔Η ̓Εκκλησιάστρια and ̔Η ̓Εκκλησιάζουσα. In modern versions the name is usually 'Ecclesiastes; or, The Preacher.' Luther boldly gives 'The Preacher Solomon.' This is not a satisfactory rendering to modern ears; and, indeed, it is difficult to find a term which will adequately represent the Hebrew word. Koheleth is a participle feminine from a root kahal (whence the Greek καλεì<sup>ω</sup>, Latin calo, and English "call"), which means, "to call, to assemble," especially for religious or solemn purposes. The word and its derivatives are always applied to people, and not to things. So the term, which gives its name to our book, signifies a female assembler or collector of persons for Divine worship, or in order to address them. It can, therefore, not mean "Gatherer of wisdom," "Collector of maxims," but "Gatherer of God's people" (1 Kings 8:1); others make it equivalent to "Debater," which term affords a clue to the variation of opinions in the work. It is generally constructed as a masculine and without the article, but once as feminine (Ecclesiastes 7:27, if the reading is correct), and once with the article (Ecclesiastes 12:8). The feminine form is by some accounted for, not by supposing Koheleth to represent an office, and therefore as used abstractedly, but as being the personification of Wisdom, whose business it is to gather people unto the Lord and make them a holy congregation. In Proverbs sometimes Wisdom herself speaks (e.g. Proverbs 1:20), sometimes the author speaks of her (e.g. Proverbs 8:1, etc.). So Koheleth appears now as the organ of Wisdom, now as Wisdom herself, supporting, as it were, two characters without losing altogether his identity. At the same time, it is to be noted, with Wright, that Solomon, as personified Wisdom, could not speak of himself as having gotten more wisdom than all that were before him in Jerusalem (Ecclesiastes 1:16), or how his heart had great experience of wisdom, or how he had applied his heart to discover things by means of wisdom (Ecclesiastes 7:23, 25). These things could not be said in this character, and unless we suppose that the writer occasionally lost himself, or did not strictly maintain his assumed personation, we must fall back upon the ascertained fact that the feminine form of such words as Koheleth has no special significance (unless, perhaps, it denotes power and activity), and that such forms were used in the later stage of the language to express proper names of men. Thus we find Solphereth, "scribe" (Nehemiah 7:57), and Pochereth, "hunter" (Ezra 2:57), where certainly males are intended. Parallels are found in the Mishna. If, as is supposed, Solomon is designated Keheleth in allusion to his great prayer at the dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8:23-53, 56-61), it is strange that no mention is anywhere made of this celebrated work, and the part he took therein. He appears rather as addressing general readers than teaching his own people from an elevated position; and the title assigned to him is meant to designate him, not only as one who by word of mouth instructed others, but one whose life and experience preached an emphatic lesson on the vanity of mundane things.
§ 2. AUTHOR AND DATE.
The universal consent of antiquity attributed the authorship of Ecclesiastes to Solomon. The title assumed by the writer, "Son of David, King in Jerusalem," was considered sufficient warrant for the assertion, and no suspicion of its uncertainty ever crossed the minds of commentators and readers from primitive to mediaeval times. Whenever the book is referred to, it is always noted as a work of Solomon. The Greek and Latin Fathers alike agree in this matter. The four Gregories, Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome, Theodoret, Olympiodorus, Augustine, and others, are here of one consent. The Jews, too, although they had some doubts concerning the orthodoxy of the contents, never disputed the authorship. The first to throw discredit upon the received opinion was Luther, who, in his 'Table Talk,' while ridiculing the traditional view, boldly asserts that the work was composed by Sirach, in the time of the Maccabees. Grotius followed in the same strain. In his 'Commentary on the Old Testament' he unhesitatingly denies it to be a production of Solomon, and in another place assigns to it a post-exilian date. These opinions attracted but little notice at the time; but towards the close of the last century, three German scholars, Doderlein, Jahn, and Schmidt, revived the objections urged by Luther and Grotius, and henceforward a continuous stream of criticism, opposed to the earlier tenet, has flowed forth both in England, America, and Germany. The array of writers on both sides is enormous. The discussion has evoked the energies of innumerable controversialists, though the opponents of Solomon have in late years far outnumbered his supporters. If the more ancient opinion is upheld by Dr. Pusey, Bishop Wordsworth, Mr. Johnston, Mr. Bullock, Morals, Gietmann, etc., the later view is strongly supported by Keil, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg, Vaihinger, Hitzig, Nowack, Renan, Gins-burg, Ewald, Davidson, Noyes, Stuart, Wright, etc. The question cannot be settled by the authority of writers on either side, but must be calmly examined, and the arguments adduced by both parties must be duly weighed.
Let us see what are the usual arguments for the Solomonic authorship. We will endeavor to set them forth very briefly, but fairly and intelligibly.
1. The first and most potent is the unanimous verdict of all writers who have mentioned the book from primitive times to the days of Luther, whether Christian or Jewish. The common opinion was that the three works, Canticles, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, were composed by Solomon; the first, as some said, being the production of his earlier days, the second written in his maturity, and the third dictated aft the close of life, when he had learned the vanity of all that he had once valued, and had repented of his evil ways and turned once more to the fear of the Lord as the only stable comfort and hope. St. Jerome, in his 'Commentary,' gives the opinion which was prevalent in his day: "Itaque juxta numerum vocabu-lorum tria volumina edidit: Proverbia, Ecclesiasten, et Cantica Canticorum. In Proverbiis parvulum docens et quasi de officiis per sententias erudiens; in Ecclesiaste vero maturae virum aetatis instituens, ne quicquam in mundi rebus purer esse perpetuum, sed caduca et brevia universa quae cernimus; ad extremum jam consummatum virum et calcato seeculo praeparatum, in Cantico Canticorum sponsi jungit amplexibus."
2. The book purports to be written by Solomon; the writer speaks continually in the first person; and as the work is confessedly inspired and canonical, any doubt as to the literal accuracy of the inscription throws discredit on the truth and authority of Scripture. In a treatise of this nature it is altogether unlikely that the author should attribute his own sentiments to another.
3. There is nothing in the contents which militates against the Solomonic authorship.
4. There is nothing in the language which is not compatible with the time of Solomon.
5. It is a composition of such consummate skill and excellence that it could have proceeded from no one but this wisest of men.
6. There are such a multitude and variety of coincidences in expression and phraseology with Proverbs and Canticles, which are confessedly more or less the work of Solomon, that Ecclesiastes must proceed from the same author. Such are the grounds upon which Ecclesiastes is attributed to Solomon. The opinion has a certain attraction for all simple believers, who are content to take things on trust, and, provided a theory makes no very violent demands on credulity, to accept it with unquestioning confidence.
But in the present; case the arguments adduced have not withstood the attacks of modern criticism, as will be seen if we take them seriatim, as we proceed to do.
1. The universal consensus of uncritical antiquity concerning authorship is of little value. What was not questioned was not specially examined; the conventional opinion was regarded as certain; what one writer after another, and Council after Council, actually or virtually stated, was accepted generally and without any controversy. So the authorship, being taken for granted, was never criticized or investigated. Of how small importance in such a matter are the opinions of the Fathers, we may learn from their view of the Book of Wisdom. Unhesitatingly many of them attribute this work to Solomon. Clemens Alexandrinus, Cyprian, Origen, Didymus, and others express no doubt whatever on the subject; and yet no one nowadays hesitates to say that they were absurdly wrong in holding such an opinion. Similarly, many Councils decreed the canonicity of Wisdom, from the third of Carthage, A.D. 397, to that of Trent; but we do not give our adhesion to their decision. So we may reject tradition in discussing the question of authorship, and pursue our investigation independently, untrammeled by the utterances of earlier writers. As to the assertion that Solomon penned this treatise in sorrowful repentance for his idolatry and licentiousness and arrogant selfishness, it must be said that there is no trace of any such change of heart in the historical books; as far as we are told, he goes to his grave after he had turned away from the Lord, in that hard, unbelieving temper which his foreign alliances had produced in him. Not a hint of better things is anywhere afforded; and though, from the commendation generally accorded to him, and the typical character which he possessed, one would be inclined to think that he could not have died in his sins, but must have made his peace with God before he departed, yet Scripture supplies no ground for such an opinion, and we must travel beyond the letter to arrive at such a conclusion. He records his experience of evil pleasure, relates how he reveled in vice for a time, took his fill of luxury and sensuality, with the view, as he says, of testing the faculty of such excesses to give happiness; but he never hints at any sorrow for this degradation; not a word of repentance falls from his lips. "I turned, and tried this and that," he says; but we and no confession of sin, no remorse for wasted talents. He learns, indeed, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit; but this is not the cry of a broken and contrite heart; and to ground his repentance upon this declaration is to raise a structure upon a foundation that will not bear its weight.
2. There can be no doubt that the writer intends to assume the name and characteristics of Solomon. He calls himself in the opening verse "son of David" and "King in Jerusalem." Such a description applies only to Solomon. David, indeed, had many other sons, but none except Solomon could be designated "King in Jerusalem." It is true also that the first person is continually used in narrating experiences which are especially appropriate to this monarch; e.g. "I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all that were before me" (Ecclesiastes 1:16); "I made me great works; I builded me houses" (Ecclesiastes 2:4); "All this have I Droved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise" (Ecclesiastes 7:23). But not thus is Solomon demonstrated to be the actual author; cleverly personated authorship would use the same expressions. And this is what we conceive to be the fact. The writer assumes the role of Solomon in order to emphasize and add weight to the lessons which he desired to teach. The idea that such personation is fraudulent and unworthy of a sacred writer springs from ignorance of precedents or a misunderstanding of the object of such substitution. Who thinks of accusing Plato or Cicero of an intention to deceive because they present their sentiments in the form of dialogues between imaginary interlocutors? Who regards the author of the Book of Wisdom as an impostor because he identifies himself with the wise king? So common was this system of personation, so widely spread and practiced, that a name was invented for it, and Pseudepigraphal was the title given to all such works as assumed to be written by some well-known or celebrated personage, the real author concealing his own identity. Thus we have the 'Book of Enoch,' the 'Ascension of Isaiah,' the 'Assumption of Moses,' the 'Apocalypse of Baruch,' the 'Psalter of Solomon,' and many more, none of them being the production of the person whose name they bear, which was assumed only for literary purposes. A moralist who felt that he had something to impart that might serve his generation, a patriot who desired to encourage his countrymen amid defeat and oppression, a pious thinker whose heart glowed with love for his fellow-men, — any of these, humbly shrinking from obtruding upon notice his own obscure personality, thought himself justified in publishing his reflections under the mantle of some great name which might gain for them credit and acceptance. The ruse was so well understood that it deceived nobody; but it gave point and definiteness to the writer's lucubration, and it also had the effect of making readers more ready to accept it, and to look in its contents for something worthy of the personage to whom it was attributed. There is nothing in this derogatory to a sacred writer, and no argument against the personation can be maintained on the ground of its incongruity or inappropriateness. And when we more carefully examine the language of the book itself, we see that it' contains virtual, if not actual, acknowledgment that it is not written by Solomon. t/is name is not once mentioned. Other of his reputed writings are inscribed with his name. The Canticles begin with the words, "The song of songs, which is Solomon's;" the Proverbs are, "The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel." Psalm 72. is entitled, "A Psalm of Solomon." But our author gives himself an enigmatical appellation, which by its very form might show that it was ideal and representative, and not that of an existing personality. To suppose that Solomon uses this name for himself, with the abstruse idea that he who had scattered the people by his sins now desired to gather them together by this exhibition of wisdom, is to task the imagination beyond limit, and to read into Scripture notions which have no existence in fact. There can, indeed, be no adequate reason given why Solomon should have desired thus to conceal his identity; the plea of humility and shame is a mere invention of commentators anxious to account for what is, in their view, really inexplicable. He calls himself "King in Jerusalem" — an expression occurring nowhere else, and never applied to any Hebrew monarch. We read of "King of Israel," "King over all Israel," how that Solomon "reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel;" but the title "King in Jerusalem" is unique, and seems to point to a time when Jerusalem was not the only royal city, after the disruption of the kingdom, that is, subsequent to the epoch of the historical Solomon.