Verse 2

(2) To seven, and also to eight.—Quite similar forms of expression occur in Job 5:19; Proverbs 30:21; Amos 1:3; Micah 5:4. The numbers seven and eight are used indefinitely in the advice to multiply our modes of exertion, ignorant as we are which may miscarry.

Verse 3

(3) The world is ruled by fixed laws, the operation of which man has no power to suspend.

Verse 4

(4) But it is idle to try to guard against all possibilities of failure. To demand a certainty of success before acting would mean not to act at all.

Verse 5

(5) The wording of this passage leaves it ambiguous whether we have here two illustrations of man’s ignorance, or only one; whether we are to understand the verse as declaring that we know neither the way of the wind nor the growth of the embryo, or whether, retaining the translation “spirit,” we take the whole verse as relating to the latter subject. (Comp. John 3:6.) The word for “her that is with child” occurs in that sense here only in the Old Testament, and in later Hebrew.

Verse 6

(6) Prosper.—The word is used again in Ecclesiastes 10:10 and Esther 8:5, and belongs to modern Hebrew. (Comp. Galatians 6:7-8.)

Verse 8

(8) Days of darkness.—Psalms 88:12; Psalms 143:3; Job 10:21. (Comp. also Psalms 56:13; Job 33:30.)

Verse 9

(9) The beginning of the last chapter would more conveniently have been placed here than where the division is actually made. It is hard to interpret the judgment spoken of in this verse of anything but future judgment, when we bear in mind how much of the book is taken up with the complaint that retribution does not take place in this life.

Verse 10

(10) Sorrow.—See Note on Ecclesiastes 7:3.

Youth.—The word occurs not elsewhere in the Old Testament; but nearly the same word is used of black hair in Leviticus 13:37; Song of Solomon 5:11.