THE DIRGE OF COHELETH IN ECCLESIASTES XII, DISCUSSED AND LITERALLY INTERPRETED BY THE REV. C. TAYLOR M. A. FELLOW AND DIVINITY LECTURER, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; 1874. Preface.. The quaint traditional view which finds in Eccl. XII. 2-7 an anatomy of the human frame has exercised a strange fascination over the minds of commentators and is accepted without misgiving by the latest critics. There survives however in places a feeling of dissatisfaction with the traditional view, although the semiliteral rendering of Michaelis is now well nigh forgotten even among the learned, and that of Umbreit -advocated in England by Dr. Ginsburg—is not unreasonably thought to have received its deathblow in Gurlitt's weighty contribution to the Th. Studien und Kritiken for 1865. In the present essay an attempt is made to shew the inherent weakness of the Anatomical Rendering, and to establish in its place a Literal Rendering which regards verses 2-5 as a Dirge describing the state of 109220 a household or community on an occasion of death and mourning. From the ending of verse 5: for the man passeth* to his eternal home, and the mourners go about in the street the inference is obvious that what precedes depicts the state of feeling prevalent on the day of mourning; and it will be found, I think, that of all known theories, this at first sight the most natural-is the only one which makes the various details at once consistent and significant. ** The anatomical rendering is sometimes commended as containing poetry of the highest order, and indeed so elastic are its details that the amount of poetry which may be put into it is limited only by the faculty of the commentator; but there is a poetry likewise in the literal rendering, having its counterpart in the prophet's description by natural images of the desolation of a land: Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the milstones, and the light of the * Eпоgεvŋ, LXX. The whole description might apply to imminent rather than present death, if these mourners could be thought of as looking out for employment. ** See p. 75. candle. And this whole land shall be a desolation where the several particulars correspond to Coheleth's description of the darkening of the ladies at the lattices, the falling of the sound of the mill, and the hushing of the daughters of song. The Dirge of Coheleth corresponds in outline with Ezekiel's Lamentation for Pharaoh: Eccl. XII. 2—5. Ere the sun and the light and the moon and the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain. In the day when the keepers of the house tremble. . . Ezek. XXXII. 7-9. I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. I will also vex the hearts of many people, for the man passeth to his when I shall bring thy eternal home, &c. destruction among the na tions, &c. where in each case there is the same use of a well known figure, with the same transition to a literal statement of the way in which actual persons are perturbed by the fate of the dead. The vexing of the hearts of many people is represented in detail by Coheleth. In that day the |
