Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on Ecclesiastes 1:5
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.] The sun rises in the morning and sets at evening in our hemisphere, according to the appearance of things; and then it makes haste to go round the other hemisphere in the night: it “pants”, as the wordf19 signifies; the same figure is used by other writersf20; like a man out of breath with running; so this glorious body, which rejoiceth as a strong man to run his race, and whose circuit is from one end of the heavens to the other, (<191905>Psalm 19:5,6); is in haste to get to the place where he rose in the morning, and there he makes no stop, but pursues his course in the same track again. By this instance is exemplified the succession of the generations of men one after another, as the rising and setting of the sun continually follows each other; and also sets forth the restless state of things in the world, which, like the sun, are never at a stand, but always moving, and swiftly taking their course; and likewise the changeable state of man, who, like the rising sun, and when at noon day, is in flourishing circumstances, and in the height of prosperity, but as this declines and sets, so he has his declining times and days of adversity. Moreover, like the rising sun, he comes into this world and appears for a while, and then, like the setting sun, he dies; only with this difference, in which the sun has the preference to him, as the earth before had; the sun hastens and comes to its place from whence it arose, but man lies down and rises not again till the heavens be no more, and never returns to his place in this world, that knows him no more, (<180710>Job 7:10 14:12). The Jewsf21 say, before the sun of one righteous, man sets, the sun of another righteous man rises.
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