Keil & Delitzsch on Ecclesiastes 1:3

A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.

Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.

With this verse commences the proof for this exclamation and statement: "What profit hath a man of all his labour which he laboureth in under the sun?!" An interrogative exclamation, which leads to the conclusion that never anything right, i.e., real, enduring, satisfying, comes of it.יתרון, profit, synon. with Mothar, Ecc 3:19, is peculiar to this book (= Aram. יוּתרן). A primary form, יתרון, is unknown. The punctator Simson (Cod. 102a of the Leipzig University Lib.f. 5a) rightly blames those who use ויתּרון, in a liturgical hymn, of the Day of Atonement. The word signifies that which remains over, either, as here, clear gain, profit, or that which has the pre-eminence, i.e., superiority, precedence, or is the foremost. "Under the sun" is the designation of the earth peculiar to this book, - the world of men, which we are wont to call the sublunary world. שׁ has not the force of an accusative of manner, but of the obj. The author uses the expression, "Labour wherein I have laboured," Ecc 2:19-20; Ecc 5:17, as Euripides, similarly, μοχθεῖν μόχθον. He now proceeds to justify the negative contained in the question, "What profit?" Ecclesiastes 1:4

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