Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Ecclesiastes 4:6
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
The fifth verse stands in a relation of contrast to this which follows: "Better is one hand full of quietness, than both fists full of labour and windy effort." Mendelssohn and others interpret Ecc 4:5 as the objection of the industrious, and Ecc 4:6 as the reply of the slothful. Zckler agrees with Hitz., and lapses into the hypothesis of a dialogue otherwise rejected by him. As everywhere, so also here it preserves the unity of the combination of thoughts. נחת signifies here, as little as it does anywhere else, the rest of sloth; but rest, in contrast to such activity in labour as robs a man of himself, to the hunting after gain and honour which never has enough, to the rivalry which places its goal always higher and higher, and seeks to be before others - it is rest connected with well-being ( Ecc 6:5), gentle quietness ( Ecc 9:17), resting from self-activity ( Isa 30:15); cf. the post-bibl. רוּח נחת, satisfaction, contentment, comfort. In a word, nahath has not here the sense of being idle or lazy. The sequence of the thoughts is this: The fool in idleness consumes his own life-strength; but, on the other hand, a little of true rest is better than the labour of windy effort, urged on by rivalry yielding no rest. כּף is the open hollow hand, and חפן (Assyr. ḥupunnu) the hand closed like a ball, the first. "Rest" and "labour and windy effort" are the accusatives of that to which the designation of measure refers (Gesen. 118. 3); the accus. connection lay here so much the nearer, as מלא is connected with the accus. of that with which anything is full. In "and windy effort" lies the reason for the judgment pronounced. The striving of a man who laboriously seeks only himself and loses himself in restlessness, is truly a striving which has wind for its object, and has the property of wind. Ecclesiastes 4:7
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