Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Ecclesiastes 5:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
"Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and to go to hear is better than that fools give a sacrifice; for the want of knowledge leads them to do evil." The "house of God" is like the "house of Jahve," Sa2 12:20; Isa 37:1, the temple; אל, altogether like אל־מ־אל, Psa 73:17. The Chethı̂b רגליך is admissible, for elsewhere also this plur. ("thy feet") occurs in a moral connection and with a spiritual reference, e.g., Psa 119:59; but more frequently, however, the comprehensive sing. occurs. Psa 119:105; Pro 1:15; Pro 4:26., and the Kerı̂ thus follows the right note. The correct understanding of what follows depends on רע ... כּי־. Interpreters have here adopted all manner of impossible views. Hitzig's translation: "for they know not how to be sorrowful," has even found in Stuart at least one imitator; but עשׂות רע would, as the contrast of 'asoth tov, Ecc 3:12, mean nothing else than, "to do that which is unpleasant, disagreeable, bad," like 'asah ra'ah, Sa2 12:18. Gesen., Ewald (336b), Elster, Heiligst., Burger, Zckl., Dale, and Bullock translate: "they know not that they do evil;" but for such a rendering the words ought to have been עשׂותם רע (cf. Jer 15:15); the only example for the translation of לעשׂות after the manner of the acc. c. inf. = se facere malum - viz. at Kg1 19:4 \- is incongruous, for למות does not here mean se mori, but ut moreretur. Yet more incorrect is the translation of Jerome, which is followed by Luther: nesciunt quid faciant mali. It lies near, as at Ecc 2:24 so also here, to suppose an injury done to the text. Aben Ezra introduced רק before לעשׂ, but Koheleth never uses this limiting particle; we would have to write כי אם־לעשׂות, after Ezr 3:12; Ezr 8:15. Anything thus attained, however, is not worth the violent means thus used; for the ratifying clause is not ratifying, and also in itself, affirmed of the כסילים, who, however, are not the same as the resha'im and the hattaim, is inappropriate. Rather it might be said: they know not to do good (thus the Syr.); or: they know not whether it be good or bad to do, i.e., they have no moral feeling, and act not from moral motives (so the Targ.). Not less violent than this remodelling of the text is the expedient of Herzberg, Philippson, and Ginsburg, who from לשׁמע derive the subject-conception of the obedient (השּׂמעים): "For those understand not at all to do evil;" the subj. ought to have been expressed if it must be something different from the immediately preceding כסילים. We may thus render enam yod'im, after Psa 82:5; Isa 56:10, as complete in itself: they (the fools) are devoid of knowledge to do evil = so that they do evil; i.e., want of knowledge brings them to this, that they do evil. Similarly also Knobel: they concern themselves not, - are unconcerned (viz., about the right mode of worshipping God), - so that they do evil, with the correct remark that the consequence of their perverse conduct is here represented as their intention. But ידע לא, absol., does not mean to be unconcerned (wanton), but to be without knowledge. Rashbam, in substance correctly: they are predisposed by their ignorance to do evil; and thus also Hahn; Mendelssohn translates directly: "they sin because they are ignorant." If this interpretation is correct, then for לשׁמע it follows that it does not mean "to obey" (thus e.g., Zckler), which in general it never means without some words being added to it (cf. on the contrary, Sa1 15:22), but "to hear," - viz. the word of Go…
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