Ecclesiastes 7:27

Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Ecclesiastes 7:27-28. Behold, saith the preacher — Or, the penitent, who speaks what he hath learned, both by deep study and costly experience; this have I found — And it is a strange thing, and worthy of your serious observation; counting one by one — Considering things or persons, very exactly and distinctly, one after another; to find out the account — That I might make a true and just estimate in this matter; or, as it is in the margin, to find out the reason. Which yet my soul seeketh — It seems so wonderful to me, that I suspected that I had not made a sufficient inquiry, and therefore I returned and searched again, with more earnestness; but I find not — That it was so he found, but the reason of the thing he could not find out. One man — A wise and virtuous man; among a thousand — With whom I have conversed; have I found — He is supposed to mention this number in allusion to his thousand wives and concubines, as they are numbered, 1 Kings 11:3; but a woman — One worthy of that name, one who is not a dishonour to her sex; among all those, have I not found — In that thousand whom I have taken into intimate society with myself. It is justly observed by different commentators here, that “we are not hence to infer, that Solomon thought there were fewer good women than men: but that he knew he had not gone the right way to find the virtuous woman, when he deviated so widely from the original law of marriage; and instead of seeking one rational companion, the sole object of his endeared affections, he had collected a vast multitude for magnificence and indulgence. The more valuable part of the sex would not willingly form one in such a group; and, if any of them were previously well disposed, the jealousies, party interests, contests, and artifices which take place in such situations, would tend exceedingly to corrupt them, and render them all nearly of the same character. Solomon therefore here speaks the language of a penitent, warning others against the sins into which he had been betrayed; and not that of a waspish satirist, lashing indiscriminately one half of the human species.” — Scott.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:23-29 Solomon, in his search into the nature and reason of things, had been miserably deluded. But he here speaks with godly sorrow. He alone who constantly aims to please God, can expect to escape; the careless sinner probably will fall to rise no more. He now discovered more than ever the evil of the great sin of which he had been guilty, the loving many strange women,

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Compare the account of Solomon's wives 1 Kings 11:1-8 : see also Proverbs 2:16-19; Proverbs 5:3...

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. this—namely, what follows in Ec 7:28.

counting one by one—by comparing one thing with another [Holden and Maurer].

account—a right estimate. But Ec 7:28 more favors Gesenius. "Considering women one by one."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Behold; it is a strange thing, and worthy of your serious observation.

The preacher; or, the penitent, who speaks what he hath learned, both by deep, study and costly experience.

Counting one by one; considering things or persons very exactly and distinctly, one after another; and not only in general and confusedly, in which case a man may very easily be mistaken; and comparing them together, whereby I was enabled to make the truer judgment of them.

To find out the account, that I might make a true and just estimate in this matter. Or, as it is in the margin:, and was rendered Ecclesiastes 7:25, the reason, to wit, of that which I am about to say. I considered the persons severally and critically, that from thence I might understand the reason of the thing.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Behold, this have I found,.... That a harlot is more bitter than death; and which he found by his own experience, and therefore would have it observed by others for their caution: or one man among a thousand, Ecclesiastes 7:28;

(saith the preacher); of which title and character see Ecclesiastes 1:1; it is here mentioned to confirm the truth of what he said; he said it as a preacher, and, upon the word of a preacher, it was true; as also to signify his repentance for his sin, who was now the "gathered soul", as some render it; gathered into the church of God by repentance;

counting one by one, to find out the account; not his own sins, which he endeavoured to reckon up, and find out the general account of them, which yet he could not do; nor the good works of the righteous, and the sins of the wicked, which are numbered before the Lord one by one, till they are added to the great account; as Jarchi, from the Rabbins, interprets it, and so the Midrash: but rather the sense is, examining women, one by one, all within the verge of his acquaintance; particularly the thousand women that were either his wives or concubines; in order to take and give a just estimate of their character and actions. What follows is the result.

Geneva Study Bible

Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to {s} find out the account:

(s) That is, to come to a conclusion.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. saith the Preacher] The passage is remarkable as being the solitary instance in the book in which the name Koheleth, feminine in form, yet elsewhere treated as masculine, is joined with the feminine form of the verb. It is possible, however, that this may be only an error of transcription, the transfer of a single letter from the end of one word to the beginning of another, restoring the verse to the more common construction, as found, e. g. in chap. Ecclesiastes 12:8, where, as here, adopting this reading, the article is prefixed to the word Koheleth, elsewhere treated as a proper name.

counting one by one] The words remind us, on the one hand, of Diogenes the Cynic, with his lantern, looking for an honest man at Athens, and answering, when asked where such men might be found, that good men were to be found nowhere, and good boys only in Sparta (Diog. Laert. vi. 2. 27); and on the other, of Jeremiah’s search to see “if there were any in Jerusalem that sought after God” (Jeremiah 5:1-5). The words, as it were, drag their slow length along, as if expressing the toil and weariness of the search. And after all he had failed to find.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - Behold, this have I found. The result of his search, thus forcibly introduced, follows in ver. 28. He has carefully examined the character and conduct of both sexes, and he is constrained to make the unsatisfactory remark which he there puts forth. Saith the preacher. Koheleth is here treated as a feminine noun, being joined with the feminine form of the verb, though elsewhere it is grammatically regarded as masculine (see on Ecclesiastes 1:1). Many have thought that, after speaking so disparagingly of woman, it would be singularly inappropriate to introduce the official preacher as a female; they have therefore adopted a slight alteration in the text, viz. אָמַר חַקֹּחֶלֶת instead of אָמְרָה קֹהֶלֶת, which is simply the transference of he from the end of one word to the beginning of the next, thus adding the article, as in Ecclesiastes 12:8, and making the term accord with the Syriac and Arabic, and the Septuagint, εϊπεν ὁ Ἐκκλησιαστής. The writer here introduces his own designation in order to call special attention to what is coming. Counting one by one. The phrase is elliptical, and signifies, adding one thing to another, or weighing one thing after another, putting together various facts or marks. To find out the account; to arrive at the reckoning, the desired result. Ecclesiastes 7:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Behold what I have found, saith Koheleth, adding one thing to another, to find out the account: What my soul hath still sought, and I have not found, (is this): one man among a thousand have I found; and a woman among all these have I not found." It is the ascertained result, "one man, etc.," which is solemnly introduced by the words preceding. Instead of אם קה, the words ראמר הקּה are to be read, after Ecclesiastes 12:8, as is now generally acknowledged; errors of transcription of a similar kind are found at 2 Samuel 5:2; Job 38:12. Ginsburg in vain disputes this, maintaining that the name Koheleth, as denoting wisdom personified, may be regarded as fem. as well as mas.; here, where the female sex is so much depreciated, was the fem. self-designation of the stern judge specially unsuitable. Hengst. supposes that Koheleth is purposely fem. in this one passage, since true wisdom, represented by Solomon, stands opposite to false philosophy. But this reason for the fem. rests on the false opinion that woman here is heresy personified; he further remarks that it is significant for this fem. personification, that there is "no writing of female authorship in the whole canon of the O.T. and N.T." But what of Deborah's triumphal song, the song of Hannah, the magnificat of Mary? We hand this absurdity over to the Clementines! The woman here was flesh and blood, but pulchra quamvis pellis est mens tamen plean procellis; and Koheleth is not incarnate wisdom, but the official name of a preacher, as in Assyr., for חזּנרם, curators, overseers, hazanâti

(Note: Vid., Fried. Delitzsch's Assyr. Stud. (1874), p. 132.)

is used. זה, Ecclesiastes 7:27, points, as at Ecclesiastes 1:10, to what follows. אחת ל, one thing to another (cf. Isaiah 27:12), must have been, like summa summarum and the like, a common arithmetical and dialectical formula, which is here subordinate to מצא, since an adv. inf. such as לקוח is to be supplemented: taking one thing to another to find out the חשׁבּון, i.e., the balance of the account, and thus to reach a facit, a resultat.

(Note: Cf. Aboth iv. 29, וגו ליתן, "to give account;" וגו הכל, "all according to the result.")

That which presented itself to him in this way now follows. It was, in relation to woman, a negative experience: "What my soul sought on and on, and I found not, (is this)." The words are like the superscription of the following result, in which finally the זה of Ecclesiastes 7:27 terminates. Ginsburg, incorrectly: "what my soul is still seeking," which would have required מבקּשׁת. The pret. בּקשׁה (with ק without Dagesh, as at Ecclesiastes 7:29)

(Note: As generally the Piel forms of the root בקשׁ, Masor. all have Raphe on the ,ק except the imper. בּקּשׁוּ; vid., Luzzatto's Gramm. 417.)

is retrospective; and עוד, from עוּד, means redire, again and again, continually, as at Gen.. Genesis 46:29. He always anew sought, and that, as biqshah naphshi for בקשׁתי denotes, with urgent striving, violent longing, and never found, viz., a woman such as she ought to be: a man, one of a thousand, I have found, etc. With right, the accentuation gives Garshayim to adam; it stands forth, as at Ecclesiastes 7:20, as a general denominator - the sequence of accents, Geresh, Pashta, Zakef, is as at Genesis 1:9. "One among a thousand" reminds us of Job 33:23, cf. Ecclesiastes 9:3; the old interpreters (vid., Dachselt's Bibl. Accentuata), with reference to these parallels, connect with the one man among a thousand all kinds of incongruous christological thoughts. Only, here adam, like the Romanic l'homme and the like, means man in sexual contrast to woman. It is thus ideally meant, like ish, 1 Samuel 4:9; 1 Samuel 6:15, and accordingly also the parall. אשּׁה. For it is not to be supposed that the author denies thereby perfect human nature to woman. But also Burger's explanation: "a human being, whether man or woman," is a useless evasion. Man has the name adam κατ ̓ ἐξ. by primitive hist. right: "for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man," 1 Corinthians 11:8. The meaning, besides, is not that among a thousand human beings he found one upright man, but not a good woman (Hitz.), - for then the thousand ought to have had its proper denominator, אדם בני, - but that among a thousand persons of the male sex he found only one man such as he ought to be, and among a thousand of the female sex not one woman such as she ought to be; "among all these" is thus equals among an equal number. Since he thus actually found the ideal of man only seldom, and that of woman still seldomer (for more than this is not denoted by the round numbers), the more surely does he resign himself to the following resultat, which he introduces by the word לבד (only, alone), as the clear gain of his searching: