Ecclesiastes 1:7

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea [is] not full,.... Which flow from fountains or an formed by hasty rains; these make their way to the sea, yet the sea is not filled therewith, and made

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

Is not full, to wit, to the brink, or so as to overflow the earth, which might be expected from such vast accessions to it; whereby also he intimates the emptiness and dissatisfaction of men’ s minds, not withstanding all the abundance of creature-comforts. Unto the place from whence the rivers come; either, 1. Unto the sea, from whence they are supposed to return into their proper channels, and then, as it is expressed, thither (i.e. into the sea) they return again. Or, 2. Unto their springs or fountains, to which the waters return by secret passages of the earth, as is manifest from the Caspian Sea, and reasonably supposed in other places. Or rather, 3. Unto the earth in general, from whence they come or How into the sea, and to which they return again by the reflux of the sea. For he seems to speak of the visible and constant motion of the waters, both to the sea and from it, and then to it again in a perpetual reciprocation; which agrees best with the former similitudes, ,6.

Ecclesiastes 1:7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea [is] not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.Ver. 7. All the rivers run into the sea.] And the nearer they come to the sea, the sooner they are met by the tide; sent out, as it were, to take their tribute due to the sea, that seat and source of waters. Surely as the rivers lead a man to the sea, so do all these creatures carry him to God by their circular motion. A circle, we say, is the most perfect figure, because it begins and ends; the points do meet together; the last point meets in the first from whence it came; so shall we never come to perfection or satisfaction till our souls come to God, till he make the circle meet. A wise philosopher could say, that man is the end of all things in a semicircle; that is, all things in the world are made for him, and he is made for God, to whom he must therefore hasten. Unto the place from whence the rivers come.] Sc., From the sea, through the pores and passages of the earth, where they leave their saltness. This is Solomon’ s opinion, as it was likewise the opinion of the ancient philosophers, which yet Aristotle finds fault with, and assigns another cause of the perennity of rivers, of their beginning and origin - viz., that the air thickened in the earth by reason of cold, doth resolve and turn into water, &c. This agrees not with that which Solomon here saith by the instinct of the Holy Ghost. And therefore Averroes is by no means to be hearkened unto in that excessive commendation he gives Aristotle - viz., that there was no error in his writings, that his doctrine was the chiefest truths, and that his understanding was the utmost that was by any one attainable; himself the rule and pattern that Nature invented to show her most perfect skill, &c. Hinc poetae fingunt Inachum fluvium ex Oceano genitum. Alsted. Chronol., p. 460.

(7) Whence the rivers come.—Better, whither the rivers go. (Comp. Sir 40:11.)

Verse 7. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full] The reason is, nothing goes into it either by the; rivers or by rain, that does not come from it: and to the place whence the rivers come, whether from the sea originally by evaporation, or immediately by rain, thither they return again; for the water exhaled from the sea by evaporation is collected in the clouds, and in rain, c., falls upon the tops of the mountains and, filtered through their fissures, produce streams, several of which uniting, make rivers, which flow into the sea. The water is again evaporated by the sun; the vapours collected are precipitated; and, being filtered through the earth, become streams, &c., as before.

7. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full] The words express the wonder of the earliest observers of the phenomena of nature: as they observed, the poet described. So we have in Aristophanes (Clouds, 1248), αὕτημὲν (ἡθάλαττα) οὐδὲνγίγνεταιἐπιῤῥεοντωντῶνποταμῶν, πλείων.“The sea, though all the rivers flow to it,Increaseth not in volume.”Lucretius, representing the physical science of the school of Epicurus, thought it worth his while to give a scientific explanation of the fact: “Principio, mare mirantur non reddere majusNaturam, quo sit tantus decursus aquarum.”“And first men wonder Nature leaves the seaNot greater than before, though to it flowsSo great a rush of waters.”Lucret. vi. 608. thither they return again] We are apt to read into the words the theories of modern science as to the evaporation from the sea, the clouds formed by evaporation, the rain falling from the clouds and replenishing the streams. It may be questioned, however, whether that theory, which Lucretius states almost as if it were a discovery, were present to the mind of the Debater and whether he did not rather think of the waters of the ocean filtering through the crevices of the earth and so feeding its wells and fountains. The Epicurean poet himself accepts this as a partial solution of phenomena, and on the view taken in the Introduction as to the date of Ecclesiastes it may well have been known to the author as one of the physical theories of the school of Epicurus. We can scarcely fail, at any rate, to be struck with the close parallelism of expression. “Postremo quoniam raro cum corpore tellusEst, et conjuncta est, oras maris undique cingens,Debet, ut in mare de terris venit umor aquai,In terras itidem manare ex aequore salso;Percolatur enim virus, retroque remanatMateries humoris, et ad caput amnibus omnisConfluit; inde super terras redit agmine dulci.”“Lastly since earth has open pores and rare,And borders on the sea, and girds its shores,Need must its waters, as from earth to seaThey flow, flow back again from sea to earth,And so the brackish taint is filtered offAnd to the source the water back distils,And from fresh fountains streams o’er all the fields.”Lucret. vi. 631–637. The same thought is found in Homer, Il. xxi. 96, “Ocean’s strengthFrom which all rivers flow,”and is definitely stated in the Chaldee paraphrase of the verse now before us. Comp. also Lucret. v. 270–273. An alternative rendering gives “to the place whither the rivers go, thither they return again” or “thence they return again.”

The place - i. e., The spring or river-head. It would seem that the ancient Hebrews regarded the clouds as the immediate feeders of the springs (Proverbs 8:28, and Psalms 104:10, Psalms 104:13).

7. All the rivers run into the sea — None of the ancients understood the system of evaporation, how the sun lifts daily from the sea millions of tons of water, which, carried by clouds, (and even by