Ecclesiastes 11:5

As thou knowest not what [is] the way of the spirit,.... If indeed a man could foresee and be assured of seasonable weather for sowing and reaping, or a proper opportunity for doing good, all

As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

Of the spirit; of the spirit or soul of man, how it first comes into the body of the child in the womb, whether from God by creation, or from the parents by propagation; nor how it is united with and so fixed in the body, that it cannot get out of it when it would; nor how and whither it goes out of the body; all which things are great mysteries. Others translate it, of the wind, whence it cometh, and whither it goeth, as is observed , or how violently it will blow, or how long it will last. But the former translation seems to agree better with the following clause. The bones, i.e. the whole body, which is elsewhere signified by the bones, as 35:10, because they are a principal part, and the very foundation and support, of the body. Grow in the womb; how it comes to pass that one and the same small quantity of seed should diversify itself into skin, and flesh, and sinews, and veins, and bones, and entrails, or how it receiveth nourishment and growth. The works of God; what God is doing, and will do with thee and others; the counsels and methods of God’ s providence in the future time of thy life, what evil God will send upon the earth, , or what weather he will send, of which , how long or how little a while God will continue thy life or estate, and how soon God will call thee to an account. These and many other future events thou canst not foresee, and therefore thy wisdom and duty is to cast off all distracting cares and distrustful fears about them, and cheerfully to commit thyself, and all thy affairs, into the hand of God in well doing.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 As thou knowest not what [is] the way of the spirit, [nor] how the bones [do grow] in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.Ver. 5. As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit.] Or, Of the wind, as some render it, grounding upon the former verse - q.d., Why should any so observe the wind, the nature whereof he so little understands, and the inconstancy whereof is grown to, and known by, a common proverb? But by spirit I rather think is meant the soul, as by bones the body. Who can tell when and how the body is formed, the soul infused? The body is the "soul’ s sheath," an abridgment of the visible world, as the soul is of the invisible. The members of the body were made all by book, "and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth," that is, in the womb: as curious workmen, when they have some choice piece in hand, they perfect it in private, and then bring it forth to light for men to gaze at. What an admirable piece of work is man’ s head piece! - God’ s masterpiece in this little world - the chief seat of the soul, that cura divini ingenii, as one calls it! There is nothing great on earth but man, nothing in man but his mind, said the philosopher. Many locks and keys argue the price of the jewel that they keep; aud many papers wrapping the token within them, the worth of the token. The tables of the testament - First, Laid up in the ark; secondly, The ark bound about with pure gold; thirdly, Overshadowed with cherubims’ wings; fourthly, Enclosed with the veil of the tabernacle; fifthly, With the compass of the tabernacle; sixthly, With a court about all; seventhly, With a treble covering of goats’ , rams’ , and badgers’ skins above all - must needs be precious tables. So when the Almighty made man’ s head, the seat of the reasonable soul, and overlaid it with hair, skin, and flesh, like the threefold covering of the tabernacle, and then encompassed it with a skull of bones, like boards of cedar, and afterwards with various skins, like silken curtains, and, lastly, enclosed it with the yellow skin that covers the brain, like the purple veil, which Solomon calls the "golden ewer," he would doubtless have us to know it was made for some great treasure to be put therein. How and when the reasonable soul is put into this curious cabinet, philosophers dispute many things, but can affirm nothing of a certainty: as neither "how the bones do grow in the womb," how of the same substance the several parts - as bones, nerves, arteries, veins, gristles, flesh, and blood - are fashioned there, and receive daily increase. This David looks at as a just wonder.

(5) The wording of this passage leaves it ambiguous whether we have here two illustrations of man’s ignorance, or only one; whether we are to understand the verse as declaring that we know neither the way of the wind nor the growth of the embryo, or whether, retaining the translation “spirit,” we take the whole verse as relating to the latter subject. (Comp. John 3:6.) The word for “her that is with child” occurs in that sense here only in the Old Testament, and in later Hebrew.

Verse 5. As thou knowest not - the way of the spirit] Why God should have permitted such an such persons to fall into want, and how they came into all their distresses, thou canst not tell, no more than thou canst how their soul is united to their body, how it came to inform that body, or how the child was formed in the womb of its mother. Nor canst thou discern the end which God has in view in these things. He maketh all, every thing is open to him; and take heed lest, while pretending motives of scrupulosity and prudence, in not relieving the distresses of those thou pretendest to suspect to be unworthy, he does not see that a love of money is the motive of thy conduct, and a want of the bowels of mercy the cause why thou drivest this suspected beggar from thy door.

5. As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit] The Hebrew word for “spirit” has also the meaning of “wind” as in the verse immediately preceding, and this has led many commentators (as with the corresponding Greek word in John 3:8) to prefer that meaning, here. Two different examples of man’s ignorance of the processes of the common phenomena of nature are adduced on this view as analogous to his ignorance of the “work of God,” of what we call the Divine Government of the Universe. It may be questioned however whether, both here and in John 3:8, a more adequate meaning is not given by retaining the idea of “spirit” as the “breath of life” of Genesis 2:7. The growth of the human embryo was for the early observers of nature an impenetrable mystery (Job 10:11; Psalms 139:13-17). It became yet more mysterious when men thought of life, with all its phenomena of sensation and consciousness entering into the material structure thus “fearfully and wonderfully made.” This sense of the word agrees it will be seen, with its use in chaps. Ecclesiastes 3:21, Ecclesiastes 12:7. The word “nor” has nothing answering to it in the Hebrew and the sentence should run thus, describing not two distinct phenomena but one complex fact, “as thou knowest not the way of the spirit (the breath of life) how the framework of the body (literally the bones, but the word is used commonly for the whole body as in Lamentations 4:7; Job 7:15; Proverbs 15:30; Proverbs 16:24 and elsewhere) is in the womb of her that is with child.the works of God who maketh all] So in ch. Ecclesiastes 7:13, we had “Consider the work of God.” Here the addition of “who maketh all” indicates a higher stage of faith. That “never-failing Providence orders all things both in heaven and earth.” The agnosticism of the Debater is, like that of Hooker (Eccl. Pol. i. 2. § 3), the utterance of a devout Theism, content to keep within the limits of the Knowable, but not placing the object of its adoration in the category of the Unknown and Unknowable.

5. The way of the spirit — Better, “The way of the” wind. Our utter ignorance of the commonest things in nature really extends to all the works and ways of God.