Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

Ecc 12:5 From this his repugnance to singing, and music, and all loud noises, progress in the description is made to the difficulty such aged men have in motion: "Also they are afraid of that which is high; and there are all kinds of fearful things in the way ... ." The description moves forward in a series of independent sentences; that שׁ בּיּום to which it was subordinate in Ecc 12:3, and still also in Ecc 12:4, is now lost sight of. In the main it is rightly explained by the Talm., and with it the Midrash: "Even a little hillock appears to him like a high mountain; and if he has to go on a journey, he meets something that terrifies him;" the Targ. has adopted the second part of this explanation. גּבהּ (falsely referred by the Targ. to the time lying far back in the past) is understood neut.; cf. Sa1 16:7. Such decrepid old men are afraid of (ייראוּ, not videbunt, as the lxx, Symm., Ar., and the Venet. translate, who seem to have had before them the defective יראו) a height, - it alarms them as something unsurmountable, because their breath and their limbs fail them when they attempt it; and hathhhattim (plur. of the intensifying form of hat, consternatio, Job 41:25), i.e., all kinds of formidines (not formido, Ewald, 179a, Bttch. 762, for the plur. is as in salsilloth, 'aph'appim, etc., thought of as such), meet them in the way. As the sluggard says: there is a lion in the way, and under this pretence remains slothfully at home, Pro 24:13; Pro 22:13, so old men do not venture out; for to them a damp road appears like a very morass; a gravelly path, as full of neck-breaking hillocks; an undulating path, as fearfully steep and precipitous; that which is not shaded, as oppressively hot and exhausting-they want strength and courage to overcome difficulties, and their anxiety pictures out dangers before them where there are none. Ecc 12:5 The allegory is now continued in individual independent figures: "And the almond tree is in blossom." The Talm. explains וין הש of the haunch-bone projecting (from leanness); the Midrash, of the bones of the vertebral column, conceived of as incorruptible and as that round which will take place the future restoration of the human body, - probably the cross bone, os sacrum, (Note: The Jewish opinion of the incorruptible continuance of this bone may be connected with the designation os sacrum; the meaning of this is controverted, vid., Hyrtl's Anatomie, 124.) inserted between the two thigh bones of the pelvis as a pointed wedge; cf. Jerome in his Comm.: quidam sacram spinam interpretantur quod decrescentibus natium cornibus spina accrescat et floreat; לוּז is an Old Heb., Aram., and Arab. name of the almond tree and the almond nut (vid., under Gen 30:37), and this, perhaps, is the reason of this identification of the emblematic שׁקד with לוז (the os sacrum, or vertebra magna) of the spine. The Targ. follows the Midrash in translating: the רישׁ שׁז (the top of the spine) will protrude from leanness like an almond tree (viz., from which the leaves have been stripped). In these purely arbitrary interpretations nothing is correct but (1) that שׁקד is understood not of the almond fruit, but of the almond tree, as also at Jer 1:11 (the rod of an almond tree); (2) that ינאץ (notwithstanding that these interpreters had it before them unpointed) is interpreted, as also by the lxx, Syr., Jerome, and the Venet., in the sense of blossoming, or the bursting out of blossoms by means of the opening up of the buds. Many interpreters understand שׁקר of almond fruit (Winzer, Ewald, Ginsb., Rdiger, etc.), for they derive ינאץ from נאץ, as Aben Ezra had already done, and explain by: fastidit amygdalam (nucem), or fastidium creat amygdala. But (1) ינאץ for ינאץ (Hiph. of נאץ, to disdain, to treat scornfully) is a change of vowels unexampled; we must, with such an explanation, read either ינּאץ, fastiditur (Gaab), or ינאץ; (2) almond nuts, indeed, belong to the more noble productions of the land and the delicacies, Gen 43:11, but dainties, κατ ̓ ἐξ, at the same time they are not, so that it would be appropriate to exemplify the blunted sensation of taste in the old man, by saying that he no more cracks and eats almonds. The explanation of Hitzig, who reads ינאץ, and interprets the almond tree as at Sol 7:9 the palm, to denote a woman, for he translates: the almond tree refuses (viz., the old man), we set aside as too ingenious; and we leave to those interpreters who derive ינאץ from נאץ, and understand השקד (Note: Abulwald understands שקר and חגב sexually, and glosses the latter by jundub (the locust), which in Arab. is a figure of suffering and patience.) of the glans penis (Bttch., Frst, and several older interpreters), to follow their own foul and repulsive criticism. ינאץ is an incorrect reading for ינץ, as at Hos 10:14, קאם for קם, and, in Prov., ראשׁ for רשׁ (Gesen. 73. 4); and besides, as at Sol 6:11, הנצוּ, regular Hiph. of נצץ (נוּץ, Lam 4:15), to move tremblingly (vibrate), to glisten, blossom (cf. נוס, to flee, and ניסן, Assyr. nisannu, the flower-month). Thus deriving this verbal form, Ewald, and with him Heiligst., interprets the blossoming almond tree as a figure of the winter of life: "it is as if the almond tree blossomed, which in the midst of winter has already blossoms on its dry, leafless stem." But the blossoms of the almond tree are rather, after Num 17:2-8, a figure of special life-strength, and we must thus, thrown back to ינאץ from נאץ (to flourish), rather explain, with Furrer (in Schenkel's B. L.), as similarly Herzf.: the almond tree refuses, i.e., ceases, to blossom; the winter of old age is followed by no spring; or also, as Dale and Taylor: the almond tree repels, i.e., the old man has no longer a joyful welcome for this messenger of spring. But his general thought has already found expression in Ecc 12:2; the blossoming almond tree must be here an emblem of a more special relation. Hengst. supposes that "the juniper tree (for this is the proper meaning of שקד) is in bloom" is = sleeplessness in full blossom stands by the old man; but that would be a meaningless expression. Nothing is more natural than that the blossoming almond tree is intended to denote the same as is indicated by the phrase of the Latin poet: Intempestivi funduntur vertice cani (Luther, Geiger, Grot., Vaih., Luzz., Gurlitt, Tyler, Bullock, etc.). It has been objected that the almond blossoms are not pure white, but according to the variety, they are pale-red, or also white; so that Thomson, in his beautiful Land and the Book, can with right say: "The almond tree is the type of old age whose hair is white;" and why? "The white blossoms completely cover the whole tree." Besides, Bauer (1732) has already remarked that the almond blossoms, at first tinged with red, when they are ready to fall off become white as snow; with which may be compared a clause cited by Ewald from Bodenstedt's A Thousand and One Days in the Orient: "The white blossoms fall from the almond trees like snow-flakes." Accordingly, Dchsel is right when he explains, after the example of Zckler: "the almond tree with its reddish flower in late winter, which strews the ground with its blossoms, which have gradually become white like snow-flakes, is an emblem of the winter of old age with its falling silvery hair." Ecc 12:5 From the change in the colour of the hair, the allegory now proceeds to the impairing of the elasticity of the highs and of their power of bearing a load, the malum coxae senile (in a wider than the usual pathological sense): "And the grasshopper (i.e., locust, חגב, Samar. חרגבה = חרגּל, Lev 11:22) becomes a burden." Many interpreters (Merc., Dderl., Gaab, Winz., Gesen., Winer, Dale) find in these words הח ויס the meaning that locust-food, or that the chirping of grasshoppers, is burdensome to him (the old man); but even supposing that it may at once be assumed that he was a keen aeridophagus (locusts, steeped in butter, are like crabs (shrimps) spread on slices of butter and bread), or that he had formerly a particular delight in the chirping of the τέττιξ, which the ancients number among singing birds (cf. Taylor, l.c.), and that he has now no longer any joy in the song of the τέττιξ, although it is regarded as soothing and tending to lull to rest, and an Anacreon could in his old days even sing his μακαρίζομέν σε τέττιξ, - yet these two interpretations are impossible, because הס may mean to burden and to move with difficulty, but not "to become burdensome." For the same reason, nothing is more absurd than the explanation of Kimchi and Gurlitt: Even a grasshopper, this small insect, burdens him; for which Zckl., more naturally: the hopping and chirping of the grasshopper is burdensome to him; as we say, The fly on the wall annoys him. Also Ewald and Heiligstedt's interpretation: "it is as if the locust raised itself to fly, breaking and stripping off its old husk," as inadmissible; for הסתבל can mean se portare laboriose, but not ad evolandum eniti; the comparison (Arab.) tahmmal gains the meaning of hurry onwards, to proceed on an even way, like the Hebr. השכים, to take upon the shoulder; it properly means, to burden oneself, i.e., to take on one's back in order to get away; but the grasshopper coming out of its case carries away with it nothing but itself. For us, such interpretations - to which particularly, the advocates of the several hypotheses of a storm, night, and mourning, are constrained - are already set aside by this, that according to the allegory וין השׁ, הח ויס must also signify something characteristic of the body of an old man. The lxx, Jerome, and Ar. translate: the locust becomes fat; the Syr.: it grows. It is true, indeed, that great corpulence, or also a morbid dropsical swelling of the belly (ascites), is one of the symptoms of advanced old age; but supposing that the (voracious) locust might be en emblem of a corpulent man, yet הסתבל means neither to become fat nor to grow. But because the locust in reality suggests the idea of a corpulent man, the figure cannot at the same time be intended to mean that the old man is like a skeleton, consisting as it were of nothing but skin and bone (Lyra, Luther, Bauer, Dathe); the resemblance of a locust to the back-bone and its joints (Glassius, Khler, Vaih.) is not in view; only the position of the locusts's feet for leaping admits the comparison of the prominent scapulae (shoulder-blades); but shoulder-blades (scapulae alatae), angular and standing out from the chest, are characteristics of a consumptive, not of a senile habit. Also we must cease, with Hitz., Bttch., Luzz., and Gratz, to understand the figure as denoting the φαλλός to be now impotent; for relaxation and shrinking do not agree with hctbl, which suggests something burdensome by being weighty. The Midrash interprets החגב by "ankles," and the Targ. translates accordingly: the ankles (אסתּורי, from the Pers. ustuwâr, firm) of thy feet will swell-unsuitably, for "ankles" affords no point of comparison with locusts, and they have no resemblance to their springing feet. The Talm., glossing החגב by "these are the buttocks" (nates) (cf. Arab. 'ajab, the os coccygis, Syn. 'ajuz, as the Talm. עגבות interchanges with עבוז), is on the right track. There is nothing, indeed, more probably than that הגב is a figure of the coxa, the hinder region of the pelvis, where the lower part of the body balances itself in the hip-joint, and the motion of standing up and going receives its impulse and direction by the muscular strength there concentrated. This part of the body may be called the locust, because it includes in itself the mechanism which the two-membered foot for springing, placed at an acute angle, presents in the locust. Referred to this coxa, the loins, יסתבל has its most appropriate meaning: the marrow disappears from the bones, elasticity from the muscles, the cartilage and oily substance from the joints, and, as a consequence, the middle of the body drags itself along with difficulty; or: it is with difficulty moved along (Hithpa. as pass., like Ecc 8:10); it is stiff, particularly in the morning, and the old man is accustomed to swing his arms backwards, and to push himself on as it were from behind. In favour of this interpretation (but not deciding it) is the accord of חגב with עגב = κόκκυξ (by which the os coccygis is designated as the cuckoo's bone). Also the verbal stem (Arab.) jaḥab supplies an analogous name: not jaḥab, which denotes the air passage (but not, as Knobel supposes, the breath itself; for the verb signifies to separate, to form a partition, Mish. מחיצח), but (Arab.) jaḥabat, already compared by Bochart, which denotes the point (dual), the two points or projections of the two hip-bones (vid., Lane's Lex.), which, together with the os sacrum lying between, form the ring of the pelvis. Ecc 12:5 From the weakening of the power of motion, the allegory passes on to the decay of sensual desires, and of the organs appertaining thereto: "And the caper-berry fails ... ." The meaning "caper" for האב is evidence by the lxx (ἡ κάππαρις, Arab. alkabar), the Syr., and Jerome (capparis), and this rendering is confirmed by the Mishnic אביונות, which in contradistinction to תמרות, i.e., the tender branches, and קפריסין, i.e., the rind of fruit, signifies the berry-like flower-buds of the caper bush, (Note: The caper-bush is called in the Mish. צלף, and is celebrated, Beza 25a, cf. Shabbath 30b (where, according to J. S. Bloch's supposition, the disciple who meets Gamaliel is the Apostle Paul), on account of its unconquerable life-power, its quick development of fruit, and manifold products. The caper-tree is planted, says Berachoth 36a, "with a view to its branches;" the eatable branches or twigs here meant are called שיתי (שותי). Another name for the caper-tree is נצפה, Demai i. 1, Berachoth 36a, 40b; and another name for the bud of the caper-blossom is פרחא רבוטיתא, Berachoth 36b (cf. Aruch, under the words aviyonoth and tselaph).) according to Buxtorf. This Talm. word, it is true, is pointed אביונות; but that makes no difference, for אביּונה is related to אביונה merely as making the word emphatic, probably to distinguish the name of the caper from the fem. of the adj. אביון, which signifies avida, egena. But in the main they are both one; for that נביּונה may designate "desire" (Abulwald: (Note: In his Dictionary of Roots (kitâb el-utṣûl), edited by Neubauer, Oxford 1873-4.) aliradat; Parchon: התאוה; Venet.: ἡ ὄρεξις; Luther: alle Lust), or "neediness," "poverty" (the Syr. in its second translation of this clause), is impossible, because the form would be unexampled and incomprehensible; only the desiring soul, or the desiring, craving member (vid., Kimchi), could be so named. But now the caper is no named, which even to this day is used to give to food a more piquant taste (cf. Plutarch's Sympos. vi. qu. 2). It is also said that the caper is a means of exciting sexual desire (aphrodisiacum); and there are examples of its use for this purpose from the Middle Ages, indeed, but none from the records of antiquity; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xx. 14 (59), knew nothing of it, although he speaks at length of the uses and effects of the capparis. The Talm. explains האבי by חמדה, the Midrash by תאוה, the Targ. by משכבא, interpreting the word directly without reference to the caper in this sense. If haaviyonah thus denotes the caper, we have not thence to conclude that it incites to sexual love, and still less are we, with the Jewish interpreters, whom Bttch. follows, to understand the word of the membrum virile itself; the Arab. name for the caper, 'itar, which is compared by Grtz, which has an obscene meaning, designates also other aromatic plants. We shall proceed so much the more securely if we turn away from the idea of sexual impulse and hold by the idea of the impulse of self-preservation, namely, appetite for food, since אביון (from אבה, the root-meaning of which, "to desire," is undoubted (Note: Vid., Fried. Delitzsch's Indogerman.-Sem. Stud. I p. 62f. Also the Arab. âby in the language of the Negd means nothing else.)) denotes a poor man, as one who desires that which is indispensable to the support of life; the caper is accordingly called aviyonah, as being appetitiva, i.e., exciting to appetite for food, and the meaning will not be that the old man is like a caper-berry which, when fully ripe, bursts its husks and scatters its seed (Rosenm., Winer in his R. W., Ewald, Taylor, etc.), as also the lxx, Symm. (καὶ διαλυθῇ ἡ ἐπίπονος, i.e., as Jerome translates it, et dissolvetur spiritus fortitudo, perhaps ἐπίτονος, the strength or elasticity of the spirit), and Jerome understand the figure; but since it is to be presupposed that the name of the caper, in itself significant, will also be significant for the figure: capparis est irrita sive vim suam non exerit (ותפר as inwardly trans. Hiph. of פרר, to break in pieces, frustrate), i.e., even such means of excitement as capers, these appetite-berries, are unable to stimulate the dormant and phlegmatic stomach of the old man (thus e.g., Bullock). Hitzig, indeed, maintains that the cessation of the enjoyment of love in old age is not to be overlooked; but (1) the use of artificial means for stimulating this natural impulse in an old man, who is here described simply as such, without reference to his previous life and its moral state, would make him a sensualist; and (2) moral statistics show that with the decay of the body lust does not always (although this would be in accordance with nature, Gen 17:17; Rom 4:19) expire; moreover, the author of the Book of Koheleth is no Juvenal or Martial, to take pleasure, like many of his interpreters, in exhibiting the res venereae. Ecc 12:5 And in view of the clause following, the ceasing from nourishment as the last symptom of the certain approach of death is more appropriate than the cessation from sexual desire: "For," thus the author continues after this description of the enfeebled condition of the hoary old man, "man goeth to his everlasting habitation, and the mourners go about the streets." One has to observe that the antequam of the memento Creatoris tui in diebus junvetutis tuae is continued in Ecc 12:6 and Ecc 12:7. The words 'ad asher lo are thrice repeated. The chief group in the description is subordinated to the second 'ad asher lo; this relation is syntactically indicated also in Ecc 12:4 by the subjective form ויקום, and continues logically in Ecc 12:5, although without any grammatical sign, for ינאצו and ותפר are indicative. Accordingly the clause with כּי, Ecc 12:5, will not be definitive; considerately the accentuation does not begin a new verse with כּי: the symptoms of marasmus already spoken of are here explained by this, that man is on his way to the grave, and, as we say, has already one foot in it. The part. חלך is also here not so much the expression of the fut. instans (iturus est), like Ecc 9:10, as of the present (Venet.: ἄπεισι); cf. Gen 15:2, where also these two possible renderings stand in question. "Everlasting house" is the name for the grave of the dead, according to Diodorus Sic. i. 51, also among the Egyptians, and on old Lat. monuments also the expression domus aeterna is found (vid., Knobel); the comfortless designation, which corresponds (Note: The Syr. renders beth 'olam by domus laboris sui, which is perhaps to be understood after Job 3:17.) to the as yet darkened idea of Hades, remained with the Jews in spite of the hope of the resurrection they had meanwhile received; cf. Tob. 3:6; Sanhedrin 19a, "the churchyard of Huṣal;" "to be a churchyard" (beth 'olam); "at the door of the churchyard" (beth 'olam), Vajikra rabba, c. 12. Cf. Assyr. bit 'idii = עד בּית of the under-world (Bab.-Assyr. Epic, "Hllenfahrt der Istar," i. 4). The clause following means that mourners already go about the streets (cf. סבב, Sol 3:3, and Pil. Sol 3:2; Psa 59:7) expecting the death of the dying. We would say: the undertaker tarries in the neighbourhood of the house to be at hand, and to offer his services. For hassophdim are here, as Knobel, Winz., and others rightly explain, the mourners, saphdanin (sophdanin), hired for the purpose of playing the mourning music (with the horn שיפורא, Mod katan 27b, or flute, חלילים, at the least with two, Kethuboth 46b; cf. Lat. siticines) and of singing the lament for the dead, qui conducti plorant in funere (Horace, Poet. 433), along with whom were mourning women, מקוננות (Lat. praeficae) (cf. Buxtorf's Lex. Talm. col. 1524 s.), - a custom which existed from remote antiquity, according to Sa2 3:31; Jer 34:5. The Talm. contains several such lamentations for the dead, as e.g., that of a "mourner" (ההוא ספדנא) for R. Abina: "The palms wave their heads for the palm-like just man," etc.; and of the famed "mourner" Bar-Kippuk on the same occasion: "If the fire falls upon the cedar, what shall the hyssop of the walls do?" etc. (Mod katan 25b) (Note: Given in full in Wiss. Kunst Judenth. p. 230ff. Regarding the lament for the dead among the Haurans, vid., Wetzstein's treatise on the Syrian Threshing-Table in Bastian's Zeitsch. fr Ethnologie, 1873.) - many of the ספנים were accordingly elegiac poets. This section of Ecc 12:5 does not refer to the funeral itself, for the procession of the mourners about the bier ought in that case to have been more distinctly expressed; and that they walked about in the streets before the funeral (Isa 15:3) was not a custom, so far as we know. They formed a component part of the procession following the bier to the grave in Judea, as Shabbath 153a remarks with reference to this passage, and in Galilee going before it; to mourn over the death, to reverse it, if possible, was not the business of these mourners, but of the relatives (Hitz.), who were thus not merely called הסופדים. The Targ. translates: "and the angels will go about, who demand an account of thee, like the mourning singers who go about the streets, to record what account of thee is to be given." It is unnecessary to change כּסופד into כּספר (intar scribarum). According to the idea of the Targumist, the sophdim go about to collect materials for the lament for the dead. The dirge was not always very scrupulously formed; wherefore it is said in Berachoth 26a, "as is the estimate of the dead that is given, so is the estimate of the mourners (singers and orators at the funeral), and of those who respond to their words." It is most natural to see the object of the mourners going about in their desire to be on the spot when death takes place. (Note: The Arab. funeral dirge furnishes at once an illustration of "and the mourners go about the streets." What Wetzstein wrote to me ought not, I believe, to be kept from the reader: "In Damascus the men certainly take part in the dirge; they go about the reservoir in the court of the house along with the mourning women, and behave themselves like women; but this does not take place in the villages. But whether the 'going about the streets' might seem as an evidence that in old times in the towns, as now in the villages, the menaṣṣa (bed of state) was placed with the mourning tent in the open street without, is a question. If this were the case, the sôphdim might appear publicly; only I would then understand by the word not hired mourners, but the relatives of the dead." But then מטּה, as at Psa 26:6 מזבח, ought to have been joined to סבב as the object of the going about.)