Psalm 109.-The plural Dy, in Ecclesiastes 5. 1 (2), is the fiftieth in the list of words said by Delitzsch to indicate lateness: 'Meattim, v. I; a plur. only at Ps. cix. 8.' Yet the fact, thus briefly stated by Delitzsch as an argument against, is on the contrary an argument in favour of the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes. Even apart from the testimony of Acts 1. 16, the title is as clearly borne out by the style and composition of Psalm 109 as is the title of any other Psalm ascribed to David. Hence the circumstance that, whereas the singular y occurs above ninety times in the Old Testament, the plural y is common and peculiar to Psalm 109. 8 and Ecclesiastes 5. 1 is a fact which bears. a testimony of its own to the truthfulness of the Besides דברי קהלת בן-דוד ,1 .title in Ecclesiastes I the verbal coincidence afforded by Doy, there is still further a striking coincidence in the manner in which the word is used in both passages: PSALM 109. 8. Let his days be few. יהיו ימיו מעטים יהיו דבריך מעטים: Names of God. One of the most marked points of difference between Solomon's Proverbs and Ecclesiastes is in the use of the names of God. The theocratic name is never used in Ecclesiastes. Yet it occurs eighty-five times in the Proverbs of Solomon; and whereas in these proverbs God is called only four times (2. 5, 17, 3. 4, 25. 2), he is called forty times in Ecclesiastes, and 130 The Tetragrammaton. is seldom or never spoken of under any other designation, except 78, thy Creator, in 12. 1. Yet what is thus, from one point of view, a wide dissimilarity, is, from another point of view, a close coincidence. Each book is characterised by a systematic uniformity regularly kept up within the book from beginning to end, in the way in which an author, having a special reason for using one name in one of his writings and another in another, might purposely use each name to the exclusion of the other. While in such a case there might be clear evidence of design or fixed plan within the limits of each book, the coincidence, in respect of the two books as compared with each other, would be entirely undesigned, and directly contrary to the kind of coincidence which an imitator would produce. The first book of the Psalter (Psalms 1-41), like the Proverbs of Solomon, is characterised by mm, and the second book (Psalms 42-72), like Ecclesiastes, by D. Yet this circumstance is in no way inconsistent with the ascription of most of the Psalms in each book (as, for instance, Psalms 14 and 53) to David as their author. Now, in Solomon's Proverbs and in Ecclesiastes, as in Psalms 1-72, the one name or the other is obviously used with discriminating precision. The author of the Proverbs wrote with direct reference to God as the God of Israel, and to that theocratic rule of which Solomon, like his father before him, was the pledged defender. Hence, taking up the theme which David had inculcated in Psalm 34. 12 (11), Solomon introduced, as the keynote of his Proverbs, (1. 7) that mm ns fear of Jehovah, which is ny the beginning of knowledge. Accordingly he designated God almost exclusively by the tetragrammaton-D being found only four times (2. 5, 17, 3. 4, 25. 2). In so far as the occurrence of ' in these four passages is concerned, it may be observed that D has, in 2. 17, what never takes-a pronominal suffix, and is used as the correlative of אלהים in 2. 5, of DT8, man, in 3. 4, and of Dp, kings, in 25. 2. 2. 17. Who forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the 5. Then shalt thou understand the fear of JEHOVAH, and find the knowledge of GOD. 3. 4. So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of GOD and MAN. 25. 2. It is the glory of GOD to conceal a matter, and the glory of KINGS to search out a matter. Throughout Ecclesiastes, however, the Preacher deals with man as man, his observations extending far beyond the commonwealth of Israel to all the living which walk under the sun.'' Hence there is scarcely any trace of Judaism in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Even in such passages as 4.17 to 5.6 (5.1-7), 8. 2, 10, 9. 2, 12. 1, the references to the worship of God are general rather than specific; and it is of God as, the correlative of N, that the Preacher speaks. Accordingly there is no occasion for the introduction of the theocratic name '; and as the Almighty is therefore never called JEHOVAH, SO Israel, the correlative of Jehovah, is never mentioned except once (I. 12), for the authentication of the writer as an individual king. 132 Diversity and Coincidence. And it may be here noticed incidentally in passing, as an interesting coincidence, that Israel is mentioned once, and only once, in each of the three books ascribed to Solomon, namely, in Proverbs 1. 1, Ecclesiastes 1. 12, and Canticles 3. 7. It may be further observed that Ecclesiastes is the only canonical book in which God is called And while .יהוה without being called also אלהים indeed in the brief prophecies of Obadiah and Nahum, God is conversely called without being called be, yet the fact that in a book of the dimensions of Solomon's Proverbs God is called eighty-five times, and only four times, and this either along with m (2. 5), or in circumstances in which could scarcely have been used, is a fact which has its counterpart only in the universality with which, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, the name D is used to the exclusion of . Surely this circumstance, which is at once a marked diversity and a marked coincidence, tells a tale of its own in favour of identity of authorship. Man, Woman: MUN, WIN, DIN. MAN, in his diversified works, and labour, and experience, and relations to God and to his fellowmen, is the great theme of the Book of Ecclesiastes. The Preacher introduces his subject by asking a question which he immediately proceeds to answer in detail throughout the treatise. 'What profit hath MAN (DN) in all his labour which he laboureth under the sun?' Accordingly The Preacher's Theme. 133 the scope of the Preacher's inquiry leads him to deal not only with human nature in the abstract, but also with human nature in the concrete as actually developed in the life and circumstances and conduct of different men individually, whether toiling hard for their daily bread, or succeeding to the fruits of the labour of others. All the time however, the Preacher's theme is, not , but DN (2. 21-26), so that the substitution of s for DN wherever man in the abstract culminates in man in the concrete would be out of keeping with the thread of the discourse, and would tend to incoherence and obscurity rather than to precision, especially where the reference is not to some specific person who might have been named, but to every individual whom the description suits. The occurrence of ws in the few passages (five in number) where it does occur may be easily accounted for. In not one of them does it interfere with the Preacher's train of reasoning about -: אדם maz as (1) The first is 1. 8: 'All things are full of weariness; A MAN cannot utter them.' Here the main reference is, not to man, and while perhaps ; יגעים as being כל הדברים,but to all things rather DN might not have been inadmissible, the use of than to denote the individual man who finds his power of utterance inadequate for the occasion is peculiarly appropriate, and in no way out of harmony with what is said of DN elsewhere throughout the treatise. (2) In 4. 4, the only passage where neighbour, occurs in Ecclesiastes, the phrase is in strict conformity with the ancient and almost universal Hebrew usage according to which, in the phrase a man and his neighbour, or one and another, y takes איש but אדם as its correlative, not איש מרעהו These words |