The Chronicles and Ecclesiastes. 89 (12.) Knowledge, yvwvois, ovveídnois, Madda' y. There is yet in the passage quoted in page 83, from the Chronicles, one other word which may be specially noticed in connection with the authorship of Ecclesiastes, namely the verbal noun, found thrice in 2 Chronicles 1. 10, 11, 12, where it is recorded that Solomon said to God, and that God gave him what he thus asked. Now since the Chronicles, as a compilation (though not in the several parts of which they are composed), constitute one of the latest books in the canon, and since occurs nowhere else, except in Daniel (1. 4, 17), which is likewise late, and in Ecclesiastes 10. 20, the impugners of the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes assume, without any evidence to support their assumption, that is late, and therefore cannot have been used by Solomon in the prayer ascribed to him in 2 Chronicles I. 8-10, and that consequently the Book of Ecclesiastes cannot have been written by Solomon. Yet there is not a shred of evidence either direct or presumptive to warrant the supposition that is not as old as the days of Solomon. Though is not found in those parts of the Hebrew Scriptures which are indisputably early, other words of the same etymological formation are found in Solomonic and even in early Hebrew. Being formed from y, after the analogy of nouns 90 Evidence of the Solomonic Authorship. ) in derived from verbs beginning with, resembles 702, (from 7p) in 1 Kings 7. 9, pp (from Leviticus 26. 21, Numbers 11. 33, Proverbs 20. 30, and elsewhere, a (from ) in Joshua 4. 3, 9, ) in Genesis 34. 12, 16, 19. 6, 21. 14. and elsewhere, and in (from Numbers 18. 11, Proverbs 18. Even what Delitzsch says of p in his long list, already mentioned in page 31, is adverse to his own argument, rather than favourable to it'Madda', x. 20; elsewhere only in the Chronicles and Daniel; Targum ." Yet the difference between y of Ecclesiastes and of the Targum and of the Chaldee in Daniel 2. 21, 4. 31, 33 (34, 36), 5. 12, is not less than the difference between and the ancient ny of Genesis 2. 9, 17, which some deniers of the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes specify as the word likely to have been used by Solomon. Now лy does occur in the Book of Ecclesiastes, being found in it no fewer than seven times (1.16, 18, 2. 21, 26, 7. 12, 9. 10, 12. 9), besides being found above thirty times in Solomon's Proverbs, and even in Daniel 1. 4, alongside of y,- "" Yet (as Delitzsch himself observes of лл, раge 37), ny, though it might have suited 2 Chronicles I. 10, 11, 12, would scarcely have suited Ecclesiastes 10. 20, where, says Dr. Pusey, in the Notes to his Sixth Lecture on Daniel the Prophet, is not "knowledge," but "the place of knowledge," "conscience." Though there be thus some latitude in the signification of 1, represented in the Septuagint by σúveσis in Daniel ומביני מדע Identity of Words. 91 1. 17, 2 Chronicles 1. 10, 11, 12, by ovveídnous in Ecclesiastes 10. 20, and by opóvnois in Daniel 1. 4, this latitude is not greater than the latitude of signification with which the verb y, to know, is used throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Hence the use of the word by Solomon in that portion of his memorable prayer in early life which is peculiar to 2 Chronicles-(other portions of the prayer being peculiar to the more copious record in 1 Kings 3.)-and the subsequent use of the same word in Ecclesiastes 10. 20, afford conjointly a delicate and valuable testimony to the Solomonic authorship of the Book of Ecclesiastes. What more natural than that he who, as king, asked and received y, should caution others against cursing the king in their own ? And whether, in so far as different shades of meaning are concerned, y in Solomon's prayer differs from D in Ecclesiastes 10. 20 as σúveσis differs from avveidnois or not, this may be averred, that there is assuredly no greater difference between the one and the other than the difference between the concrete ans in Song 8. 4, and the abstract an in verse 7 of the same chapter. TT (13.) Chance, Pega' v. From the verb y, pepigit, found above forty times in the Hebrew Scriptures, there are three derivatives, namely, the proper noun Pagiel, in Numbers 1. 13, 2. 27, 7. 72, 77, 10. 26; the verbal noun y, a mark, in Job 7. 20 only; and the noun ye, chance, which occurs only twice in the Hebrew 92 Solomon's Message to Hiram. Bible. As one of the two passages containing this rare noun is Ecclesiastes 9. 11, it is worthy of special notice that the other passage is found in Solomon's message to Hiram, king of Tyre, as recorded in 1 Kings 5. 17-20 (3-6). I KINGS 5. 18 (4). -No adversary and no evil CHANCE. ECCLES. 9. 11.-Time and CHANCE happeneth to them all. אין שטן ואין פגע רע : עת ופגע יקרה את כלם : The value of this coincidence is enhanced by the circumstance that, except in this word, these two passages are very unlike each other, both in themselves and in their contextual relations. Summary. This division of the treatise might be prolonged by the specification of some additional words. comparatively frequent in Ecclesiastes and other Solomonic Scriptures. Thus the root, to drop, besides appearing in the name Dalphon, in Esther 9. 7, is found in five passages, three of which are in the Solomonic Scriptures (Proverbs 19. 13, 27. 15, Ecclesiastes 10. 18), the two other passages being Psalm 119. 28, and Job 16. 20. So likewise, of the passages which contain the verb ya, to gush out, or its derivative noun, a fountain, nearly half (namely six out of fourteen) are in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes the verb ya in Proverbs 1. 23, 15. 2, 28, 18. 4, Ecclesiastes 10. 1, Psalms 19. 3 (2), 59. 8 (7), 78. 2, 94. 4, 119. 171, 145. 7; and the noun. yan in Ecclesiastes 12. 6 and Isaiah 35. 7, 49. 10. Verbal Coincidences. 93 The following paragraph, written with reference to the Book of Isaiah, yet applicable mutatis mutandis to the Book of Ecclesiastes as compared with the other Solomonic Scriptures, may be read in illustration of the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes as indicated by the numerous verbal coincidences pointed out in this division of the treatise. The paragraph is quoted from Note D in the Appendix to the Boyle Lectures for 1868, by Professor Stanley Leathes of King's College, London: 'The result of the facts thus presented to the reader may be summed up as follows:-We have here a number of verbal phenomena and coincidences, some of them remarkable and even striking instances of words found nowhere else but in the writings ascribed to Isaiah; but in these found indifferently in either part. Most of these words are so seldom used that the possibility of their having been seized upon as catch-words by an imitator is precluded; nor are they in their nature so noticeable that a pupil or a careful student, who had imbibed the peculiarities of Isaiah's mind or caught his style, would be likely to repeat them. They belong simply to the class of casual resemblances which would naturally be found in the works of one and the same mind, but which are hardly to be accounted for by imitation. In some cases we meet with words occurring many times in one part, and perhaps only once or twice in the other; but this fact is one which points to identity of authorship, inasmuch as an imitator or a writer of the same school would not employ a word only once or twice which his master had used frequently. That such a word is used at all, shows that it was one which the author was in the habit of using; it belonged to his vocabulary, though he may have had occasion to use it at some times more frequently than at others.' Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, |