Ecclesiastes 8:10

8:9-13 Solomon observed, that many a time one man rules over another to his hurt, and that prosperity hardens them in their wickedness. Sinners herein deceive themselves. Vengeance comes slowly, but it comes surely. A good man's days have some substance; he lives to a good purpose: a wicked man's days are all as a shadow, empty and worthless. Let us pray that we may view eternal things as near, real, and all-important.

(10) They had so done.— An ambiguity in translation of this verse arises from the fact that the word translated “so” is rendered “well” ( 2Kings 7:9 and elsewhere). Consequently some understand the verse, “The wicked receive an honourable burial, while those who have acted well are driven away from the holy place (viz. Jerusalem, Isaiah 48:2 ; Neh. xi, 1, 18) and forgotten.” But we prefer to translate the word “so” the second time, as well as the first, where it occurs in the verse; and to take the meaning to be that the oppressor’s prosperity is but temporary, for soon comes death, burial, and forgetfulness of his honour.

i. e., "I saw wicked (rulers) buried, who came into the world and went from the Holy place (the seat of authority and justice, Deuteronomy 19:17 ; 2 Chronicles 19:6 ), and they were forgotten in the city where they had so ruled to the hurt of their subjects: this - their death and oblivion - shews their lot also to be vanity." Others interpret the verse: "I have seen wicked men buried; and (others) came into the world, and from the Holy place they went out of the world, and were forgotten in the city where they had done rightly" (compare 2 Kings 7:9 ).

10. the wicked—namely, rulers (Ec 8:9). buried—with funeral pomp by man, though little meriting it (Jer 22:19); but this only formed the more awful contrast to their death, temporal and eternal, inflicted by God (Lu 16:22, 23). come and gone from the place of the holy—went to and came from the place of judicature, where they sat as God's representatives (Ps 82:1-6), with pomp [Holden]. Weiss translates, "Buried and gone (utterly), even from the holy place they departed." As Joab, by Solomon's command, was sent to the grave from the "holy place" in the temple, which was not a sanctuary to murderers (Ex 21:14; 1Ki 2:28, 31). The use of the very word "bury" there makes this view likely; still "who had come and gone" may be retained. Joab came to the altar, but had to go from it; so the "wicked rulers" (Ec 8:9) (including high priests) came to, and went from, the temple, on occasions of solemn worship, but did not thereby escape their doom. forgotten—(Pr 10:7).

And so, in like manner, or such another vanity or disorder, I saw the wicked; wicked princes or rulers, as the next clause limits this. Buried; die quietly in their beds, and afterward be buried with state and pomp, whereas in truth they deserved an untimely end, and no other than the burial of an ass. Who had come and gone; who had administered public justice and government, which is frequently signified by the phrase of coming in and going out before the people , as Numbers 27:17 Deu 31:2 . The seventy Jewish interpreters, whom some others follow, render the word, they were praised , applauded and adored, by the variation of one letter in the Hebrew word, which also is very like that letter which is in the text. The place of the holy; by which he understands either, 1. The holy city Jerusalem, or the Holy Land, where Israel dwelt; which may be added to aggravate the wickedness of such persons, from the obligations, and counsels, and examples which they had to do better things. Or, 2. The seat of majesty and judgment, which may well be called the place or seat of the Holy, i.e. of God, who is called the Holy One, Habakkuk 3:3 , and oft elsewhere, who is in a special manner present in and president over those places, whose work, and for whom, and in whose name and stead, magistrates act, who therefore are called gods; of all which see Exodus 22:28 Deu 1:17 1 Chronicles 29:23 Psalm 82:1 , &c.

And the throne or tribunal seems to be so called here, to aggravate their wickedness, who being sacred persons, and advanced by God into so high and sacred a place, betrayed so great a trust, and both practised and encouraged that wickedness which by their office they were obliged to suppress and punish. They were forgotten ; whereas they designed to spread and perpetuate their names and memories to succeeding ages, Psalm 49:11 . Where they had so done , i.e. come to and go from the place of the holy; where they lived in great splendour, and were buried with great magnificence; which might have kept up their remembrance at least in that place. This is also vanity ; that men should so earnestly thirst after and please themselves with worldly greatness and glory, which is so soon extinct, and the very memory of it quickly worn out of the minds of men.

10 . And so I saw the wicked buried ] The English version is scarcely intelligible, and as far as it is so, goes altogether astray. We must therefore begin with a new translation, And so I have seen the wicked buried and they went their way ( i. e. died a natural death and were carried to the grave); but from the holy place they departed ( i. e. were treated with shame and contumely, in some way counted unholy and put under a ban), and were forgotten in the city, even such as acted rightly. The verse will require, however, some explanation in details. In the burial of the wicked we have a parallel to the pregnant significance of the word in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, where “the rich man died and was buried” ( Luke 16:22 ). This, from the Jewish standpoint, was the fit close of a prosperous and honoured life (comp. 2 Chronicles 16:14 ; 2 Chronicles 26:23 ; 2 Chronicles 28:27 ; Jeremiah 22:18-19 ). It implied a public and stately ceremonial. The words “they are gone” are not, as some have thought, equivalent to “they have entered into rest” ( Isaiah 57:2 ), but, as in ch. Ecclesiastes 1:4 , are given as the way in which men speak respectfully of the dead as “gone” or “gathered to their fathers.” So the Latins said Abiit ad plures .

So we speak, half-pityingly, of the dead, “Ah, he’s gone!” The “holy place” may possibly mean the consecrated ground (I do not use the word in its modern technical sense) of sepulture, but there is no evidence that the term was ever so used among the Jews, and it is more natural to take it, as explained by the use of the same term in Matthew 24:15 , as referring to the Temple. The writer has in his mind those whose names had been cast out as evil, who had been, as it were, excommunicated, “put out of the synagogue” (as in John 9:22 ; John 12:42 ), compelled to leave the Temple they had loved and worshipped in, departing with slow and sorrowing tread (comp. Psalm 38:6 ; Job 30:28 ). And soon their place knows them no more. A generation rises up that knows them not, and they are forgotten in the very city where they had once been honoured. The reflection was, perhaps, the result of a personal experience. The Debater himself may have been so treated. The hypocrites whom he condemned (ch. Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 ) may have passed their sentence upon him as heretical, as some did afterwards upon his writings (see Introduction , ch. iii). If he was suspected of being in any way a follower of Epicurus, that would seem to them a sufficient ground for their anathemas.

Verses 10-15. - Section 6. Koheleth is troubled by apparent anomalies in God's moral government. He notes the prosperity of the godless and the misery of the righteous , God's abstention and the seeming impunity of sinners make men incredulous of Providence; but God is just in reward and punishment, as the end will prove. Meantime, returning to his old maxim, he advises men patiently to acquiesce in things as they are, and to make the best of life. Verse 10. - And so ( וּבְכֵן ); then, in like manner, under the same circumstances ( Esther 4:16 ). The writer notes some apparent exceptions to the law of retribution of which he has just been speaking, the double particle at the beginning of the verse implying the connection with the preceding statement. I saw the wicked buried . "The wicked" are especially the despots (ver. 9). These are carried to their graves with every outward honor and respect, like the rich man in the parable, who "died, and was buried" ( Luke 16:22 ). Such men, if they had received their due reward, far from having a pompous and magnificent funeral (which would befit only a good and honored life), would have been buried with the burial of an ass (comp. Isaiah 14:19 ; Jeremiah 22:19 ). So far the Authorized Version is undeniably correct. What follows is as certainly inaccurate as it is unintelligible. Who had come and gone from the place of the holy ; literally, and they came, and from the place of the holy they went .