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Selected Verse: Ecclesiates 2:17 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
Ec 2:17 |
King James |
Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
Disappointed in one experiment after another, he is weary of life. The backslider ought to have rather reasoned as the prodigal (Hos 2:6-7; Luk 15:17-18).
grievous unto me-- (Job 10:1). |
Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
"The life became hateful to me; for the work which man accomplsihes under the sun was grievous to me: because all is vain and windy effort." He hated life; and the labour which is done under the sun, i.e., the efforts of men, including the fate that befalls men, appeared to him to be evil (repugnant). The lxx translate: πονηρὸν επ ̓ ἐμέ; the Venet.: κακὸν ἐπ ̓ ἐμοί; and thus Hitzig: as a woeful burden lying on me. But עלי רע is to be understood after tov al, Est 3:9, etc., cf. Psa 16:6, and as synon. with בּעיני or לפני (cf. Dan. 3:32), according to which Symmachus: κακὸν γάρ μοι ἐφάνη. This al belongs to the more modern usus loq., cf. Ewald, 217i. The end of the song was also again the grievous ceterum censeo: Vanity, and a labour which has wind as its goal, wind as its fruit. |
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
Life - My life was a burden to me. Is grievous - All human designs and works are so far from yielding me satisfaction, that the consideration of them increases my discontent. |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
Therefore I hated life - את החיים et hachaiyim, the lives, both of the wise, the mad man, and the fool. Also all the stages of life, the child, the man, and the sage. There was nothing in it worth pursuing, no period worth re-living and no hope that if this were possible I could again be more successful. |
1 My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.
7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.
6 The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.
9 If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed: and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king's treasuries.