Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ecclesiastes 1:15
[That which is] crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
15. That which is crooked ] The words are apparently a proverbial saying quoted as already current. The complaint is that the search after wisdom brings the seeker face to face with anomalies and defects, which yet he cannot rectify. The Hebrew words are not the same, but we may, perhaps, trace an allusive reference to the promise of Isa 40:4 that “the crooked shall be made straight,” and the Debater in his present mood looks on this also as a delusive dream. There is nothing left but to take things as they are and “accept the inevitable.” Comp. chap. Ecc 7:13, as expressing the same thought.
that which is wanting ] The second clause presents the negative aspect of the world’s defects as “crooked” did the positive. Everywhere, if there is nothing absolutely evil, there is an “incompleteness” which we cannot remedy, any more than our skill in arithmetic can make up for a deficit which stares us in the face when we look into an account, and the seeker had not as yet attained to the faith which sees beyond that incompleteness the ultimate completeness of the Divine order.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He saw clearly both the disorder and incompleteness of human actions (compare the marginal reference), and also mans impotence to rectify them.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Ecc 1:15
That which is crooked cannot be made straight.
Making the crooked straight
(with Isa 40:4):–Both these men gaze upon the affairs of human kind, and are afflicted with the sense of crookedness. It does not require much insight to perceive that much in human nature is marred and crooked, and life is gnarled and twisted. The world is a place of grand plans and poor executions, a realm of broken columns, snapped friendships, strained relationships. It abounds in crooked things. Both men pronounced the things crooked, but one said it in a despondency, the other said it in hope. One mans heart shrinks up in despair, the other mans expands in the strength of a great assurance. The two types belong to every age. They rub shoulders in common life. We meet them everywhere, the prophets of melancholy and the cheery bearers of glad tidings of great joy. There are always those who behold the crooked and see no prospect of rectification; and there are always those who see the crooked and also behold its ultimate correction. How do these contradictory conclusions arise? How can we explain the despondent judgment which anticipates no day of renewal? We are always very much inclined to seek our explanation in our natural temperaments. How frequently we hear this word in common life, I am naturally of a despondent turn of mind. There is certainly some truth in these explanations, hut when we seek for an excuse in our temperament, we are attended by grave and serious perils. It is possible to regulate our powers, by observing the law of balance. If a mans constitution has some ingredient in excess, he can restrain and control it by developing another ingredient. It is by the balance and antagonisms of our faculties that we shape our characters. Let us cultivate the opposite to our excesses. Or, let us exercise ourselves in some grace which will act as guardian upon our natural bias. I have said that both men saw the crooked things. Is that quite true? To a certain degree it is true, but the half remains unsaid. To see anything clearly in all its vivid relationships we must believe strongly. The Word of God proclaims that believing is seeing. Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see?. . . Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day. He saw it through the lens of faith. If we would have clear sight, we must have firm belief. If we desire to see things clearly in their far-reaching relationships, we must come to them with a confident faith. Koheleth had no faith, and therefore his sight was only partial. He beheld the crookedness; he did not see its infinite relationships. Isaiah believed in God, and with his faith-washed eyes he looked at the crookednesses of men with the vision of an optimist. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The crooked things straightened
It is easy enough to straighten some crooked things. Here, for instance, is a piece of paper. I can take it in my hand, and squeeze and crumple it all up till there is not one straight piece in it as big as your little-finger nail. And then I can spread it out on the table, and smooth it down, and make it just as straight again as ever it was. And just so, if I take a tender willow twig, I can wind it round my finger like a thread; then I can unwind it again, and it will come out as straight as ever. But let that willow twig remain crooked while it is growing for five or ten years, and then you may write on it the words of our text; for that which is crooked cannot be made straight.
I. We are all born with crooked hearts.
II. Like the tree or the clay, our hearts are having something done to them which will make it much harder to straighten what is crooked in them. With the tree, it is its growth that will make its crookedness hard to straighten. With the clay, it is the baking or burning of it. With ourselves, it is the exercising or practising of what is sinful in our hearts that will make it hard to straighten them. This world is Gods school. All the time spent in it is time spent at school. We are getting educated here for eternity. And when we form a wrong habit of thinking, or feeling, or acting, we are hardening a crooked point and fastening it upon our characters. And when we go out of the school of life,–that is, when we come to die and go into eternity,–then it will be true that that which is crooked cannot he made straight. And so it is with the gardener and his trees. While they are young and tender it is very easy to straighten them when they get crooked. But let them only grow crooked, and then what can he do with them?
III. The importance of keeping straight while we are getting educated. Did you ever know a person who had charge of a nursery of young trees? If you did, you might learn some very useful lessons from his example. The great object with him is to keep his trees in proper shape while they are growing. He walks about among them very often, and watches them closely. If he sees one getting crooked, he tries to straighten it. If merely bending it with his hands will not keep it straight, then he puts a stake in the ground, and ties the young tree to it, so as to keep it in a right position all the time it is growing. And if the gardener thinks it worth his while to take so much care and pains with the education of a mere tree, which, after all, will only last a few years, how much more careful should we be in educating our souls, which are to live for ever and ever! Did you ever go to a photographers to have your likeness taken? If you did, you remember how very careful he was to have you seated properly before he began to take it. Then, when everything was arranged just to suit him, he said, There now; keep just so for a little while, and well get a nice picture. Suppose, now, you had shut one eye just at that moment, and kept it shut for two or three minutes: what then? Why, you would have had the likeness of a one-eyed boy or girl. Or suppose you had twisted your face, or screwed up your mouth: why, you would have had a picture of yourself with a screwed-up mouth or a twisted face. Nothing in the world could prevent it. New, this world is Gods photograph office; and we are all staying here to have our likeness taken. While we are young the likeness is being taken of what we are to be as men and women. And all the time we are living here the likeness is being taken of what we shall be hereafter for ever.
IV. How can we get straight and keep straight till our likeness is finished? This is the most important question. Remember we are not straight, to begin with. Recollect that we are all born with crooked or sinful hearts. They must be made straight before they can be kept straight. How, then, can a crooked, sinful heart be made straight or good? We must take it to Jesus, and pray for Him to take away all that is wicked in it. Jesus is able to do this. But no one else besides Him can do it for us. But when our hearts are made straight, how are we to keep them straight? Two things are necessary for this:–we must get Jesus to help us, and we must help ourselves. We must get Jesus to help us. Without His help we can do nothing at all in this matter. But how will God help us here? By giving us His grace and His Holy Spirit. These are just the kind of help to us, in trying to keep our hearts straight, that the sun and rain are to the farmer in making his crops grow. But how are we to get this help from God? By earnest prayer. (R. Newton, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 15. That which is crooked cannot be made straight] There are many apparent irregularities and anomalies in nature for which we cannot account; and there are many defects that cannot be supplied. This is the impression from a general view of nature; but the more we study and investigate its operations, the more we shall be convinced that all is a consecutive and well-ordered whole; and that in the chain of nature not one link is broken, deficient, or lost.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That which is crooked cannot be made straight; all our knowledge serves only to discover our diseases and miseries, but is oft itself utterly insufficient to heal or remove them; it cannot rectify those confusions and disorders which are either in our own hearts and lives, or in the men and things of the world.
That which is wanting, to wit, in our knowledge, and in order to mans complete satisfaction and felicity, cannot be numbered; we know little of what we should or might know, or did know in the state of innocency, or shall know in the future life.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
15. Investigation (Ec1:13) into human ways is vain labor, for they are hopelessly”crooked” and “cannot be made straight” by it (Ec7:13). God, the chief good, alone can do this (Isa 40:4;Isa 45:2).
wanting (Da5:27).
numberedso as to makea complete number; so equivalent to “supplied” [MAURER].Or, rather, man’s state is utterly wanting; and that which iswholly defective cannot be numbered or calculated. The investigatorthinks he can draw up, in accurate numbers, statistics ofman’s wants; but these, including the defects in the investigator’slabor, are not partial, but total.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
[That which is] crooked cannot be made straight,…. By all the art and cunning, wisdom and knowledge of man, that he can attain unto; whatever he, in the vanity of his mind, may find fault with in the works of God, either of nature of providence, and which he may call crooked, it is not in his power to make them straight, or to mend them; see Ec 7:13. There is something which, through sin, is crooked, in the hearts, in the nature, in the principles, ways and works, of men; which can never be made straight, corrected or amended, by all the natural wisdom and knowledge of men, which shows the insufficiency of it: the wisest philosophers among men, with all their parade of wit and learning, could never effect anything of this kind; this only is done by the Spirit and grace of God; see Isa 42:16;
and that which is wanting cannot be numbered; the deficiencies in human science are so many, that they cannot be reckoned up; and the defects in human nature can never be supplied or made up by natural knowledge and wisdom; and which are so numerous, as that they cannot be understood and counted. The Targum is,
“a man whose ways are perverse in this world, and dies in them, and does not return by repentance, he has no power of correcting himself after his death; and a man that fails from the law and the precepts in his life, after his death hath no power to be numbered with the righteous in paradise:”
to the same sense Jarchi’s note and the Midrash.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The judgment contained in the words, “vanity and a striving after the wind,” is confirmed: “That which is crooked cannot become straight; and a deficit cannot be numerable,” i.e., cannot be taken into account (thus Theod., after the Syro-Hex.), as if as much were present as is actually wanting; for, according to the proverb, “Where there is nothing, nothing further is to be counted.” Hitzig thinks, by that which is crooked and wanting, according to Ecc 7:13, of the divine order of the world: that which is unjust in it, man cannot alter; its wants he cannot complete. But the preceding statement refers only to labour under the sun, and to philosophical research and observation directed thereto. This places before the eyes of the observer irregularities and wants, brings such irregularities and wants to his consciousness, – which are certainly partly brought about and destined by God, but for the most part are due to the transgressions of man himself, – and what avails the observer the discovery and investigation? – he has only lamentation over it, for with all his wisdom he can bring no help. Instead of ( vid., under ), was to be expected. However, the old language also formed intransitive infinitives with transitive modification of the final vowels, e.g., , etc. (cf. , Ecc 5:11).
Having now gained such a result in his investigation and research by means of wisdom, he reaches the conclusion that wisdom itself is nothing.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(15) Made straight.The verb occurs only in this book (Ecc. 7:13; Ecc. 12:9, set in order) and in Rabbinical Hebrew. So likewise that which is wanting is peculiar to this passage, and to later Hebrew.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
15. That which is crooked This refers to the discouraged state of the writer’s mind. It should be translated, That which is bowed cannot be set up. The effort at a philosophical view was vain, for it yielded no relief to his depression previously stated.
That which is wanting Most versions refer this to persons. “He who is gone, cannot be numbered,” and it is as a reason for what is just stated. The appalling and irremediable nature of death is the one thing that spoils all the comfort which philosophy might yield.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Ecc 1:15. And that which is wanting cannot be numbered Nor can men’s wants be numbered. For the first clause of this verse, see chap. Ecc 7:13. From the 12th to this verse, we have the second proof of the first proposition, taken from the various occupations of men in search of happiness, which Solomon had both opportunities to observe from his high station, and abilities to observe rightly, from the wisdom he was endowed with, Ecc 1:12-13. These he found to be such, that no lasting advantage could accrue from them to mankind; and this for two reasons; first, because that which is, or appears to be, wrong, cannot by their utmost efforts be redressed; secondly, because their wants are so many, that they are not able to number them, Ecc 1:14-15. This double consideration seems to point out a twofold distribution of the occupations of men, as they propose to themselves either to rectify what is wrong, or to satisfy their own wants: the one is the business of the philosopher, the other of the man of pleasure; and both subjects are immediately resumed; First, singly, in the next verses, and chap. Ecc 2:1-2 and then jointly, chap. Ecc 2:3-10 in order to be more particularly considered.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Ecc 1:15 [That which is] crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
Ver. 15. That which is crooked cannot be made straight. ] Most men are so wedded and wedged to their wicked ways, that they cannot be rectified but by an extraordinary touch from the hand of Heaven. Hesiod, speaking of God, saith that he can easily set crooked things straight, and only he. a Holy Melanchthon, being himself newly converted, thought it impossible for his hearers to withstand the evidence of the gospel; but after he had been a preacher a while, he complained, that ‘old Adam was too hard for young Melanchthon’; and yet, besides the singular skill and learning that God had given him – for the which he merited to be called the phoenix of Germany – Ad eum modum in hoc vitae theatro versatum Philippum Melanchthonem apparet, saith a friend and scholar of his – i.e., It well appeareth that Melanchthon was, Solomon-like, on this wise busied upon the theatre of his life, that, seeing and observing all he could, he made profit of everything, and stored his heart, as the bee doth her hive, out of all sorts of flowers, for the common benefit. Howbeit, he met with much crossness and crookedness that wrung mahy tears from him, as it did likewise from St Paul, Php 3:18 not in open enemies only, as Eccius and other Papists, but in professed friends, as Flaccius, Osiander, &c., who not only vexed him grievously while alive, but also fell foul upon him when he was dead, b as Zanchins complaineth. c Of all fowl, we most hate and detest the crows, and of all beasts the jackals, a kind of foxes in Barbary; because the one digs up the graves and devours the flesh, the other picks out the eyes of the dead. But to return to the text: sinful men grow aged and crooked with good opinions of themselves, and can seldom or never be set straight again. The Pharisee sets up his counter for a thousand pound, – “I am not as other men,” saith he, “nor as this publican”; he stands upon his comparisons, nay, upon his disparisons, and although he turn aside unto his crooked ways, as Samson did to his Delilah, yet he thinks much to be “led forth with the workers of iniquity,” but cries, “peace shall be upon Israel.” Psa 125:5 How many are there that, having “laden themselves with thick clay,” Hab 2:6 are bowed together, as he in the gospel was, Luk 13:11 and can in nowise lift up themselves! They neither can nor will ( O curvae in terras animae, &c. ), but are frample and foolish.
The Greek word for crooked, d comes of a Hebrew word that signifies a fool, e and every fool is conceited; he will not part with his bauble for the Tower of London. Try to straighten these crooked pieces, and they will sooner break than bend, venture all, than mend anything. Plato went thrice to Sicily to convert Dionysius, and could not do it. A wiser than Plato complains of a “perverse and crooked generation.” Deu 32:5 Act 2:40 Php 2:15 It is the work of God’s Spirit only, by his corrective and directive power, to set all to rights. Luk 3:5 Philosophy can abscondere vitia, non abscindere, – chain up corrupt nature, but not change it.
And that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
a P . – Hes.
b Melch. Adam in Vita Mel.
c Melanchthon. mortuus tantum, non ut blasphemus in Deum cruci affigitur. – Zanch. Miscel., Ep. Ded.
d S
e
f O
g Deteriorum magna est natio, boni singulares. – Cic. ad Attic.
h Lud. de Dieu. Euphor.
i Amama.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
crooked: Ecc 3:14, Ecc 7:12, Ecc 7:13, Job 11:6, Job 34:29, Isa 40:4, Lam 3:37, Dan 4:35, Mat 6:27
wanting: Heb. defect
Reciprocal: Job 23:13 – who can Isa 42:16 – crooked Joh 21:25 – that even
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1:15 [That which is] {k} crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is lacking cannot be numbered.
(k) Man is not able by all his diligence to cause things to go other than they do: neither can he number the faults that are committed, much less remedy them.