Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ecclesiastes 2:9

So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.

9. I was great, and increased ] There is something significant in the repetition of the formula of ch. Ecc 1:16. The king had surpassed all others in wisdom, he was now surpassing all others in magnificence.

also my wisdom remained with me ] The thought expressed seems to be, as in Ecc 2:3, that the seeker, though he plunged into the pleasures of a sensual life, was never altogether their slave. They were for him experiments which he watched as with an intellectual impartiality. Like Goethe, he analysed his voluptuousness, and studied his own faculties of enjoyment.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I was great, in riches, and power, and glory.

Also my wisdom remained with me; as yet I was not wholly besotted and seduced from God by these things, as I was afterwards; I still had the use of my reason, whereby I was capable of searching after and finding satisfaction, if it was to be had in those things.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

9. greatopulent (Gen 24:35;Job 1:3; see 1Ki10:23).

remained (Ec2:3).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

So I was great,…. Became famous for the great works wrought by him before mentioned;

and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; the Targum adds, “in riches”; but it seems rather to respect his fame and glory among men; though in general it may include his increase of wealth, power, and honour, and everything that contributed to his external happiness;

also my wisdom remained with me; the Targum adds, “and it helped me”; which he exercised and showed in the government of his kingdom, in the conduct of his family, in his personal deportment and behaviour; amidst all his pleasures, he did not neglect the study of natural knowledge, nor give himself up to sordid and sinful lusts; and so was a better judge of pleasure, whether true happiness consisted in it or not.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

“And I became great, and was always greater than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And all that mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I refused not any kind of joy to my heart; for my heart had joy of all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. And I turned myself to all the works which my hands had done, and to the labour which I had laboured to accomplish: and, behold, all was vain, and windy effort, and there was no true profit under the sun.” In vehosaphti there is here no obj. as at Ecc 1:16; the obj. is the gedullah , the greatness, to be concluded and thought of from vegadalti , “and I became great.” To the impers. for , 7 b, cf. 7 a, Ecc 1:16, Ecc 1:10. He became great, and always greater, viz., in the possession of all the good things, the possession of which seemed to make a man happy on this earth. And what he resolved upon, in the midst of this dulcis insania, viz., to deport himself as a wise man, he succeeded in doing: his wisdom forsook him not, viz., the means adapted to the end, and ruling over this colossal apparatus of sensual lust; , as e.g., at Psa 16:6, belongs to the whole clause; and , with , does not mean here to stand by, sustain (Herzfeld, Ewald, Elster), which it might mean as well as , Dan 12:1, but to continue, as Jerome, and after him, Luther, translates: sapientia quoquo perseveravit mecum ; the Targ. connects the ideas of continuance (lxx, Syr., Venet.) and of help; but the idea intended is that of continuance, for , e.g., does not refer to helping, but self-maintaining.

Ecc 2:10

Thus become great and also continuing wise, he was not only in a condition to procure for himself every enjoyment, but he also indulged himself in everything; all that his eyes desired, i.e., all that they saw, and after which they made him lust (Deu 14:26) (cf. 1Jo 2:16), that he did not refuse to them ( , subtrahere), and he kept not back his heart from any kind of joy ( , with min of the thing refused, as at Num 24:11, etc., oftener with min, of him to whom it is refused, e.g., Gen 30:2), for (here, after the foregoing negations, coinciding with immo) his heart had joy of all his work; and this, viz., this enjoyment in full measure, was his part of all his work. The palindromic form is like Ecc 1:6; Ecc 4:1. We say in Heb. as well as in German: to have joy in ( an , ), anything, joy over ( ber , ) anything, or joy of ( von , ) anything; Koheleth here purposely uses min, for he wishes to express not that the work itself was to him an object and reason of joy, but that it became to him a well of joy (cf. Pro 5:18; 2Ch 20:27). Falsely, Hahn and others: after my work ( min, as e.g., Psa 73:20), for thereby the causative connection is obliterated: min is the expression of the mediate cause, as the concluding sentence says: Joy was that which he had of all his work – this itself brought care and toil to him; joy, made possible to him thereby, was the share which came to him from it.

Ecc 2:11

But was this a – was this gain that fell to him a true, satisfying, pure gain? With the words uphanithi ani he proposes this question, and answers it. (to turn to) is elsewhere followed by expressions of motion to an end; here, as at Job 6:28, by , by virtue of a constructio praegnans : I turned myself, fixing my attention on all my works which my hands accomplished. La’asoth is, as at Gen 2:3 ( vid., l.c.), equivalent to perficiendo , carrying out, viz., such works of art and of all his labour. The exclamation “behold” introduces the summa summarum . Regarding , vid., Ecc 1:3. Also this way of finding out that which was truly good showed itself to be false. Of all this enjoyment, there remained nothing but the feeling of emptiness. What he strove after appeared to him as the wind; the satisfaction he sought to obtain at such an expense was nothing else than a momentary delusion. And since in this search after the true happiness of life he was in a position more favourable for such a purpose than almost any other man, he is constrained to draw the conclusion that there is no , i.e., no real enduring and true happiness, from all labour under the sun.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

(9-11) Kohleth carried out his plan of tempering his enjoyment with discretion, but while he took his fill of the pleasure that fell to his lot, he found in it no abiding profit. He goes on in the following paragraph to complain that the wisdom and other advantages he possessed in his search for happiness render his failure the more disheartening.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

9. So I was great The result of all these efforts, his wisdom standing by to guide him, was the unrivalled greatness of the “Grand Monarch.” He developed every resource of his kingdom, and by alliances and commerce enhanced his wealth.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Ecc 2:9. Also my wisdom remained with me The meaning is, that Solomon’s greatness had no way impaired his wisdom, as is too frequently the case.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Ecc 2:9 So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.

Ver. 9. Also my wisdom remained with me. ] Outward things are dead things, and cannot touch the soul, a lively spirit, unless by way of taint. Solomon, if not at first, yet at length, was fearfully tainted by them, making good that of the poet –

“Stultitiam patiuntur opes

Ardua res haec est, opibus non tradere mores,

Et cum tot Croesos viceris, esse Numam.”

– Martial.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)