Ecclesiastes 3:21

spirit. Hebrew. ruach. App-9 .

of man. Hebrew "of the sons of Adam". See notes on verses: Ecclesiastes 3:3 , Ecclesiastes 3:10 , Ecclesiastes 3:13 ; Ecclesiastes 1:13 .

that goeth, &c. This is mentioned as one of the emendations of the Sopherim, though it is not included in the official lists (see App-33 ). The primitive Text read the letter He (= H) as an interrogative, "whether it go" (Compare Ecclesiastes 2:19 ; Ecclesiastes 6:12 ). The Chaldee, Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, Luther, Geneva, and Revised Version follow this reading. Another school took the He (= H) as the article pronoun and read "that goeth", &c, thus avoiding a supposed objection to its public reading. This was followed by Coverdale, the Bishops' Bible, and the Authorized Version. It is therefore the Figure of speech Erotesis ( App-6 ), leaving the question to he answered at the end of the book (Ecclesiastes 12:7 ).