Ecclesiastes 1:5 - Exposition

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down . The sun is another instance of ever-recurring change in the face of an enduring sameness, rising and setting day-by-day, and resting never. The legendary 'Life of Abram' relates how, having been hidden for some years in a cave in order to escape the search of Nimrod, when he emerged from his concealment, and for the first time beheld heaven and earth, he began to inquire who was the Creator of the wonders around him. When the sun arose and flooded the scene with its glorious light, he at once concluded that that bright orb must be the creative Deity, and offered his prayers to it all day long. But when it sank in darkness, he repented of his illusion, being persuaded that the sun could not have made the world and be itself subject to extinction. And hasteth to his place where he arose; literally, and panteth (equivalent to hasteth , longeth to go ) to its place arising there ; i . e . the sun, sinking in the west, eagerly during the night returns to the east, duly to rise there in the morning. The "place" is the region of reappearance. The Septuagint gives, "The sun arises, and the sun sets, and draws ( ἕλκει ) unto its place;" and then carries the idea into the following verse: "Arising there, it proceedeth southward," etc. The Vulgate supports the rendering; but there is no doubt that the Authorized Version gives substantially the sense of the Hebrew text as accentuated. The verb שׁאף ( shaaph ), as Delitzsch shows, implies "punting," not from fatigue, but in eager pursuit of something; and all notions of panting steeds or morning exhalations are quite foreign from the conception of the passage. The notion which Koheleth desires to convey is that the sun makes no real progress; its eager punting merely brings it to the old place, there to recommence its monotonous routine. Rosenmüller quotes Catullus, 'Carm.,' Ecclesiastes 5:4-6 , on which, Doering cites Lotich; 'Eleg.,' 3.7. 23—

"Ergo ubi permensus coelum sol occidit, idem

Purpureo vestit lumine rursus humum;

Nos, ubi decidimus, defuncti muncre vitae,

Urget perpetua hmina nocte sopor."

But our passage does not contrast the revival of the sun every morning with man's eternal sleep in death.