Ecclesiastes 2:16 - Exposition

For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever ; Revised Version, more emphatically, for of the wise man , even as of the fool , there is no remembrance forever . This, of course, is not absolutely true. There are men whose names are history, and will endure as long as the world lasts; but speaking generally, oblivion is the portion of all; posterity soon forgets the wisdom of one and the folly of another. Where the belief in the future life was not a strong and animating motive, posthumous fame exercised a potent attraction for many minds. To be the founder of a long line of descendants, or to leave a record which should be fresh in the minds of future generations, these were objects of intense ambition, and valued as worthy of highest aspirations and best efforts. The words of classical poets will occur to our memory; e.g. Horace, 'Carm.,' 3.30.

"Exegi monumentum aere perennius …

Non omnis metier, multaque pars mei

Vitabit Libitinam."

Ovid, ' Amor .,' 1.15. 4—

"Ergo etiam, cum me supremus adederit ignis,

Vivam, parsquc mei multa supersteserit."

But Koheleth shows the vanity of all such hopes; they are based on sounds which experience proves to be unsubstantial. Though Solomon's own fame gives the lie to the statement received without limitation (comp. Wis. 8:13), yet his reflections might well have taken this turn, and the writer is quite justified in putting the thought into his mouth, as the king could not know how subsequent ages would regard his wisdom and attainments. Seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten . The clause has been variously translated. Septuagint, "Forasmuch as the coming days, even all the things, are forgotten;" Vulgate, "And future times shall cover all things equally with oblivion." Modern editors give, "Since in the days that are to come they are all forgotten;" "As in time past, so in days to come, all will be forgotten …. In the days which are coming [it will be said by-and-by], The whole of them are long ago forgotten.'" This is a specimen of the uncertainty of exact interpretation, where the intended meaning is well ascertained. " All " ( הכל ) may refer either to wise and foolish, or to the circumstances of their lives. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool. Better taken as one sentence, with an exclamation, How doth the wise man die with ( even as) the fool I (For "with" ( ira ), equivalent to "as," comp. Ecclesiastes 7:11 ; Job 9:26 ; Psalms 106:6 .) "How" ( אֵידּ ) is sarcastic, as Isaiah 14:4 , or sorrowful, as 2 Samuel 1:19 . The same complaint falls from a psalmist's lips, "He seeth that wise men die; the fool and the brutish together perish " ( Psalms 49:10 ). So David laments the death of the murdered leader, "Should Abner die as a fool dieth?" ( 2 Samuel 3:33 ). Plumptre considers that the author of the Book of Wisdom expands this view with the design of exposing its fallacy, and introducing a better hope ( Ecclesiastes 2:1-9 ). But that writer would not have designated Solomon's sentiments as those of " the ungodly" ( ἀσεβεῖς ), nor foisted these utterances of sensualists and materialists upon so honored a source. At the same time, it is only as being victims, nil miserantis Opel , the prey of the pitiless and indiscriminating grave, that the wise and foolish are placed in the same category. There is the widest difference between the death-beds of the two, as the experience of any one who has watched them will testify, the one happy with the consciousness of duty done honestly, however imperfectly, and bright with the hope of immortality; the other darkened by vain regrets and shrinking despair, or listless in brutish insensibility.