Ecclesiastes 12:12

And further, by these, my son, be admonished,.... Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, may be intended, for whose sake, more especially, this book might be written; though it may take in every hearer of

Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity. A summary of the first part. Vanity of vanities. Resumption of the sentiment with which the book began (Ecclesiastes 1:2; 1 John 2:17). Verse 9.

By these; by these wise men, and their words or writings, of which he spoke in the foregoing verse. Be admonished; take your instructions from them, for their words are right and true, as he said, , whereas the words of other men are false, or at best doubtful. Of making many books there is no end; I could easily write many books and large volumes upon these matters, but that were an endless and needless work, seeing things necessary to be known and done lie in a little compass, as he informs us in the next verse. Much study; the reading of many books written by learned philosophers about these things; which it is more than probable were then extant, though since lost, which also Solomon, being so curious and inquisitive a person, would in all likelihood procure anti peruse as far as he hail opportunity. Is a weariness to the flesh; it wasteth a man’ s strength and spirits, and yet (which is implied) doth not satisfy the mind, nor sufficiently recompense the trouble and inconvenience to which man is exposed by it.

Ecclesiastes 12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books [there is] no end; and much study [is] a weariness of the flesh.Ver. 12. And further, by these, my son, be admonished.] By these divine directions and documents, contained in this short book, wherein thou shalt find fulness of matter in fewness of words Or "by these," that is, by the Holy Scriptures, which, according to some interpreters, are called in the former verse "lords of collections," because they are as lords paramount above all other words and writings of men that ever were collected into volumes. Odi ego meos libros, saith Luther, I do even hate the books set forth by myself, and could wish them utterly abolished, because I fear that by reading them some are hindered from spending their time in reading the sacred Scriptures. Of these it is that the Psalmist saith, "Moreover by them is thy servant warned" - or clearly admonished, as the word signifies - "and in doing thereof there is great reward." Of making many books there is no end.] Ambition and covetousness sets many authors awork in this scribbling age, Scribimus indocti doctique, &c. Presses are greatly oppressed, and "every fool will be meddling," that he may be a fool in print. Multi mei similes hoc morbo laborant, ut cum scribere nesciant, tamen a scribendo temperare non possunt: Many are sick of my very disease, saith Erasmus; that though they can do nothing worthy of the public, yet they must be publishing; hence the world so abounds with books, even to satiety and surfeit, many of them being no better than the scurf of scald and scabby heads. And much study is a weariness to the flesh.] Jerome renders it Labor carnis, a work of the flesh. They will find it so one day to their sorrow, that are better read in Sir Philip than in St Peter, in Monsieur Balsac’ s Letters than St Paul’ s Epistles. The Holy Bible is to be chiefly studied, and herein we are to labour even to being exhausted; to read till, being overcome with sleep, we bow down as it were to salute the leaves with a kiss, as Jerome exhorted some good women of his time. All other books, in comparison of this, we are to account as waste paper, and not to read them further than they some way conduce to the better understanding or practising of the things herein contained and commended unto our care. Luth. in Gen. Jerome ad Eust.

(12) Study.—The word occurs here only in the Old Testament; but is not a Talmudic word.

Verse 12. And farther, by these, my son, be admonished] Hear such teachers, and receive their admonitions; and do not receive the grace of God in vain. Of making many books there is no end] Two thousand years have elapsed since this was written; and since that time some millions of treatises have been added, on all kinds of subjects, to those which have gone before. The press is still groaning under and teeming with books, books innumerable; and no one subject is yet exhausted, notwithstanding all that has been written on it. And we who live in these latter times are no nearer an end, in the investigation of NATURE and its properties; of GOD, his attributes, his providence, his justice, and his mercy; of MAN, his animal life, his mode of nutrition and existence, and his soul and its powers; of JESUS, and the redemption by him; of ETERNITY, and what it implies as exhibiting to us the pains of the cursed, and the glories of the blessed. Of several of these we know no more than they who have lived five thousand years before us; nor do we know any thing certainly by the endless books that have been published, except what bears the seal of the God of heaven, as published in that word which was declared by his Spirit. And much study is a weariness of the flesh.] O how true is this! Let the trembling knees, the palsied hands, the darkened eyes, the aching heart, and the puzzled mind of every real student declare! And should none more worthy of the name of student be within reach to consult, the writer of this work is a proof in point.

12. And further, by these, my son, be admonished] Better, And for more than these (i.e. for all that lies beyond), be warned. The address “my son” is, as in Proverbs 1:1; Proverbs 2:1; Proverbs 10:15, that of the ideal teacher to his disciple. It is significant, as noted above, that this appears here for the first time in this book. of making many books there is no end] The words, which would have been singularly inappropriate as applied to the scanty literature of the reign of the historical Solomon, manifestly point to a time when the teachers of Israel had come in contact with the literature of other countries, which overwhelmed them with its variety and copiousness, and the scholar is warned against trusting to that literature as a guide to wisdom. Of that copiousness, the Library at Alexandria with its countless volumes would be the great example, and the inscription over the portals of that at Thebes that it was the Hospital of the Soul (ἰατρεῖονψυχῆς, Diodor. Sic. i. 49) invited men to study them as the remedy for their spiritual diseases. Conspicuous among these, as the most voluminous of all, were the writings of Demetrius Phalereus (Diog. Laert. v. 5. 9), and those of Epicurus, numbering three hundred volumes (Diog. Laert. x. 1. 17), and of his disciple Apollodorus, numbering four hundred (Diog. Laert. x. 1. 15), and these and other like writings, likely to unsettle the faith of a young Israelite, were probably in the Teacher’s thought. The teaching of the Jewish Rabbis at the time when Koheleth was written was chiefly oral, embodying itself in maxims and traditions, and the scantiness of its records must have presented a striking contrast to the abounding fulness of that of the philosophy of Greece. It was not till a much later period that these traditions of the elders were collected into the Mishna and the Gemara that make up the Talmud. Scholars sat at the feet of their teacher, and drank in his words, and handed them on to their successors. The words of the wise thus orally handed down are contrasted with the “many books.” much study is a weariness of the flesh] The noun for “study” is not found elsewhere in the O. T., but there is no doubt as to its meaning. What men gain by the study of many books is, the writer seems to say, nothing but a headache, no guidance for conduct, no solution of the problems of the universe. They get, to use the phrase which Pliny (Epp. vii. 9) has made proverbial, “multa, non multum.” We are reminded of the saying of a higher Teacher that “one thing is needful” (Luke 10:42). The words of Marcus Aurelius, the representative of Stoicism, when he bids men to “free themselves from the thirst for books” (Medit. ii. 3), present a striking parallel. So again, “Art thou so unlettered that thou canst not read, yet canst thou abstain from wantonness, and be master of pain and pleasure (Meditt. vii. 8).

12. And further — Hebrew, But beyond this, my son, take warning. All the books that can be made, and the most exhausting study, can make no one wiser.