Ecclesiastes 8:2

I [counsel thee] to keep the king's commandment,.... Or, "to observe the mouth of the king" (w); what he says, and do according to it when it is agreeably to the law of God, and according to the laws

I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God.

I counsel thee; which verb is necessarily understood to make the sense full and complete. See the like defects of speech, , &c. To keep the king’ s commandment; observe and obey all his commands; which is not to be understood universally, as if the king should have commanded them to deny or blaspheme God, or to worship idols, in which case every Christian man who reads and believes the Bible must needs confess that the Israelites especially were obliged to obey God rather than man, but only of such commands as are not contrary to the will of God. In regard of the oath of God; either, 1. Because of that oath which thou hast taken to keep all God’ s laws, whereof this of obedience to superiors is one; or, 2. Because of that covenant or oath of fealty and allegiance whereby thou hast engaged thyself to him, of which see 29:24 ,18. Though this may also be understood, and is by some learned interpreters taken, as a limitation of their obedience to kings, the words being thus rendered, as the Hebrew will very well bear, but according to the word of the oath of God; obey the king’ s commands, with this caution, that they be agreeable and not contrary to the laws of God, which thou art obliged by thy own and by thy parents’ oaths oft renewed to observe in the first place.

Ecclesiastes 8:2 I [counsel thee] to keep the king’ s commandment, and [that] in regard of the oath of God. Ver. 2. To keep the king’ s commandment.] Heb., Mouth - i.e., the express word of command. Go not here by guess or good intention, lest you speed as that Scotch captain did, who, not expecting orders from his superiors, took an advantage offered him of taking a fort of the enemy’ s; for which good service he was knighted in the morning, but hanged in the afternoon of the same day for acting without orders. And that in regard of the oath of God.] Thine oath of allegiance to thy prince. This Papists make nothing of. Pascenius scoffs King James for the invention of it. They can swear with their mouths, and keep their hearts unsworn, as she in the comedy. Mercatorum est stare iuramentis, say they at Rome. They can assoil men of their allegiance at pleasure, and slip their solemn oaths as easily as monkeys do their collars. And I would this were the sin of Papists only, and that there were not those found even amongst us that keep no oaths further than makes for their own turn, like as the Jews keep none, unless they swear upon their own Torah, brought out of their synagogues. Speed, 688. H γλωττωμομοχεν, φρηνανωμοτοςμενει. Weems.

(2) The unconnected “I” with which this verse begins, indicates that some word has early dropped out of the text. The italics with which our translators fill the gap no doubt give the right sense. It may be mentioned that Ecclesiastes is characterised by a superfluous use of the pronoun “I” after the verb, just as if in Latin we constantly had, instead of “dixi,” “dixi ego.” The counsels given here and Ecclesiastes 10:4 are not what we should expect from Solomon, but rather from one who had himself lived under a despotism. In regard of.—The words so translated are found again Ecclesiastes 3:18; Ecclesiastes 7:14; see also Psalms 45:5; Psalms 79:9; Psalms 110:4. The oath of God.—Unsuccessful attempts have been made to find in these words a definite historic reference. It is idle to quote the fact recorded by Josephus that Ptolemy Lagus secured the allegiance of his Jewish subjects by exacting an oath from them. This book has no connection with Egypt, and we need not look beyond the Bible for proof that an oath of vassalage was imposed on the Jews by their foreign masters, and that the breach of such an oath was regarded by the prophets as sin (2 Chronicles 36:13; Ezekiel 17:13; Ezekiel 17:16; Ezekiel 17:18). And there is reason to think that similar pledges had been given to native kings (1 Samuel 10:3; 1 Chronicles 29:24; 2 Chronicles 23:3). Of God.—2 Samuel 21:7; 1 Kings 2:43.

Verse 2. To keep the king's commandment] This sentence would be better translated, I keep the mouth of the king; I take good heed not to meddle with state secrets; and if I know, to hide them. Or, I am obedient to the commands of the laws; I feel myself bound by whatever the king has decreed. In regard of the oath of God.] You have sworn obedience to him; keep your oath, for the engagement was made in the presence of God. It appears that the Jewish princes and chiefs took an oath of fidelity to their kings. This appears to have been done to David, 2 Samuel 5:1-3; to Joash, 2Kg 11:17; and to Solomon, 1 Chronicles 29:24.

2. I counsel thee to keep the king’s commandment] The words in Italics “counsel thee,” have nothing answering to them in the Hebrew, and the grammar of the sentence does not allow us to translate with the Vulgate, “I keep the king’s commandment.” The pronoun on the other hand is emphatic and it introduces a series of precepts. We have therefore to supply a verb, I, for my part, say, which is practically equivalent to the English Version. The reference to the king is not without its bearing on the political surroundings of the writer and therefore on the date of the book. It is a natural inference from it that the writer, whether living in Palestine or elsewhere, was actually under a kingly government and not under that of a Satrap or Governor under the Persian King, and that the book must therefore have been written after the Persian rule had become a thing of the past. On this view Ptolemy Philopator has been suggested by one writer (Hitzig); Herod the Great by another (Grätz). See Introduction, ch. ii. The interpretation which explains the word as referring to the Divine King must be rejected as allegorising and unreal. The whole tone of the passage, it may be added, is against the Solomonic authorship of the book. The writer speaks as an observer studying the life of courts from without, not as a king asserting his own prerogative. Even on the assumption that Proverbs 25:2-6 came from the lips of Solomon, they are pitched in a very different key from that which we find here. and that in regard of the oath of God] It is not without significance as bearing on the question of the date and authorship of the book, that Josephus relates (Ant. xii. 1) that Ptolemy Soter, the Son of Lagus, carried into Egypt a large number of captives from Judæa and Samaria, and settled them at Alexandria, and knowing their scrupulous reverence for oaths, bound them by a solemn covenant to obey him and his successors. Such an oath the Debater bids men observe, as St Paul bade Christians obey the Emperor, “not only for wrath but also for conscience’ sake” (Romans 13:5). Submission was the part of a wise man seeking for tranquillity, however bad the government might be. Of such covenants between a people and their king we have an example in 1 Chronicles 29:24.

Oath - A reference to the oath of allegiance taken to Solomon at his accession to the throne (the margin of 1 Chronicles 29:24).

2. I — Would better be followed by say, therefore. To keep, is imperative — “keep.” The oath of God — An allusion to the oath of fealty sometimes sworn by subjects to rulers, as was done by the Jews