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NOTES TO THE COMMENTARY I. E. Bickermann, Four Strange Books, 143. 2. Reading olLm 0':1701 for MT's OIU 0':1701, "go, there," a correction which assumes the early loss during copying of one of two similar adjacent letters (haplography). 3. John L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions (1971- 82), 3·34, 47· 4. Variants of this story appear in Koh. R.; Targum; Pes. de-R. Kah. 26b; and J. Sanhedrin 20C. 5. AEL 2.145· 6. The MT reads n1Jr.li17 (lehimmanot), "be counted," which does not make good sense here. NJPS paraphrases this as "be made good," but it is doubtful that this is the same as "be counted." By a minor emendation to n17lli17 (lehimmalot, from the root m-l-') the word means "be filled." 7. Thus Fox, A Time to Tear Duwn, 173-74. 8. In contrast, Alsheikh believes that all the sensual pleasures Koheleth describes are folly. Some commentators make a qualitative distinction between different kinds of pleasure. For example, C. D. Ginsburg, p. 276, says that Koheleth is denouncing "pleasure and mirth" while allowing "innocent cheerfulness and pleasure." But nothing indicates this distinction. Equally artificial is a distinction between pleasures passively received (which Koheleth supposedly affirms) versus actively pursued ones (which he supposedly condemns); thus H.-W. Hertzberg (Der Prediger [Knmmentar zum Alten Testament , neue Folge XVII, 4. Giitersloh, 1963J 86). 9. Discussed by Seow, 150-151. See further Seow, "Qohelet's Autobiography," in Fortunate the Eyes that See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman, ed. A. B. Beck et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 275-87. IO. Gibson, Textbook, 3.34. II. Septuagint and a few Heb. manuscripts have "(in exchange) for"; cf. 2.24; 3.13, 22; 5-17 (TransL). 12. For an analysis of Koheleth's use of mikreh, see Peter Machinist, "Fate, Miqreh, and Reason: Some Reflections on Qohelet and Biblical Thought," in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots, ed. Z. Zevit et al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns), 159-75· 13. As an NJPS note says, the literal meaning of laledit is "giving birth." But while the qal of the verb yalad elsewhere does have this meaning, the infinitive of a transitive verb can have an intransitive sense (e.g. litboab, "to be killed" in Jer. 2s:J4), and this is required by the parallelism. 14. Hengel,judaism and Hellenism, 1.124; references 2.84. 15. Version A, 11. I03-4. Translated from the Hebrew of A. Shaffer, Eretz Israel 8 (1967), 246-50 and 9 (1969), 159-60. 16. MT reads 01:1"01 0,.,:1.,1 0'7:1011 n1l:J7n :1.,:1 ':1, but 01:1"01 0,.,:11 0'7:1011 n1l:J7n :1.,:1 ':1 would make more sense. 17. The Septuagint reads 7:1X1 (va-'evel) "and in mourning" for MT's 7:1X' (yo'khel), "eats," hence "all his days are [spentJ in darkness and mourning" (TransL). 18. AEL 1.196-97. 19. A. Gianto, "Human Destiny in Emar and Qohelet," in Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom (BETL; Leuven, 1998), 473-79, at 475. 20. See Fox, A Time to Tear Down, 243-44. 21. Emendation (fromgam, "also," to 'im) yields: "(7b) And if the gullet is not sated, (8) what advantage has the wise man over the fool, he who knows how to get on in life over the pauper?" (TransL; Ginsberg). Or, to the same effect, the "if" can be understood as implicit, without emendation. 22. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus § 7. 23. This sentence requires a minor emendation, from 1'.,7 7:11' X71 01X, "man, and he cannot contend" to 1'17 7:11' X7 01X1, "and man cannot contend." 24. MT ve-ya'asem ka-tzel 'asher. The meaning of the Hebrew is obscured in NJPS, which (as a footnote explains) treats the second two words as a mistranslation of an underlying Aramaic be!,ul d- or me!,ul d-, "because." The hypothesized translator thought that fl in mtwl d- was the homograph that meant "shadow." It is, however, unlikely that the translator would confuse the extremely common conjunction me!,ul with a noun that would have the form I'll' or twl'. On the theory of Aramaic origin, see note II in the introduction. 25. The near-synonymity is shown by the fact that an ancient fragment from Qumran substitutes [sJimbah, "pleasure," for mishteh, "feasting" in v. 2. 26. The Koheleth fragment from Qumran (4QQoha) originally had some words before 7:7. They are now lost...

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