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  • From: Martin Shields <enkidu AT bigpond.net.au>
  • To: b-hebrew Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ecclesiastes 3:11
  • Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:13:16 +1100

Bryant,

Thanks for sharing this information. I've already commented on the Greek and I don't think my understanding has changed, so I'll leave that. I will make a few comments on Stuart Weeks' understanding of the Hebrew.

None of these, I think, is readily construed in terms of double negation, and I
would take the point to be that God has 'put eternity in their heart, without
that which the human cannot discover (for himself) - the work which God has
done'. In other words, humans have been given incomplete knowledge, with a
deficit which they cannot fill for themselves. I think this fits in well with
8.17, which includes a rather similar statement. Overall, I would understand Q.
to be suggesting that God has given humans a glimpse of how much there is to
know, but not knowledge of his own actions, so that they are driven to occupy
themselves in a quest for an understanding which they are not, in fact, capable
of achieving.

In short, then, I don't think that there's a double negation here, but 'without'
+ a negative relative clause, all qualifying the preceding statement. The
relative clause is in the 'backward' form 'what is y ... (that is), x' (e.g. in
English 'I like what I'm reading, a book by ...).

First, it is worth noting that HALOT says of בלי that it means "2. negation, meaning without" and that I'd call the English preposition "without" a negative. To some extent this is just quibbling over terminology, but I don't think "negative" need be restricted to adverbs.

Second, if I correctly understand what Stuart Weeks has written, his proposal also differs from the primary two interpretations found among the majority of commentators on this verse. One major point of difference is that he appears to be proposing that the relative אשר has a prospective referent (i.e. it refers to the final clause: "what God has done from beginning to end," and then that has to be understood somewhat elliptically). Now I may have misunderstood him, but ISTM he's arguing that the verse means "[God] has put eternity in their mind/heart without (relative = '[knowledge of?] what God has done from beginning to end')..." So while I agree that opting for the normal sense of מבלי is appropriate, I think that an antecedent referent for the relative is far more likely (I'm trying to think of examples where the relative has a prospective referent, but none spring to mind). IIRC most commentators either take העלם to be the antecedent referent of אשר (as I do), or else treat ‏מבלי אשר לא as an expression somewhat akin to מבלי אין.

I think that the object marker on המעשה also counts against Weeks' reading, because he seems to be taking המעשה אשר השלהים as part of a prepositional phrase rather than the object of the verb ימצא.

Finally, although 8:17 sounds similar, I think it is saying something slightly different. Aside from this, Qohelet does have a propensity to contradict himself!

All this is not to say that there are not difficulties with any of the other views: I think there are difficulties with all interpretations of this verse that I've seen (including my own, I just don't think mine are insurmountable although the opinion of others will differ).

Regards,

Martin Shields,
Sydney, Australia.



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