Prediger 9:4

"For (to him) who shall be always joined to all the living, there is hope: for even a living dog is better than a dead lion." The interrog. אשׁר מי, quis est qui, acquires the force of a relative, quisquis (quicunque), and may be interpreted, Exo 32:33; Sa2 20:12, just as here (cf. the simple mi, Ecc 5:9), in both ways; particularly the latter passage (Sa2 20:11) is also analogous to the one before us in the formation of the apodosis. The Chethı̂b יבחר does not admit of any tenable meaning. In conformity with the usus loq., Elster reads מי אשר יבחר, "who has a choice?" But this rendering has no connection with what follows; the sequence of thoughts fails. Most interpreters, in opposition to the usus loq., by pointing יבחר or יבּחר, render: Who is (more correctly: will be) excepted? or also: Who is it that is to be preferred (the living or the dead)? The verb בּחר signifies to choose, to select; and the choice may be connected with an exception, a preference; but in itself the verb means neither excipere nor praeferre. (Note: Luther translates, "for to all the living there is that which is desired, namely, hope," as if the text were יבחר מה אשׁר.) All the old translators, with right, follow the Kerı̂, and the Syr. renders it correctly, word for word: to every one who is joined (שותף, Aram. = Heb. חבר) to all the living there is hope; and this translation is more probable than that on which Symm. ("who shall always continue to live?") and Jerome (nemo est qui semper vivat et qui hujus rei habeat fiduciam) proceed: Who is he that is joined to the whole? i.e., to the absolute life; or as Hitzig: Who is he who would join himself to all the living (like the saying, "The everlasting Jew")? The expression ישׁ בּטּ does not connect itself so easily and directly with these two la…

Solomon, in a fret, had praised the dead more than the living (Ecc 4:2); but here, considering the advantages of life to prepare for death and make sure the hope of a better life, he seems to be of another mind. I. He shows the advantages which the living have above those that are dead, Ecc 9:4-6. 1. While there is life there is hope. Dum spiro, spero - While I breathe, I hope. It is the privilege of the living that they are joined to the living, in relation, commerce, and conversation, and, while they are so, there is hope. If a man's condition be, upon any account, bad, there is hope it will be amended. If the heart be full of evil, and madness be in it, yet while there is life there is hope that by the grace of God there may be a blessed change wrought; but after men go to the dead (Ecc 9:3) it is too late then; he that is then filthy will be filthy still, for ever filthy. If men be thrown aside as useless, yet, while they are joined to the living, there is hope that they may yet again take root and bear fruit; he that is alive is, or may be, good for something, but he that is dead, as to this world, is not capable of being any further serviceable. Therefore a living dog is better than a dead lion; the meanest beggar alive has that comfort of this world and does that service to it which the greatest prince, when he is dead, is utterly incapable of. 2. While there is life there is an opportunity of preparing for death: The living know that which the dead have no knowledge of, particularly they know that they shall die, and are, or may be, thereby influenced to prepare for that great change which will come certainly, and may come suddenly. Note, The living cannot but know that they shall die, that they must needs die. They know they are under a sentence of death; they…

9:4-6 The hope for enjoyment is only as alive as the one who is hoping. In this sense, it is better to be alive (cp. 6:3; 7:1).