Ecclesiastes 11:5

"As thou hast no knowledge what is the way of the wind, like as the bones in the womb of her who is with child; so thou knowest not the work of God who accomplisheth all." Luther, after Jerome, renders rightly: "As thou knowest not the way of the wind, and how the bones in the mother's womb do grow; so," etc. The clause, instar ossium in ventre praegnantis, is the so-called comparatio decurtata for instar ignorantiae tuae ossium, etc., like thy ignorance regarding the bones, i.e., the growth of the bones. כּעץ, (Note: The Targ. reads בעץ, and construes: What the way of the spirit in the bones, i.e., how the embryo becomes animated.) because more closely defined by 'בּב הם, has not the art. used elsewhere after כ of comparison; an example for the regular syntax (vid., Riehm, under Psa 17:12) is found at Deu 32:2. That man has no power over the wind, we read at Ecc 8:8; the way of the wind he knows not (Joh 3:8), because he has not the wind under his control: man knows fundamentally only that which he rules. Regarding the origin and development of the embryo as a _secret which remained a mystery to the Israel. Chokma, vid., Psychol. p. 209ff. For עצם, cf. Psa 139:15 and Job 10:11. Regarding meleah, pregnant (like the Lat. plena). With fine discrimination, the fut. תדע לא in the apodosis interchanges with the particip. יודע אינך in the protasis, as when we say: If thou knowest not that, as a consequence thou shalt also not know this. As a man must confess his ignorance in respect to the way of the wind, and the formation of the child in the mother's womb; so in general the work of God the All-Working lies beyond his knowledge: he can neither penetrate it in the entireness of its connection, nor in the details of its accomplishment. The idea 'oseh kol, Isa 44:24, is intenti…

In this chapter we have, I. A pressing exhortation to works of charity and bounty to the poor, as the best cure of the vanity which our worldly riches are subject to and the only way of making them turn to a substantial good account (Ecc 11:1-6). II. A serious admonition to prepare for death and judgment, and to begin betimes, even in the days of our youth, to do so (Ecc 11:7-10).

11:5 The activity of God is often unpredictable and mysterious. Our job is to work when we have the opportunity to do so (see Prov 12:11; 24:27).