Pengkhotbah 7:6

7:6 For like the crackling of quick-burning thorns ¹  under a cooking pot,

so is the laughter of the fool.

This kind of folly ²  also is useless. ³ 

Pengkhotbah 8:2

8:2 Obey the king’s command, ⁴ 

because you took ⁵  an oath before God ⁶  to be loyal to him. ⁷ 

Pengkhotbah 8:4

8:4 Surely the king’s authority ⁸  is absolute; ⁹ 

no one can say ¹⁰  to him, “What are you doing?”

[7:6]  ¹ tn The term “thorns” (הַסִּירִים, hassirim) refers to twigs from wild thorn bushes which were used as fuel for quick heat, but burn out quickly before a cooking pot can be properly heated (e.g., Pss 58:9; 118:12).

[7:6]  ² tn The word “kind of folly” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:6]  ³ tn It is difficult to determine whether the Hebrew term הֶבֶל (hevel) means “fleeting” or “useless” in this context. The imagery of quick-burning thorns under a cooking pot is ambiguous and can be understood in more than one way: (1) It is useless to try to heat a cooking pot by burning thorns because they burn out before the pot can be properly heated; (2) the heat produced by quick-burning thorns is fleeting – it produces quick heat, but lasts only for a moment. Likewise, the “laughter of a fool” can be taken in both ways: (1) In comparison to the sober reflection of the wise, the laughter of fools is morally useless: the burning of thorns, like the laughter of fools, makes a lot of noise but accomplishes nothing; (2) the laughter of fools is fleeting due to the brevity of life and certainty of death. Perhaps this is an example of intentional ambiguity.

[8:2]  ⁴ tc The Leningrad Codex (the basis of BHS) reads אֲנִי (’ani, 1st person common singular independent personal pronoun): “I obey the king’s command.” Other medieval Hebrew mss and all the versions (LXX, Vulgate, Targum, Syriac Peshitta) preserve an alternate textual tradition of the definite accusative marker אֶת־ (’et) introducing the direct object: אֶת־פִּי־מֶלֶךְ שְׁמוֹר (’et-pi-melekh shÿmor, “Obey the command of the king”). External evidence supports the alternate textual tradition. The MT is guilty of simple orthographic confusion between similar looking letters. The BHS editors and the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project adopt אֶת־ as the original reading. See D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 3:582–83.

[8:2]  ⁵ tn The phrase “you took” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

[8:2]  ⁶ tn The genitive-construct שְׁבוּעַת אֱלֹהִים (shÿvu’at ’elohim, “an oath of God”) functions as a genitive of location (“an oath before God”) or an adjectival genitive of attribute (“a supreme oath”).

[8:2]  ⁷ tn The words “to be loyal to him” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[8:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “word.”

[8:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “supreme.”

[8:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Who can say…?”