Ecclesiastes 7:18 - Exposition

It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand. The pronouns refer to the two warnings in Ecclesiastes 7:16 and Ecclesiastes 7:17 against over-righteousness and over-wickedness. Koheleth does not advise a man to make trial of opposite lines of conduct, to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that from a wide experience lie may, like a man of the world, pursue a safe course; this would be poor morality , and unmeet for the stage at which his argument has arrived. Rather he advises him to lay to heart fire cautions above given, and learn from them to avoid all extremes. As Horace says ('Epist.,' 1.18. 9)—

"Virtus est medium vitiorum et utrinque reductum."

"Folly, as usual, in extremes is seen,

While virtue nicely hits the happy mean."

(Howes.)

The Vulgate has interpolated a word, and taken the pronoun as masculine, to the sacrifice of the sense and connection: Bonum est te sustentare justum, sed el ab illo ne subtrahas manum tuam , " It is good that thou shouldst support the just man, nay, from him withdraw not thy hand." For he that feareth God shall come forth of them all ; shall escape both extremes together with their evil re-suits. The fear of God will keep a man from all excesses. The intransitive verb yatsa , "to go forth," is here used with an accusative (comp. Genesis 44:4 , which, however, is not quite analogous), as in Latin ingrediurbem (Livy, 1:29). Vulgate, Qui timet Deum nihil negligit . So Hitzig and Ginsburg, " Goes , makes his way with both," knows how to avail himself of piety and wickedness, which, as we have seen, is not the meaning. St. Gregory, indeed , who uses the Latin Version, notes that to fear God is never to pass over any good thing that ought to be aerie ('Moral.,' 1.3); but he is not professing to comment on the whole passage. Wright, after Delitzsch, takes the term "come out of" as equivalent to "fulfill," so that the meaning would be , "He who fears God performs all the duties mentioned above, and avoids extremes," as Matthew 23:23 , "These ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone." But this is confessedly a Talmudic use of the verb; and the Authorized Version may be safely adopted. The Septuagint gives, "For to them that fear God all things shall come forth well."