‏ Ecclesiastes 2:10

Ecc 2:10

Thus become great and also continuing wise, he was not only in a condition to procure for himself every enjoyment, but he also indulged himself in everything; all that his eyes desired, i.e., all that they saw, and after which they made him lust (Deu 14:26) (cf. 1Jo 2:16), that he did not refuse to them (אצל, subtrahere), and he kept not back his heart from any kind of joy (מנע, with min of the thing refused, as at Num 24:11, etc., oftener with min, of him to whom it is refused, e.g., Gen 30:2), for (here, after the foregoing negations, coinciding with immo) his heart had joy of all his work; and this, viz., this enjoyment in full measure, was his part of all his work. The palindromic form is like Ecc 1:6; Ecc 4:1. We say in Heb. as well as in German: to have joy in (an, ב), anything, joy over (über, על) anything, or joy of (von, מן) anything; Koheleth here purposely uses min, for he wishes to express not that the work itself was to him an object and reason of joy, but that it became to him a well of joy (cf. Pro 5:18; 2Ch 20:27). Falsely, Hahn and others: after my work (min, as e.g., Psa 73:20), for thereby the causative connection is obliterated: min is the expression of the mediate cause, as the concluding sentence says: Joy was that which he had of all his work - this itself brought care and toil to him; joy, made possible to him thereby, was the share which came to him from it.
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