What Happens in Qohelet 4:13-16

1. The Text Qohelet's anecdote about the foolish old king and his successors is full of ambiguities. The multiplicity of possibilities for resolving them has given rise to a considerable variety of interpretations. Nevertheless, most commentators agree that the point of the story is that wisdom's practical value is limited and transient. The following exegesis supports the gist of this reading but offers some new proposals as to the identification of the personages involved and the sequence of events. dw( rhzhl (dy )l r#) lyskw Nqz Klmm Mkxw Nksm dly bw+ .13 #r dlwn wtwklmb Mg yk Klml )cy Myrwsh tybm yk .14 #m#h txt Myklhmh Myyxh lk t) yty)r .15 wytxt dm(y r#) yn#h dlyh M( Mhynpl hyh r#) lkl M(h lkl Cq Ny) .16 xwr tw(rw lbh hz Mg yk wb wxm#y )l Mynwrx)h Mg


The Text
Qohelet's anecdote about the foolish old king and his successors is full of ambiguities.The multiplicity of possibilities for resolving them has given rise to a considerable variety of interpretations. 1 Nevertheless, most commentators agree that the point of the story is that wisdom's practical value is limited and transient.
The following exegesis supports the gist of this reading but offers some new proposals as to the identification of the personages involved and the sequence of events.
dw( rhzhl (dy )l r#) lyskw Nqz Klmm Mkxw Nksm dly bw+ .13#r dlwn wtwklmb Mg yk Klml )cy Myrwsh tybm yk .14#m#h txt Myklhmh Myyxh lk t) yty)r .15wytxt dm(y r#) yn#h dlyh M( Mhynpl hyh r#) lkl M(h lkl Cq Ny) .16 xwr tw(rw lbh hz Mg yk wb wxm#y )l Mynwrx)h Mg (13) Better a poor but wise youth than a king who is old but foolish, who no longer knows how to be wary.( 14) For from prison he came forth to rule, although in his reign too a poor man was born. 2 (15) I saw all the living, those who go about under the sun, with the next youth 3 who arose in his place.( 16) There was no end to all the people, all those whom he led.Likewise, later people would not take pleasure in him.This too is absurd and senseless.
The ambiguity in almost all the pronouns and in the subjects of the verbs causes considerable interpretive difficulties.There are syntactical ambiguities as well, especially in vv.15-16.Also uncertain is how many youths enter into the events: one (the old king's immediate successor, "youth 1 "); two (the wise youth, "youth 1 ", and his successor, "youth 2 "); or three (these two and a third, "youth 3" , called yn#h dlyh).I will argue for the third alternative, which, I believe, has not been proposed elsewhere, including in my earlier study. 4

3.
Comments 4:13.lyskw Nqz Klm "a king who is old but foolish" -not "... and foolish."The king's age is not mentioned as the cause of his folly, but as a strength that is overcome by his folly.This is the reverse of the young man's situation, in which a weakness (imprisonment) is overcome by wisdom.Age was universally thought to be associated with wisdom in the ancient world.Since the king's stupidity is marked by a lack of circumspection, and since his successor was in prison, we may surmise that the latter had been incarcerated because he presented a danger to the old king.
4:14.The subject of "came forth" is youth 1 , not the old king, for there would be no point in describing the king's past.This verse motivates the previous one by stating that the wisdom of youth 1 enabled him to attain the throne from a position of great lowliness and incapacity.
"A poor man was born [#r dlwn]": Most commentators assume that #r is adverbial to dlwn and describes the situation into which youth 1 was born ("was born poor").This, however, makes no sense of Mg yk, whether it is construed as concessive ("although") or causal ("for also").Nothing is added by saying that the poor youth who came out of prison was "born poor," and wtwklmb, whether meaning "in his kingdom" or "in his reign," adds nothing to the fact that youth 1 was "born poor."(Of course he was born poor in the old king's kingdom.Otherwise his foreignness would be a factor.And it is impossible that he was born other than in the old king's reign, since he was younger. I suggest that #r is a noun meaning "a poor man," referring to a new character, youth 2 .The adverb Mg indicates that the sentence comments on another reign ("in his reign too") in addition to the old king's, namely, the reign of youth 1 .So far there is a series of an old king, succeeded by a former prisoner (youth 1 ), who is succeeded by another formerly poor man (youth 2 ).(In fact, "in his reign too" implies that youth 1 also was born poor.) D. Rudman has offered a fresh proposal to the old crux. 5He vocalizes Kle m@ e la "to the king" instead of MT's Klo mli "to rule" and translates v. 14 as "For out of prison he shall come [)cf y] to the king, even though born poor in his kingdom" (p.57).Rudman interprets this to mean that this youth became the king's counselor, his companion or lieutenant (yn#), who then used his wisdom for the benefit of society.yn#h dlyh in v. 15 would thus be the same person as the youth of 13f.He enjoys the king's patronage but eventually falls from public favor.Rudman's interpretation is an overreading of the story.For one thing, )cy indicates motion from the standpoint of the place of origin, not the goal.(That would be )b.)The phrase "go out to the king" says nothing about what happened when the youth arrived at the court.It does not in itself convey the idea that the youth became the king's protegé, and nothing else in the passage reinforces this notion.
4:15.yn#h dlyh, lit."the second youth," is neither youth 1 nor youth 2 , but their successor, youth 3 .The phrase does not mean "the lad, who was second," namely, the old king's successor (thus Gordis); yn# alone never has this sense.
Nor is youth 2 "second" in rank, the deputy, a "Stellvertreter" to the king (thus Hertzberg), since if he arose from prison merely to that end, the old king's folly would be irrelevant.On the contrary, choosing a wise viceroy would demonstrate wisdom on the king's part.yn# here means "next" (cf.Ex 2:13; Judg 20:24f.; thus Ellermeier p. 232, who, however, thinks of only two youths).This young man is "second" to the previously mentioned one (youth 2 ) but third in the sequence.
"The next youth" (youth 3 ) is not a specific person and does not yet exist from Qohelet's standpoint.He is whoever comes next in line.The switch to yiqtol in dm(y in v.15 also indicates the introduction of another person in the story, since it implies that the arising "in his place" occurs after the events of v.14. (Qohelet never uses yiqtol for simple past tense. 6) The change in tense also suggests that Qohelet's temporal perspective is contemporaneous with the reign of youth 2 .From that perspective, the ascendancy of the next young man is yet to come.
The essence of this sentence is not "I saw X going with Y," but rather "I saw X with Y" (thus MT, which places the strong disjunctive at #m#h).The words #m#h txt Myklhmh are a relative clause modifying Myyxh (Ellermeier, 231f.).It is equivalent to #m#h y)wr (7:11).The prepositional phrase "with ..." is an adjunct to the main clause, not to the relative clause.In other words, the focus of Qohelet's seeing is not "the living" but rather the fact of their being with the next youth.Being "with" (M() someone indicates alliance and support (e.g., Gen 28:20; 26:3; 1 Kgs 8:57; cf. 2 Kgs 6:16; 9:32 [using the synonym t)]).The phrase "under the sun" emphasizes the universality of the phenomenon: everyone's loyalties attach themselves to whatever ruler comes along and are thus very erratic.The phrase also underscores the contrast between these people, who are alive (at the time to which the statement applies), and the previous rulers (youths 1 and 2 ), who will by then be dead.
Qohelet "sees"--that is, foresees--that all the living would be on the side of whoever comes to power next.Though Qohelet is looking to the future, he calls the supplanter (youth 3 ) a dly "youngster," to imply that the people's loyalty is so unreliable that they will flock after anyone, even a mere stripling.
4:16.The phrase Mhynpl hyh r#) lkl does not mean "to all who existed before them," for it is irrelevant how many people lived before the events of this anecdote.Rather it means, literally, "all those before whom he [youth 3 ] was"; in other words, all those whose leader he was (thus the Targum, Ginsburg, Delitzsch, and Podechard).This clause refers to the same group as "all the living" (v.15a).The subject of hyh is youth 3 .
"Would not take pleasure in him" (wb wxm#y )l): that is, in youth 3 .
The phrase -b xm# is used of a king pleasing his subjects and being accepted by them (Judg 9:19).This sentence says that even youth 3 , though leader of limitless masses, would not be popular with later people, for everyone is soon forgotten.
Hence, youth 3 represents everyone who will come in the endless series of powerholders.