The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Volume 18)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over 16 wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over 17 much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou 15. there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness] The writer looks back on what he calls the days of his vanity, his fleeting and profitless life, and notes, as before in ch. ii. 14, 16, the disorders and anomalies of the world. The righteous are of all men most miserable; (i Cor. xv. 19) the ungodly prosper in the world and come in no peril of death, but are lusty and strong, Ps. Ixxiii. 4 (P. B. version). Here indeed those disorders present themselves in their most aggravated form. It is not only, as in ch. iii. 19, that there is one event to the righteous and the wicked, but that there is an apparent inversion of the right apportionment of good and evil. The thought is the same as that of Ps. Ixxiii., and the Debater has not as yet entered, as the Psalmist did, into the sanctuary of God, and so learnt to understand the end of these men (Ps. Ixxiii. 17). The same problem in the moral order of the Universe furnishes a theme for the discussions of the Book of Job. 16. Be not righteous ever much] Here again we have a distinct reproduction of one of the current maxims of Greek thought, M1fSfr &yiv (JVe quid nimis--Nothing in excess) of Theognis 402, and of Chilon (Diog. Laert. I. 1, 41). Even in that which is in itself good, virtue lies, as Aristotle had taught (Eta. Nicom. II. 6. 7), in a mean between opposite extremes. Popular language has embodied the thought in the proverb, Summum jus, summa injuria. Even in the other sense of ri...