Ecclesiastes 2:5

2:5 I designed ¹  royal gardens ²  and parks ³  for myself,

and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.

Ecclesiastes 7:6

7:6 For like the crackling of quick-burning thorns ⁴  under a cooking pot,

so is the laughter of the fool.

This kind of folly ⁵  also is useless. ⁶ 

Ecclesiastes 7:26

7:26 I discovered this: ⁷ 

More bitter than death is the kind of ⁸  woman ⁹  who is like a hunter’s snare; ¹⁰ 

her heart is like a hunter’s net and her hands are like prison chains.

The man who pleases God escapes her,

but the sinner is captured by her.

[2:5]  ¹ tn Heb “made.”

[2:5]  ² tn The term does not refer here to vegetable gardens, but to orchards (cf. the next line). In the same way the so-called “garden” of Eden was actually an orchard filled with fruit trees. See Gen 2:8-9.

[2:5]  ³ tn The noun פַּרְדֵּס (pardes, “garden, parkland, forest”) is a foreign loanword that occurs only 3 times in biblical Hebrew (Song 4:13; Eccl 2:5; Neh 2:8). The original Old Persian term pairidaeza designated the enclosed parks and pleasure-grounds that were the exclusive domain of the Persian kings and nobility (HALOT 963 s.v. פַּרְדֵּס; LSJ 1308 s.v παράδεισος). The related Babylonian term pardesu “marvelous garden” referred to the enclosed parks of the kings (AHw 2:833 and 3:1582). The term passed into Greek as παράδεισος (paradeisos, “enclosed park, pleasure-ground”), referring to the enclosed parks and gardens of the Persian kings (LSJ 1308). The Greek term has been transliterated into English as “paradise.”

[7:6]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn The word “kind of folly” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:6]  ⁶ 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.

[7:26]  ⁷ tn The word “this” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

[7:26]  ⁸ tn The phrase “kind of” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity (see the following note on the word “woman”).

[7:26]  ⁹ tn The article on הָאִשָּׁה (ha’ishah) functions in a particularizing sense (“the kind of woman”) rather than in a generic sense (i.e., “women”).

[7:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “is snares.” The plural form מְצוֹדִים (mÿtsodim, from the noun I מָצוֹד, matsod, “snare”) is used to connote either intensity, repeated or habitual action, or moral characteristic. For the function of the Hebrew plural, see IBHS 120-21 §7.4.2. The term II מָצוֹד “snare” is used in a concrete sense in reference to the hunter’s snare or net, but in a figurative sense of being ensnared by someone (Job 19:6; Prov 12:12; Eccl 7:26).