Ecclesiastes 2:8
silver <03701> [silver.]
singers .... singers <07891> [men singers.]
harem .... concubines <07705> [musical instruments, etc. Heb. musical instrument and instruments.]
The difficult words {shiddah weshiddoth} are variously rendered. The LXX. have [oinocoon kai oinochoas,] "male and female cup-bearers," with which the Syriac and Arabic and Parkhurst agree; Aquila, [kulikon kai kulikia,] "a cup and smaller cups;" Jerome, {scyphos et urceolos, (Vulg. {urceos,}) "goblets and pots;" Targum, "warm and cold baths;" others, as M. Desvoeux, "male and female captives;" others, "cooks and confectioners;" others, "a species of musical compositions," derived from Sido, a celebrated Phoenician woman, to whom Sanchoniatho attributes the invention of music; but others, with more probability, "wives and concubines;" and {siddoth} may be in this sense synonymous with the Arabic {seedat, domina, conjux} from {sada,} in {Conj. V. conjugium inivit.} Of the former, Solomon had three hundred, and of the latter, seven hundred; and if they are not mentioned here they are not mentioned at all, which is wholly unaccountable.
