Proverbs 5:18

5:18 May your fountain be blessed, ¹ 

and may you rejoice ²  in your young wife ³  –

Ecclesiastes 9:9

9:9 Enjoy ⁴  life with your beloved wife ⁵  during all the days of your fleeting ⁶  life

that God ⁷  has given you on earth ⁸  during all your fleeting days; ⁹ 

for that is your reward in life and in your burdensome work ¹⁰  on earth. ¹¹ 

Ecclesiastes 9:1

Everyone Will Die

9:1 So I reflected on all this, ¹²  attempting to clear ¹³  it all up.

I concluded that ¹⁴  the righteous and the wise, as well as their works, are in the hand of God;

whether a person will be loved or hated ¹⁵  –

no one knows what lies ahead. ¹⁶ 

Colossians 1:29

1:29 Toward this goal ¹⁷  I also labor, struggling according to his power that powerfully ¹⁸  works in me.

[5:18]  ¹ sn The positive instruction is now given: Find pleasure in a fulfilling marriage. The “fountain” is another in the series of implied comparisons with the sexual pleasure that must be fulfilled at home. That it should be blessed (the passive participle of בָּרַךְ, barakh) indicates that sexual delight is God-given; having it blessed would mean that it would be endowed with fruitfulness, that it would fulfill all that God intended it to do.

[5:18]  ² tn The form is a Qal imperative with a vav (ו) of sequence; after the jussive of the first half this colon could be given an equivalent translation or logically subordinated.

[5:18]  ³ tn Or “in the wife you married when you were young” (cf. NCV, CEV); Heb “in the wife of your youth” (so NIV, NLT). The genitive functions as an attributive adjective: “young wife” or “youthful wife.” Another possibility is that it refers to the age in which a man married his wife: “the wife you married in your youth.”

[9:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “see.”

[9:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “the wife whom you love.”

[9:9]  ⁶ tn As discussed in the note on the word “futile” in 1:2, the term הֶבֶל (hevel) has a wide range of meanings, and should not be translated the same in every place (see HALOT 236–37 s.v. I הֶבֶל; BDB 210–11 s.v. I הבֶל). The term is used in two basic ways in OT, literally and figuratively. The literal, concrete sense is used in reference to the wind, man’s transitory breath, evanescent vapor (Isa 57:13; Pss 62:10; 144:4; Prov 21:6; Job 7:16). In this sense, it is often a synonym for “breath; wind” (Eccl 1:14; Isa 57:13; Jer 10:14). The literal sense lent itself to the metaphorical sense. Because breath/vapor/wind is transitory and fleeting, the figurative connotation “fleeting; transitory” arose (e.g., Prov 31:30; Eccl 6:12; 7:15; 9:9; 11:10; Job 7:16). In this sense, it is parallel to “few days” and “[days] which he passes like a shadow” (Eccl 6:12). It is used in reference to youth and vigor (11:10) or life (6:12; 7:15; 9:9) which are “transitory” or “fleeting.” In this context, the most appropriate meaning is “fleeting.”

[9:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “under the sun”

[9:9]  ⁹ tc The phrase כָּל יְמֵי הֶבְלֶךָ (kol yÿme hevlekha, “all your fleeting days”) is present in the MT, but absent in the Greek versions, other medieval Hebrew mss, and the Targum. Its appearance in the MT may be due to dittography (repetition: the scribe wrote twice what should have been written once) from כָּל יְמֵי חַיֵּי הֶבְלֶךָ (kol yÿme khayye hevlekha, “all the days of your fleeting life”) which appears in the preceding line. On the other hand, its omission in the alternate textual tradition may be due to haplography (accidental omission of repeated words) with the earlier line.

[9:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in your toil in which you toil.”

[9:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “under the sun.”

[9:1]  ¹² tn Heb “I laid all this to my heart.”

[9:1]  ¹³ tn The term וְלָבוּר (velavur, conjunction + Qal infinitive construct from בּוּר, bur, “to make clear”) denotes “to examine; to make clear; to clear up; to explain” (HALOT 116 s.v. בור; BDB 101 s.v. בּוּר). The term is related to Arabic baraw “to examine” (G. R. Driver, “Supposed Arabisms in the Old Testament,” JBL 55 [1936]: 108). This verb is related to the Hebrew noun בֹּר (bor, “cleanness”) and adjective בַּר (bar, “clean”). The term is used in the OT only in Ecclesiastes (1:13; 2:3; 7:25; 9:1). This use of the infinitive has a connotative sense (“attempting to”), and functions in a complementary sense, relative to the main verb.

[9:1]  ¹⁴ tn The words “I concluded that” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “whether love or hatred.”

[9:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “man does not know anything before them.”

[1:29]  ¹⁷ tn The Greek phrase εἴς ὅ (eis Jo, “toward which”) implies “movement toward a goal” and has been rendered by the English phrase “Toward this goal.”

[1:29]  ¹⁸ tn The prepositional phrase ἐν δυνάμει (en dunamei) seems to be functioning adverbially, related to the participle, and has therefore been translated “powerfully.”