Ecclesiastes 7:28

Ecc 7:28 Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.

Ver. 28. Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not.] There is a place in Wiltshire called Stonhenge, for various great stones lying and standing there together: of which stones it is said, {a} that though a man number them "one by one" never so carefully, yet that he cannot find the true number of them, but that every time he numbers them he finds a different number from that he found before. This may well show, as one well applies it, the erring of man’s labour in seeking the acconnt of wisdom and knowledge; for, though his diligence be never so great in making the reckoning, he will always be out, and not able to find it out.

One man among a thousand.] Haud facile iuvenies multis e milibus unum. There is a very great scarcity of good people. These are as Gideon’s three hundred, when the wicked, as the Midianites, lie "like grasshoppers for multitude upon the earth," {Jdg 7:7; Jdg 7:12} and as those Syrians, {1Ki 20:27} they fill the country, they darken the air, as the swarms did the land of Egypt; and there is plenty of such dust heaps in every corner.

But a woman among all those have I not found,] i.e., Among all my wives and concubines, which made him ready to sing, Femina nulla bona est. There is no good woman. But that there are, and ever have been, many gracious women, see, besides the Scriptures, the writings of many learned men, De illustribus feminis. Concerning Illustrious Women. It is easy to observe, saith one, that the New Testament affords more store of good wives than the Old. And I can say, as Jerome does, Novi ego multas ad omne opus bonum promptas, I know many Tabithas full of good works. But in respect of the discovery of hearts and natures, whether in good or evil, it is harder to find out thoroughly the perfect disposition of a woman than of men; and that I take to be the meaning of this text.

{a} Camden.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ecc_7:28

A woman among all those have I not found.

Solomons estimate of woman

This sentence of Solomon has been often quoted to show the utter worthlessness of the female character. It is, however, an entirely worthless conclusion as regards woman when placed in her legitimate and appropriate sphere as the one sole companion of mans life in love, cares and labours. As well might the tyrant who, by cruelty, has alienated his subjects, complain that he has failed to find loyal men, as the debauchee, who has subjected hundreds to his lust, that he had found no noble, virtuous woman. It is not thus that the commerce of love is carried on. Pearls are not to be exchanged for pebbles. The law of love which God has established is heart for heart; and the affections that are dissipated among a thousand objects must ever be without return of that which yet the soul seeks--the undivided love. Of this fact Solomon seems to have had a dim perception when he gives those never-to-be-forgotten advises to the young man, to avoid the strange woman whose steps take hold on hell, and to live joyfully with the wife of his youth. It was not given to Solomon, wise as he was, to limn the picture of the virtuous woman, but to another king whose wisdom was derived from the inspiration of his mother. The words of Lemuel are well worthy of our attention, both as neutralizing the false impression produced by Solomons philosophy, and as showing what the true woman is (Pro_31:10-31). (J. Bennet.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7:28 The NLT adds the phrase is virtuous (based on 7:29) to give the sense of the verse. Virtue is extremely rare: In his own experience, the Teacher found only a few men, and no women, with that quality.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rather, referring to his past experience, "Which my soul sought further, but I found not."

one man--that is, worthy of the name, "man," "upright"; not more than one in a thousand of my courtiers (Job 33:23; Psa 12:1). Jesus Christ alone of men fully realizes the perfect ideal of "man." "Chiefest among ten thousand" (Sol 5:10). No perfect "woman" has ever existed, not even the Virgin Mary. Solomon, in the word "thousand," alludes to his three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines. Among these it was not likely that he should find the fidelity which one true wife pays to one husband. Connected with Ecc 7:26, not an unqualified condemnation of the sex, as Pro 12:4; Pro 31:10, &c., prove.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(28) One man among a thousand.—See Job_9:3; Job_33:23. The disparaging estimate of the female sex here expressed is common in countries where polygamy is practised. (See Sir_25:24; Sir_42:13.) It is credible enough that Solomon, with his thousand wives, did not find a good one among them; but see Pro_18:22; Pro_19:14; Pro_31:10.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. one man among a thousand have I found] We have, in the absence of an adjective, to supply the thought “a man such as he ought to be, truthful and righteous.” The form in which the rare exceptional discovery is given is as an echo from Job_9:3; Job_33:23. It represents we cannot doubt the capacity of the writer for a warm and earnest friendship. It shews that he had found one such friend. But what the seeker found among men, he sought in vain among women. Corruption there was, from his point of view, absolutely without exception. The interesting parallelism of Heine’s language has been noticed in the Introduction, ch. iii. The words may be received as recording the writer’s personal experience of the corrupt social state under the government of Persian or Egyptian kings. One commentator (Hitzig) has even ventured to identify the “woman more bitter than death” with a historical character, Agathoclea, the mistress of Ptolemy Philopator. Justin (xxx. 1) describes the King’s life “Meretricis illecebris capitur … noctes in stupris, dies in conviviis consumit.”

Here also we have an echo of the darker side of Greek thought. The Debater catches the tone of the woman-hater Euripides.

ἀλλʼ ὡς τὸ μῶρον ἀνδράσιν μὲν οὐκ ἔνι,

γυναιξὶ δʼ ἐμπέφυκεν.

“But folly does not find its home with men,

But roots in women’s hearts.”

Eurip. Hippol. 920.

So a later Rabbinic proverb gives a like judgment: “woe to the age whose leader is a woman” (Dukes, Rabbin. Blumenl. No. 32).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not,.... He was very earnest and diligent in his inquiry; he took a great deal of pains, and was exceedingly solicitous; he sought with great intenseness of mind, and with an eager desire, to find out a chaste and virtuous woman among them all, but could not;

one man among a thousand have I found; it is a great rarity to find a good man (n), truly wise and gracious; there are many that walk in the broad way, and but few that find the strait gate and narrow way, and are saved; they are but as one to a thousand; see Jer 5:1. Or rather, by this one of a thousand, is meant the, Messiah, the Wisdom of God, he sought for, Ecc 7:25; and now says he found; to whom he looked for peace, pardon, and atonement, under a sense of his sins; who is the messenger, an interpreter, one among a thousand; yea, who is the chiefest among ten thousands, Job 33:23; who is superior to angels and men, in the dignity of his person; in the perfection, purity, and holiness of his nature; in the excellency of his names; in his offices and relations; and in his concern in the affairs of grace and salvation; and who is to be found by every truly wise and gracious soul that seeks him early and earnestly, in the word and ordinances, under the illumination and direction of the blessed Spirit. If it is to be understood of a mere man, I should think the sense was this; of all the men that have been ensnared and taken by an adulterous woman, but one of a thousand have I observed, and perhaps Solomon has respect to himself, that was ever recovered out of her hands;

but a woman among all those have I not found; that is, among all the harlots and adulterous women I ever knew or heard of, I never knew nor heard of one that was ever reclaimed from her evil ways, and reformed or became a chaste and virtuous woman: he may have respect to the thousand women that were either his wives and concubines, and, among all these, he found not one that deserved the above character; for this is not to be understood of women in general, for Solomon must have known that there have been good women in all ages, and perhaps more than men; and that there were many in his days, though those with whom his more intimate acquaintance was were not such, which was his unhappiness; and his criminal conversation with them is what he lamented and repented of. It may be interpreted thus, One man, the Messiah, among all the sons of men, have I found, free from original sin; but one woman, among all the daughters of Eve, I have not found clear of it. The Targum is,

"there is another thing which yet my soul seeketh, and I have not found; a man perfect and innocent, without corruption, from the days of Adam, till Abraham the righteous was born; who was found faithful and just among the thousand kings who were gathered together to build the tower of Babel; and a woman among all the wives of those kings, as Sarah, I found not.''

(n) "Vir bonus et sapiens, qualem vix reperit unum, millibus e multio hominum, consultus Apollo." Auson. Idyll. 16. v. 1, 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

One man - One whose good qualities quite satisfy our expectation. Compare the expression “one among a thousand” (marginal reference).

A woman - The number of Solomon’s wives and concubines 1Ki 11:3 was a thousand.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

My soul seeketh; it seemed so wonderful to me, that I suspected I had not made a sufficient inquiry, and therefore I returned to search again with more earnestness and accurateness.

I find not; that it was so he found out, as he now said, Ecc 7:27 but the whole truth and reason of the thing he could not find out.

One man; one worthy of the name of a man; a wise and virtuous man. Man is put for a worthy or good man, as name is put for a good name, above, Ecc 7:1, and wife for a good wife, as was noted before.

Among a thousand, with whom I have conversed. He is supposed to mention this number in allusion to his thousand wives and concubines, as they are numbered by parcels, 1Ki 11:3.

A woman; one worthy of that name; one who is not a dishonour to her kind and sex, who is not brutish in her disposition and conversation.

Among all those in that thousand whom I have taken into intimate society with myself; whereby he also passeth a severe censure upon himself that he had associated himself with such persons, and not with the virtuous women, which doubtless there were in his time, as appears from Pr 31. It is not Solomon’s design to disparage this sex, nor to make a general comparison between men and women in all places and ages, but only to suggest his own experience concerning it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28. Which yet my soul seeketh, etc. — That is, The investigation is not yet concluded, so that the result may yet be altered.

One… a thousand — A very beggarly proportion, to say the least, of pure, true, and good men!

It is not strange that where men are so bad, and the best of them thought so ill of women, they were no better. What was to make them better? If, as some have thought, the thousand women reviewed were the three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines of the Solomonic harem, no wonder if the poor things were no better! Mohammed said, that only four good women had ever lived: the wife of Pharaoh, the mother of Jesus, and his own wife and daughter. Koheleth would get better figures today, both absolutely and proportionally.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not; or, which my soul hath still sought, but I have not found. The conclusion at which he did arrive was something utterly different from what he had hoped to achieve. The soul and the ego are separately regarded (comp. ver. 25); the whole intellectual faculties were absorbed in the search, and the composite individual gives his consequent experience. One man (Adam) among a thousand have I found . He found only one man among a thousand that reached his standard of excellence the ideal that he had formed for himself, who could be rightly called by the noble name of man. The phrase, "one of a thousand," occurs in Job_9:3 Job_33:23; Ecc_6:6 (eiv ajpown, as in the Septuagint here). Adam, the generic term, is used here instead of ish, the individual, to emphasize the antithetical ishah, woman," in the following clause, or to lead the thought to the original perfection of man"s nature. So in Greek anqrwpov is sometimes used for ajnhr, though generally the distinction between the two is sufficiently marked, as we find in Herodotus, 7:210, Oti polloi megoi de andrev. But a woman among all those have I not found; i.e. not one woman in a thousand who was what a woman ought to be. Says the Son of Sirach, "All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman; let the portion of a sinner fall upon her" (Ecc 25:19). So the Greek gnome

Qalassa kai pur kai gunh kakaa.

Three evils are there sea, fire, and woman.

Solomon had a thousand wives and concubines, and his experience might well have been that mentioned in this passage.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Yet seeketh - I returned to search again with more earnestness. I find not - That it was so, he found, but the reason of the thing he could not find out. One man - A wise and virtuous man. A woman - One worthy of that name; one who is not a dishonour to her sex. Among - In that thousand whom I have taken into intimate society with myself.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

which my soul sought yet In addition to those stated above, which I sought and did not find, my soul sought a proper one among women, but I did not find [one], because they are all lightheaded.”

one man out of a thousand I found It is customary in the world that [out of] a thousand who enter [a school] to learn Scripture, only one hundred emerge from them to succeed to be fit for Mishnah, and [of] those hundred who enter to [learn] Mishnah, only ten emerge from them to [learn] Gemara, and of those ten who enter to [learn] Gemara, only one emerges who is capable of giving religious instruction, the result being one out of a thousand.

but a woman among all these even in a thousand. Therefore, you must be cautious with her.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.