On Ecclesiastes 7:20

QUESTION: Explain Eccl. 7:20, "For there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not."

ANSWER: This is a defective translation for "may not sin." There is no just man who is impeccable, or infallible. The mistake arises from the fact that in the Hebrew language there is no potential mood, but the future tense of the indicative is used instead. When the Hebrew wished to say, "It may rain to-day," he had to say "It will rain to-day." Thus the hearer or reader was left in doubt whether a certainty or uncertainty is intended; and he must use his wits to determine by studying the context. Thus in Solomon's dedicatory paper in I Kings 8:46, II Chron. 6:36, it is evident that the Hebrew future means "may sin." It is thus translated in the Vulgate, the Syriac and Arabic, in the London and Paris Polyglots, in Castalid's, Osiander's and Francis Junius's versions, and in the Antwerp interlineal translations and in the marginal note in the Miniature Quarto of the Baxters, high Calvinists though they are. If Solomon had been dedicating an insane hospital and had said: "If any man becomes insane, for there is no man who will not become insane, let him come here and be cured," most people would say that the "will not" here means "may not." It is thus translated in Gen. 3:2, 27:25, Job 13:13, 14:6, in our English Bible. This text correctly translated gives no support to the pernicious doctrine of the necessity of sin in the believer, or in any man on the earth, I am suspicious that this error is perpetuated by translators by reason of the general dislike of holiness as possible in human experience this side of the grave. It is natural to the heart of man to desire a Scriptural excuse for sin. It is a nice pillow on which the carnal mind may slumber.

— Steele's Answers pp. 209, 210.

Reading the Bible Systematically

QUESTION: I have been reading my Bible in a haphazard. way without getting as much good as I ought. Tell me how I can read it in a better way.

ANSWER: Get the American Standard Revised Bible, with maps and index to them. Locate every place you find in your reading. This will give you a sense of reality. When you begin a book get a synopsis of its contents by reading the headlines at the top of the pages. Then rapidly read the book through, and afterwards review such portions as most interest you, studying the various marginal readings and turning to the references. There is no easy way to a thorough knowledge of God's Word. If you do not find sufficient nutriment to your spiritual life in Ecclesiastes, alternate that book with John's Gospel, which is to be read in the same way. Read in both the Old Testament and the New daily. Have a Bible dictionary at hand to answer many questions respecting persons, places and doctrines which will arise in your mind. Don't be discouraged because of your slow advancement.

— Steele's Answers pp. 164, 165.

An Utterance Uninspired

QUESTION: Explain Ecclesiastes 3:19-21: "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; and man hath no pre-eminence above the beasts; for all is vanity. All go into one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man, whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast, whether it goeth downward to the earth?"

ANSWER: The whole Bible is inspired in its record, and some parts are inspired in their utterances; for instance, all that Job said, while nearly half the book of Job is the record of his so-called comforters who "did not speak the thing that is right," and, of course, were not inspired in their utterance. But for the benefit of the world God wished the whole discussion be put on record. The entire book of Ecclesiastes contains very little Gospel, but much pessimism, yet it is valuable as showing what human reason can do without divine revelation. It puts man on a level with the beasts. Says Prof. Moulton, in his wonderfully illuminating book, "The Modern Reader's Bible," respecting the authorship of Ecclesiastes, "its local and historic color, position in literary development, minutæ of language, fix the date of a book as clearly as handwriting betrays the age of a manuscript, all point to a period of writing centuries later than Solomon." He and many others think that some centuries afterwards some writer personating Solomon (as Plato speaks in the name of Socrates), "as the one personage who united the supreme forms of wealth, of wisdom and of power," affording the most striking contrast with the despair of a broken-hearted debauchee whom he is portraying after the style of a dramatist. Says Moulton, "Every second sentence is a literary puzzle." This is a poor place to find convincing proof texts in support of any theological dogma. Believing as I do that the Bible contains the infallible directory to eternal life, I must pronounce every declaration denying immortality an utterance uninspired.

— Steele's Answers pp. 23, 24.