Though a sinner do evil a hundred times. The sentence begins again, as Ecclesiastes 8:11, with asher, followed by a participle; and the conjunction ought to be rendered "because," the statement made in the former verse being resumed and strengthened.
The Vulgate has attamen, which our version follows. The Septuagint goes astray, translating, ὃς ἥμαρτεν, "He that has sinned has done evil from that time." The sinner is here supposed to have transgressed continually without cheek or punishment.
The expression, "a hundred times," is used indefinitely, as Proverbs 17:10; Isaiah 65:20. And his days be prolonged; better, prolongeth his days for it; i.e. in the practice of evil, with a kind of contentment and satisfaction, the pronoun being the ethic dative.
Contrary to the usual course of temporal retribution, the sinner often lives to old age The Vulgate has, Et per patientiam sustentatur, which signifies that he is kept in life by God's long-suffering.
Ginsburg gives, "and is perpetuated," i.e. in his progeny—which is a possible, but not a probable, rendering. Yet surely I know; rather, though I for my part know. He has seen sinners prosper; this experience has been forced upon him; yet he holds an inward conviction that God's moral government will vindicate itself at some time and in some signal manner.
It shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him. This is not really tautological; it is compared to St. Paul's expression (1 Timothy 5:3), "widows that are widows indeed" ( ὄντως), implying that they are, in fact and life, what they profess to be.
Delitzsch and Plumptre suggest that in Koheleth's time "God-fearers" had become the name of a religious class, as the Chasidim, or "Assideaus," in 1 Macc. 2:42; 7:13, etc. Certainly a trace of this so-named party is seen in Psalms 118:4; Ma 3:16.
When this adjustment of anomalies shall take place, whether in this life or in another, the writer says not here. In spite of all contrary appearances, he holds firm to his faith that it will be welt with the righteous in the long run.
The comfort and peace of a conscience at rest, and the inward feeling that his life was ordered after God's will, would compensate a good man for much outward trouble; and if to this was added the assured hope of another life, it might indeed be said that it was well with him.
The Septuagint has, "that they may fear before him," which implies that the mercy and loving-kindness of God, manifested in his care of the righteous, lead to piety and true religion. Cheyne ('Job and Solomon'), combining this verse with the next, produces a sense which is certainly not in the present Hebrew text, "For I know that it ever happens that a sinner does evil for a long time, and yet lives long, whilst he who fears before God is short-lived as a shadow."