A fool also is full of words. The word for "fool" here is oaks/, which implies a dense, confused thinker. Alive the word was kesil, which denotes rather the self-confidence of the dull and stupid man.
Moreover the fool multiplieth words. He not only speaks foolishly, but he says too much (comp. Ecclesiastes 5:2). It is not mere loquacity that is here predicated of the fool, though that is one of his characteristics, but, as-the rest of the verse shows, the prating of things about which he knows nothing.
He talks as though he knew everything and there were no limitation to human cognition. A man cannot tell what shall be. And yet, or although, no man can really predict the future. The fool speaks confidently of such things, and thereby proves his imbecility.
Instead of "what shall be," the Septuagint has, τί τὸ γενόμενον καὶ τί τὸ ἐσόμενον, "What has been and what shall be;" the Vulgate, Quid ante se fuerit, "What has been before him." This reading was introduced probably to obviate a seeming tautology in the following clause, And what shall be after him, who can tell?
But this clause has a different signification from the former, and presents a closer definition. The future intended may be the result of the fool's inconsiderate language, which may have fatal and lasting consequences; or it may refer to the visitation of his sins upon his children, in accordance with the denunciation of Deuteronomy 5:9; Deuteronomy 29:20-22; or it may include the life beyond the grave.
The uncertainty of the future is a constant theme; see Ecclesiastes 3:22; Ecclesiastes 6:11, Ecclesiastes 6:12; Ecclesiastes 7:14; Ecclesiastes 8:17; and compare Christ's parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-20), and St.
James's warning in his Epistle (James 4:13-16).