Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Pengkhotbah 1:8

A Midrashic approach based on Sifri Haazinu: G’d told the people that He had created earth to serve their needs. He asks the people if, perchance the earth became disloyal and produced barley in response to the Jewish farmer sowing wheat? Or, did the heaven which He had similarly created in order to provide the Israelites with light and useful navigational information, etc., ever changed its path so that the expectations of the people were disappointed? Does not the Bible testify of the sun that “the sun rises, shines and sets at the appointed time” (Kohelet 1,8)? G’d reasons that if these planets which do not receive a reward for being loyal and carrying out their appointed tasks do not deviate therefrom, how much more so must the Jewish people who do receive a reward for keeping the Torah, and who do have to fear punishment for failure to keep these laws, be concerned with not deviating from the path of Torah? Keeping these thoughts in mind, Moses suggests to them: ‘better choose for yourself life.” This is the way Rashi explains our verse. This is what David had in mind when he said in Psalms 16,5: “the Lord is my allotted portion and my share; You control my fate.” It is as if David had said to G’d: “place my hand on the fate which spells ‘good.’” G’d Himself is called “Good,” as we know from Psalms 145,9: “טוב ה' לכל, “ or טוב וישר ה', (Psalms 25,8). Both verses equate G’d with “good.” G’d also gave the Jewish people the Torah, which is also known as “good,” as we know from Proverbs 4,2 כי לקח טוב נתתי לכם, “for I have given you a good acquisition.” The reason why the Torah is referred to as a “good acquisition,” is because the Jewish people can hang on to it both in this world and in the world to come. The sages cite our verse as proof for the fact that Torah will be with us in both worlds. This is the meaning of the words in Deut. 5,16: ‘in order that your days on earth will be long.” The Torah refers to a life which is long, infinite, i.e. the world to come. The last words in that verse, i.e. למען ייטב לך, “in order that He will be good for you,” also refer to a world which is totally good, the world to come. Solomon pursues the same approach when he said (Proverbs 24,25) “but those who rebuke the wicked will experience delight, blessings of good (things) will come upon them.”
The sages cite our verse as proof of the fact that Torah will be with us in both worlds. This is the meaning of the words in Deut. 5,16: “in order that your days on earth will be long.” The Torah refers to a life which is long, infinite, i.e. the world to come. The last words in that verse, i.e. למען ייטב לך, “in order that He will be good to you,” also refer to a world which is totally good, the world to come. Solomon pursues the same approach when he said (Proverbs 24,25) “but those who rebuke the wicked will experience delight, blessings of good (things) will come upon them.

וימלא שבעת ימים, “seven complete days had passed.” According to Rashi, this was the pattern of all the plagues, that a plague lasted for one quarter of the month, whereas the warning that preceded it was in effect for the other three quarters of that month, so that each plague was relevant for a whole month. This interpretation is derived from Psalms 135,9: שלח אותות ומופתים בתוככי מצרים, “He sent signs and miracles against Egypt.” The last two letters in the word בתוככי, whose numerical value is 30 were unnecessary, and are the hint that each plague was relevant for 30 days.Our author raises the point that according to the wording in Rashi, the month had only 28 days then. He suggests as a possible solution, that the Egyptians were given the extra two days after the completion of each plague as a sort of “relief” before the warning of the following plague was issued. A further question is raised concerning the length of the plague of darkness, where the Torah described the most intense portion of that plague as having lasted for three days. (Exodus 10,22-23). He suggests that when we read in Exodus 14,20: ויהי הענן והחושך, “there was both the cloud and the darkness,” (as the beaches of the sea of reeds) the missing days were made up. (Compare Sh’mot Rabbah 14,3.) It is notable that in the Haggadah shel Pesssach, the text we read on the first night of Passover, where Rabbi Yehudah sums us the plagues on an acronym- דצ'ך עד'ש באח'ב, and everyone asks what he contributed to our understanding of those events by doing so, that Rabbi Yitzchok son of Rabbi Asher, who was born on the same calendar date as the death of his father, so that he was given the same name as that of his late father, they applied to him the words of the verse: וזרח השמש ובא השמש, “a new sun began to shine as soon as the sun had set,” (Kohelet 1,8) pointed out that when we place the three acronyms of Rabbi Yehudah one on top of the other like this: דצך, עדש, באחב you will find both at the beginning, the middle and the end the acronym for the three plagues of כנים, שחין, and חשך. [Our author adds that he will not elaborate further, presumably because he had not figured out how this is arrived at by Rabbi Yitzchok. This editor remembers his father of blessed memory explaining to him, that these were the three plagues not preceded by a warning. Ed.] Rabbi Yehudah may have wished to remind the reader that the order in which the plagues occurred was the one listed in the Torah, and not the order in which the plagues are listed in the Book of psalms (chapter 105). The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin, folio 81 [Mishnah] relates that it was customary if people had been administered 39 lashes for having committed sins that qualified for such a penalty, if they sinned repeatedly, to lock them up and feed them a diet of barley until the sinner’s intestines collapsed and he died.