Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Pengkhotbah 8:9

These three components symbolised three things. 1) The exile which had embittered the Israelites' lives; 2) The suddenness of the Exodus so that even their dough did not have time enough to rise. 3) The fact that G'd "passed over" the houses of the Israelites which was a major element of the redemption. This "leap-frogging" severed Israel's previous dependence on the Egyptians which had appeared as incapable of separation. I have explained the nature of the good being inextricably intertwined with the evil in my commentary on Exodus 11,5. Redemption meant the tearing asunder of these bonds between good and evil. These three phenomena had to be experienced simultaneously otherwise the whole redemption would not have been possible. If a single element had been lacking the other two would not even have been miraculous at all by themselves. Without the exile experience no other refining process could have been effective and could have borne fruit. We have explained in our commentary on Genesis 46,3 how the descent into the immoral environment of Egypt was a necessary prelude to "rescuing" the souls that had been taken captive by the forces of the קליפה at the time Adam had eaten from the tree of knowledge. This is also the mystical dimension of Kohelet 8,9: "there is a time when one man rules over another to his detriment." Had the Exodus not occurred as abruptly as it did, the Israelites might well have returned to Egypt to become ever more deeply mired in that moral morass. This idea is best expressed by the author of the Haggadah shel Pessach who claims that: "if G'd had not taken us out of there (at the time), then both we and our forefathers would have remained subservient to Pharaoh in Egypt." This is what the Torah means in 12,39 when it testifies that "they could not tarry any longer." The principal element of the redemption was the פסיחה, "the skipping over." Hillel (Pessachim 115) symbolised the importance of the simultaneous occurrence of these three elements when he insisted that we must consume the meat, the bitter herbs and the unleavened bread as a single "sandwich."

וכאשר יענו אותו כן ירבה, The more they oppressed them the more they increased. There is a beautiful explanation by the Zohar second volume page 95 on Kohelet 8,9. Solomon says that "there is a time when one man rules over another to his detriment." The Zohar explains that when one has to endure persecution and troubles, the good [which may have been mixed with the evil. Ed.] is distilled from the evil joining other areas which are totally good; by the same token the evil of that mixture joins other areas of pure evil. These two details are hinted at when Solomon speaks of לרע לו. Similarly, the Torah here tells us the same thing. The more persecution the Israelites suffered the more "good" was released from what had been only a mixture of good and evil previously. With the release of that "good", i.e. good qualities, the Israelite families merited having more and more children. Hence the Torah adds the words וכן יפרץ in the sense of ופרצת ימה וקדמה, "You will burst forth to the West and to the East, etc." Alternatively, the word may mean "it achieved a breaking forth" i.e. a separation from an environment in which the good had been forced to mix with the evil. The evil was now released and separated. This resulted in the famous "iron crucible" in which the character of the Israelite people was forged in Egypt.

יתנך השם נגף, "G'd will cause you to be struck down by your enemies, etc." This too is the direct result of your sins as hinted at in Kohelet 8,9: "when a man rules over another to his detriment." Solomon means that the reason man experiences another force ruling him is that he has sinned and the forces he created now try to control him. Similar considerations govern all the various curses written in this chapter. All of them are outgrowths of sinful conduct.