Кохелет 7:16 Комментарий: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi, Ibn Ezra & Kohelet Rabbah

“Do not be” [7:16]. Don’t be overly righteous, like King Saul. He had compassion on the Amalekites and did not allow them to be killed. Do not be overly clever, like King Saul. He said that it is written in the Torah that if one finds a corpse in the field who was killed, one should bring a calf and measure which city is closest. How much more so, it is not right when many people are killed, but he was mistaken in what God had commanded regarding the killing of Cuthites.⁹⁶Ecclesiastes Rabbah, 7.16.

Be not exceedingly righteous. Like Shaul, who tried to display his righteousness and [misdirected] his mercy on the wicked.

Do not be [overly righteous]: If you pray from morning until evening and fast and do similar things, you will become desolate, meaning you will depart from the way of civilization/settlement, as do the Christian and Muslim hermits. And similarly, if you seek to become excessively wise. The word תשומם (tishomem) is in the nif'al form. Some say that the dagesh in the shin is not due to the missing nun of nif'al, but rather due to the missing tav of hitpa'el - it should have been תשתומם (tishtomem), as we do not find in the nif'al form of doubled-root verbs both letters, but rather we find it in the hitpa'el form in verbs where their middle root letter is not complete, as in תבנה (tibaneh) and תכונן (tikhonen).

Nor overly wise. To deduce from a foolish inference from a minor case to a major case, [namely,] that for [the murder] of one person, said the Torah, bring a decapitated heifer, etc.⁴¹This Rashi refers back to the preceding one and explains the misdirected logic which led Shaul to spare Amoleik.