The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth
to
his place where he arose.
] The sun rises in the morning and sets at evening in our
hemisphere, according to the appearance of things; and then it
makes haste to go round the other hemisphere in the night: it
"pants", as the word F20 signifies; the same figure is used
by other writers F21; like a man out of breath with
running; so this glorious body, which rejoiceth as a strong man
to run his race, and whose circuit is from one end of the heavens
to the other, ( Psalms 19:5 Psalms 19:6 ) ; is in
haste to get to the place where he rose in the morning, and there
he makes no stop, but pursues his course in the same track again.
By this instance is exemplified the succession of the generations
of men one after another, as the rising and setting of the sun
continually follows each other; and also sets forth the restless
state of things in the world, which, like the sun, are never at a
stand, but always moving, and swiftly taking their course; and
likewise the changeable state of man, who, like the rising sun,
and when at noon day, is in flourishing circumstances, and in the
height of prosperity, but as this declines and sets, so he has
his declining times and days of adversity. Moreover, like the
rising sun, he comes into this world and appears for a while, and
then, like the setting sun, he dies; only with this difference,
in which the sun has the preference to him, as the earth before
had; the sun hastens and comes to its place from whence it arose,
but man lies down and rises not again till the heavens be no
more, and never returns to his place in this world, that knows
him no more, ( Job 7:10 ) ( 14:12 ) . The Jews
F23 say, before the sun of one
righteous, man sets, the sun of another righteous man rises.
F20 (pawv) "anhelus", Montanus, Tigurine version; "anhelat", Drusius, Piscator, Cocceius, Amama; "anhelaus est", Rambachius; "doth he breathe", Broughton.
F21 "Placebits anhelat", Claudian. Epigrarm. "Equis oriens afflavit anhelis", Virgil. Georgic. l. 1. v. 250. Aeneid, l. 5.
F23 Apud R. Joseph. Titatzak in loc. Midrash Kohelet in loc.