3:2 A time to be born, 1 and a time to die; 2
a time to plant, and a time to uproot what was planted;
9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead do not know anything;
they have no further reward – and even the memory of them disappears. 3
1 tn The verb יָלָד (yalad, “to bear”) is used in the active sense of a mother giving birth to a child (HALOT 413 s.v. ילד; BDB 408 s.v. יָלָד). However, in light of its parallelism with “a time to die,” it should be taken as a metonymy of cause (i.e., to give birth to a child) for effect (i.e., to be born).
2 sn In 3:2-8, Qoheleth uses fourteen sets of merisms (a figure using polar opposites to encompass everything in between, that is, totality), e.g., Deut 6:6-9; Ps 139:2-3 (see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 435).
3 tn Heb “for their memory is forgotten.” The pronominal suffix is an objective genitive, “memory of them.”