There remains another point, however. Dr. Ginsburg (and from his extensive acquaintance with Jewish literature no one is better qualified to give an opinion) considers that Hagadic influence must be taken largely into account in explaining difficult passages in Ecclesiastes; amongst other points he notices the rendering of את by σὺν, which has been referred to already. ‘Commentators,’ he says, ‘have been perplexed to account for this barbarism, and violation of grammatical propriety, but a reference to Hagadic exegesis will show that this Hebrew particle was looked up to as having a mystical signification, because the two letters, א and ת, of which it is composed, are the Alpha and Omega of the Hebrew alphabet. Hence the anxiety of the translator to indicate this particle in Greek, when a passage appeared to him to be fraught with special mysteries.’ But, as he remarks, it is only in twenty-nine instances out of seventy-one occurrences of this particle that it is so rendered by the LXX. Moreover, Dr. Ginsburg has not shown that these passages are specially mysterious. They are in fact neither more nor less so than some others in which this particle is not so rendered. An examination of these passages will show, we think convincingly, that what the LXX. wished to do was to point out that את was emphatic and with the meaning of ‘respect to,’ or the like, as will be seen by reference to the Commentary, especially chapters ii. 17, iii. 17, vii. 26, viii. 8, 15. The Hagadic influence, according to Dr. Ginsburg, is still more evident in the peculiar rendering of chapter ii. 12, as well as chapters ii. 17, iii. 15, iv. 17, v. 1, all which are fully treated in the Commentary, and the renderings of the LXX. explained and elucidated, it is hoped satisfactorily. So far from the true explanation of these renderings being found in the Chaldee paraphrase, as Dr. Ginsburg imagines, that version gives distorted interpretations of passages but partially understood. Again, the gloss of the LXX. at chapter ii. 15 is shared by the Syriac, and is a marginal reading; chapter ii. 17 is a verbatim reading of the Hebrew in every particular; and the gloss at chapter ii. 9 is too evidently foisted in from the margin to make it of much value in any argument. See note there.