I communed with mine own heart I considered within myself in what condition I was, and what degrees of knowledge I had gained; and whether it was not my ignorance that made me unable to rectify those errors, and supply those wants of which I complain; and whether wiser men could not do it, though I could not; saying, Lo! I am come to great estate Hebrew, הגדלתי, I am grown great, namely, in wisdom, or, I have magnified, or greatly enlarged; and have gotten
Hebrew, והוספתי, have added, more wisdom As I had a large stock of wisdom infused into me by God, so I have greatly improved it by conversation, study, and experience; than all they that were before me Whether governors, priests, or private persons. This was no vain boast, but a known and confessed truth, and the profession of it was necessary to demonstrate his assertion; in Jerusalem Which was then the most eminent place in the world for wisdom and knowledge. I gave my heart to know wisdom, &c. That I might thoroughly understand the nature and difference of truth, and error, of virtue and vice. I perceived that this is vexation, &c. Or, feeding upon wind, as the Hebrew רעיון רוח, may be properly rendered, and as a similar phrase is rendered by many, both ancient and modern translators, in Ecclesiastes 1:14, and by our translators, Hosea 12:1.