Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.
My soul seeketh - rather, referring to his past experience, 'Which my soul sought further, but I found not,' answering to "I said I will be wise, but it was far from me" (Ecclesiastes 7:23).
One Man 1:-1 :e., worthy of the name "man," "upright:" not more than one in a thousand of my courtiers (Job 33:23; Psalms 12:1). Jesus Christ alone of men fully realizes the perfect ideal of "man." "Chiefest among ten thousand" (Song of Solomon 5:10). No perfect 'woman' has ever existed, not even the Virgin Mary. Solomon, in the word "thousand," alludes to his 300 wives and 700 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). Among these it was not likely that he should find the fidelity which one true wife pays to one husband. This verse is connected with Ecclesiastes 7:26, which condemns the seducing woman, and is not therefore to be taken as an universal and unqualified condemnation of the sex, as Proverbs 12:4, etc., prove. But the thing which Solomon here speaks of his seeking in vain is WISDOM - i:e., the full knowledge of the deep ways of God by investigation. Woman, as "the weaker vessel," is receptive, rather than originating in respect to wisdom. Woman's high province is the family (1 Timothy 2:11-15); not independent research in the depths of the divine ways. No sacred writing by a woman is found in the whole Bible. Let woman, conscious of her weakness, learn modesty and submission to her spiritual teachers, and those above her, and chiefly seek strength for her duty from God. Spiritual uprightness is an indispensable qualification for a right research after the wisdom in question. Solonion disqualified himself for it so long as he sinned with the strange women (Ecclesiastes 7:26).