All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not overflow: unto the place from whence the rivers come, they return, to flow again.

“As for the sea, if I had felt no wonder at its size, I should have felt it for its stillness, at the way it stands free within its proper limits. If its stillness had not moved my admiration, its size must have done. Since both aspects move me, I shall praise the power involved in both. What binding force brought the sea together? What causes it to swell yet stay in position, as if in awe of the land its neighbor? How can it take in all rivers and stay the same through sheer excess of quantity?—I know no other explanation. Why does so great an element have sand as its frontier? Can natural philosophers, with their futile cleverness, give any account of it, when they actually take the sea's vast measurements with pint size pots of their own ideas? Or shall I give you the short answer from Scripture, the one more credible, more real, than their long arguments? "He made his command a boundary for the face of the waters." This command is what binds the elemental water. What makes it carry the sailor in his little boat with a little wind—do you not find it a marvelous sight, does not your mind stand amazed at it?—to bind land and sea with business and commerce and unify for humanity such very different things? What springs do the first springs have? Look for them and see if you, a man, can discover or track one down. Who parted plains and hills with rivers and gave them free course? How do we get a miracle from opposites—from a sea that does not get out and rivers that do not stand still? What feeds the waters, what different kinds of food do they get? Some are nourished with rain, others drink with their roots—if I may use a rich metaphor to describe the richness of God.”

“You, whose period of struggle is short, do not become more lifeless than the earth, do not become more unthinking than the insensible, for you are endowed with thought and directed by reason toward life. Instead, as the apostle says, "Continue in the things you have learned and been convinced of," in that steadfast and immoveable stability, since this also is one of the divine commands, that you "be steadfast and immoveable." Let your sobriety abide unshaken, your faith firm, your love constant, your stability in every good thing unmoved, so that the earth in you may stand to eternity. But if any one, yearning for greater possessions and letting his desire become as boundless as a sea, has an insatiable greed for the streams of gain flowing in from every side, let him treat his disease by looking at the real sea. For … the sea does not exceed its boundary with the innumerable streams of water flowing into it but remains at the same volume, just as though it were receiving no new water from streams. In the same way human nature too, restricted by specific limits in the enjoyment of what comes to it, cannot enlarge its appetite to match the extent of its acquisitions; while the intake is endless, the capacity for enjoyment is kept within its set limit.”

“All the rivers flow into the sea because they do not remain therein, for the ocean is higher than the entire world, as it is said (Amos 5:8): “He calls the water of the sea and pours it, etc.” Now from where does a person pour? From above downward, and the rivers flow in the tunnels under the mountains from the ocean and repeatedly flow, and this is the meaning of: “to the place where the rivers flow, there they repeatedly go.” Also, the wicked man, (below 5:15) “just as it came, so shall it go.””

“All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full,.... Which flow from fountains or an formed by hasty rains; these make their way to the sea, yet the sea is not filled therewith, and made to abound and overflow the earth, as it might be expected it would. So Seneca says (z) we wonder that the accession of rivers is not perceived in the sea; and Lucretius (a) observes the same, that it is wondered at that the sea should not increase, when there is such a flow of waters to it from all quarters; besides the wandering showers and flying storms that fall into it, and yet scarce increased a drop; which he accounts for by the exhalations of the sun, by sweeping and drying winds, and by what the clouds take up. Homer (b) makes every sea, all the rivers, fountains, and wells, flow, from the main ocean. Hence Pindar (c) calls the lake or fountain Camarina the daughter of the ocean But Virgil (d) makes the rivers to flow into it, as the wise man here; with which Aristotle (e) agrees. So Lactantius (f) says, "mare quod ex fluminibus constat", the sea consists of rivers. Both may be true, for, through secret passages under ground, the waters of it are caused to pass back again to their respective places from whence they flowed, as follows; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again; this also illustrates the succession of men, age after age, and the revolution of things in the world, their unquiet and unsettled state; and the unsatisfying nature of all things; as the sea is never full with what comes into it, so the mind of man is never satisfied with all the riches and honour he gains, or the knowledge of natural things he acquires; and it suggests that even water, as fluctuating a body as it is, yet has the advantage of men; that though it is always flowing and reflowing, yet it returns to its original place, which man does not. And from all these instances it appears that all things are vanity, and man has no profit of all his labour under the sun. (z) Nat. Quaest. l. 3. c. 4. (a) De Rerum Natura, l. 6. (b) Iliad. 21. v. 193, &c. (c) Olymp. Ode 5. v. 4. (d) "Omnia sub magna", &c. Georgic. l. 4. v. 366, &c. (e) Meterolog. l. 1. c. 13. (f) De Orig. Error. l. 2. c. 6.”

“The way of the sun's return to the East was unknown to the Jews, who made no attempt to explain it. St. Jerome says: '-'The sun, which was given to men to afford them light, daily indicates the destruction of the world, by his rising and setting. After he has dipped his burning wheel in the ocean, he returns by ways unknown to us to the place whence he set out, and having finished his nightly course, he again eagerly issues forth from his chamber."”

“By subterraneous cavities, and by evaporation forming rain clouds, the fountains and rivers are supplied from the sea, into which they then flow back. The connection is: Individual men are continually changing, while the succession of the race continues; just as the sun, wind, and rivers are ever shifting about, while the cycle in which they move is invariable; they return to the point whence they set out. Hence is man, as in these objects of nature which are his analogue, with all the seeming changes "there is no new thing" (Ecc 1:9).”

“"All rivers run into the sea, and the sea becomes not full; to the place whence the rivers came, thither they always return again." Instead of nehhárim, nehhalim was preferred, because it is the more general name for flowing waters, brooks, and rivers; נחל (from נחל, cavare), אפיק (from אפק, continere), and (Arab.) wadin (from the root-idea of stretching, extending), all three denote the channel or bed, and then the water flowing in it. The sentence, "all rivers run into the sea," is consistent with fact. Manifestly the author does not mean that they all immediately flow thither; and by "the sea" he does not mean this or that sea; nor does he think, as the Targ. explains, of the earth as a ring (גּוּשׁפּנקא, Pers. angusht-bâne, properly "finger-guard") surrounding the ocean: but the sea in general is meant, perhaps including also the ocean that is hidden. If we include this internal ocean, then the rivers which lose themselves in hollows, deserts, or inland lakes, which have no visible outlet, form no exception. But the expression refers first of all to the visible sea-basins, which gain no apparent increase by these masses of water being emptied into them: "the sea, it becomes not full;" איננּוּ (Mishn. אינו) has the reflex. pron., as at Exo 3:2; Lev 13:34, and elsewhere. If the sea became full, then there would be a real change; but this sea, which, as Aristophanes says (Clouds, 1294f.), οὐδὲν γίγνεται ἐπιῤῥηεόντων τῶν ποταμῶν πλείων, represents also the eternal sameness. In Lev 13:7, Symm., Jer., Luther, and also Zckler, translate שׁ in the sense of "from whence;" others, as Ginsburg, venture to take שׁם in the sense of משּׁם; both interpretations are linguistically inadmissible. Generally the author does not mean to say that the rivers return to their sources, since the sea replenishes the fountains, but that where they once flow, they always for ever flow without changing their course, viz., into the all-devouring sea (Elst.); for the water rising out of the sea in vapour, and collecting itself in rain-clouds, fills the course anew, and the rivers flow on anew, for the old repeats itself in the same direction to the same end. מקום is followed by what is a virtual genitive (Psa 104:8); the accentuation rightly extends this only to הלכים; for אשׁר, according to its relation, signifies in itself ubi, Gen 39:20, and quo, Num 13:27; Kg1 12:2 (never unde). שׁם, however, has after verbs of motion, as e.g., Jer 22:27 after שׁוב, and Sa1 9:6 after הלך, frequently the sense of שׁמּה. And שׁוּב with ל and the infin. signifies to do something again, Hos 11:9; Job 7:7, thus: to the place whither the rivers flow, thither they flow again, eo rursus eunt. The author here purposely uses only participles, because although there is constant change, yet that which renews itself is ever the same. He now proceeds, after this brief but comprehensive induction of particulars, to that which is general.”