Like the previous verse, this one also begins with the verb made; it is part of the description of great works he accomplished. Good News Translation “dug” suggests, probably correctly, that the water was stored in cisterns or large holes in the ground. This fits the general pattern for water storage in Israel, as archeological discoveries have confirmed. In fact the term used here and translated pools is the same as the term describing the pool of Gibeon in 2 Sam 2.13. This is a deep cistern with a circular stairway leading down to the water stored in the bottom. Translators will need to use a term in their language which describes a place that has been dug in the ground to store water. We should also note here that Qoheleth did not make or dig these holes himself; our translation should indicate that others did this for him. On myself see also the comments on 2.4.

To water the forest of growing trees: the purpose of the pools was to irrigate the trees he had planted. In Gen 2.10 the verb “water” describes the river watering the Garden of Eden. Here Qoheleth uses that same verb, perhaps suggesting that what he planted was similar to that Garden. When he says that the trees formed a forest, he is using a term not usually associated with fruit trees, because it indicates a dense cluster of trees. Clearly Qoheleth wants to say that there were many trees growing there. However, the participle growing is singular, so the question is, What does this word modify? Does it describe the forest, which is also a singular, collective noun? Or does it describe trees as Revised Standard Version suggests? This is a very minor point, given the context, and we can avoid the problem by translating it “to irrigate the many trees,” or as Good News Translation does, “to irrigate them.” The pronoun “them” is adequate in this context.

For translation: “I made myself reservoirs to irrigate them,” “I had ponds dug to irrigate them,” or “I built wells to water the many trees.”

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .