  The best way to grasp all that has been said so far about Ibn Ezra’s interests, influences, and style, is to have look at a sample passage where the peculiarities of his writing and the difficulties of piecing together his “philosophy” can be examined in situ, so to speak. The lengthy excursus on the structure of the human soul in his commentary to Ecclesiastes 7:9 offers such an opportunity. Ibn Ezra briefly notes the tripartite division of the soul into vegetable, animal, and rational. This, he tells us, is the scheme adopted by “the scholars who [base their claims upon] proofs” (hakhmei ha-ra’ayot).  One can achieve a full understanding only after reading “many books”. There is no specific lexical or grammatical problem that requires the exegete to go to any length here. However, an inquiry into the soul is mandated because this verse is one of the places in Ecclesiastes where King Solomon has, on the face of it, contradicted himself, and therefore the verse requires explication. After citing at length some of the apparent contradictions, Ibn Ezra proposes an alternative psychology to that of the “scholars”, employing a different tripartite scheme and different terminology: nefesh (appetite and lust), ru’ah (sensation and domineering), and neshamah (wisdom). He intimates that this switch is only for the sake of convenience, though the truth appears to be otherwise. Ibn Ezra notes in passing that Sa‘adiah too employed this second classification.