But let it not be well with the wicked, neither let his days be
prolonged, but as a shadow let them pass away that fear not the face of
the Lord.

8:14. There is also another vanity, which is done upon the earth. There
are just men to whom evils happen, as though they had done the works of
the wicked: and there are wicked men, who are as secure as though they
had the deeds of the just: but this also I judge most vain.

8:15. Therefore I commended mirth, because there was no good for a man
under the sun, but to eat, and drink, and be merry, and that he should
take nothing else with him of his labour in the days of his life, which
God hath given him under the sun.

No good for a man, etc... Some commentators think the wise man here
speaks in the person of the libertine: representing the objections of
these men against divine providence, and the inferences they draw from
thence, which he takes care afterwards to refute. But it may also be
said, that his meaning is to commend the moderate use of the goods of
this world, preferably to the cares and solicitudes of worldlings, their
attachment to vanity and curiosity, and presumptuously diving into the
unsearchable ways of divine providence.

8:16. And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the
distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night
take no sleep with their eyes.

8:17. And I understood that man can find no reason of all those works of
God that are done under the sun: and the more he shall labour to seek,
so much the less shall he find: yea, though the wise man shall say, that
he knoweth it, he shall not be able to find it.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 9

Man knows not certainty that he is in God's grace. After death no more
work or merit.

9:1. All these things have I considered in my heart, that I might
carefully understand them: there are just men and wise men, and their
works are in the hand of God: and yet man knoweth not whether he be
worthy of love, or hatred:

9:2. But all things are kept uncertain for the time to come, because all
things equally happen to the just and to the wicked, to the good and to
the evil, to the clean and to the unclean, to him that offereth victims,
and to him that despiseth sacrifices. As the good is, so also is the
sinner: as the perjured, so he also that sweareth truth.

9:3. This is a very great evil among all things that are done under the
sun, that the same things happen to all men: where