(13.) And good (repeated, ‘but good’) it will not be to an impious person (or act) and he will not cause to prolong days as a shadow (he does not prolong his days; they are prolonged indeed sometimes by Divine providence in His inscrutable decrees, and they are as a shadow,——a very impressive figure: the lengthened shadow of the old sinner’s years so soon to end in darkness absolute) which (full relative, in this equivalent to ‘because that’) he is not a fearer before God.
14 There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.
There is an instance of evanescence which occurs upon earth, and it is this: that there are righteous persons to whom it results as if they had acted like the impious; and, on the other hand, there are impious persons to whom it may happen as though they had acted like the righteous. So this, said I, is another instance of the transitory!
(14.) There exists a vanity done (i.e. which occurs or happens to men) under the sun (the LXX. render by a perfect, πεποίηται), which is, that there exists righteous (full relative) which (persons or acts) it reaches (hiphil participle, Genesis xxviii. 12) to them (emphatic) according to the doing of the wicked ones, (generic; they attain the same ends as the wicked ones do, in this world at least, for ‘under the sun’ is put in as a qualifying clause), and there are wicked ones which it reaches (here we have the contract relative instead of the full one above. So accurate a writer as Koheleth could hardly have done this without reason. We have already noticed the subjunctive sense the contract relative gives to the verb it joins——possibly he intends a limitation; it is an occurrence which sometimes happens, the rule however is after all the other way) to them according to the working of the righteous ones, I said which also (שגם——see [chapter i. 17], [ii. 15], the only other two instances in which this combination occurs; it clearly gives an interrogatory force, with a tone of surprise) is vanity?
15 Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.
Then I, for my part, expressed a preference with regard to enjoyment, because there is no real good to a man in this work-day world, except to eat, and drink, and be delighted, and that same conjoined with his toil during the days of his life; and because also it is appointed to him of the Almighty in this work-day world.