(4.) For whoever (interrogative pronoun followed by אשר, compare Exodus xxxii. 33; it has here the sense, ‘For whoever he be’) chooses (the Kri reads ‘is joined to,’ which the LXX., Syriac, Targum, and Symmachus all have; but this and the pointing as a pual is merely a Masoretic conjecture: it would be better with the LXX. to take it in an active sense, κοινωνεῖ, ‘participates.’ The Chetib is perfectly intelligible, however, and is to be preferred) towards (אל, as in verse 3) all (but כל is without the article; hence it has the meaning, the ‘whole of’) the lives (with the article, and hence generic, ‘lives generally.’ Thus the meaning is, ‘For whoever he be, he is one who chooses entirely with relation to the living’), it is (יש, it exists as such) an expectation (בטחון, occurs 2 Kings xviii. 19, and its parallel Isaiah xxxvi. 4 besides this place only, in the meaning of a ‘confidence’ or ‘expectation,’ and this meaning gives excellent sense here: ‘is his expectation that he will live:’ no man makes plans on the supposition that he is going to die; he may indeed provide for others after he is dead, but the horizon of his own hopes is necessarily bounded by his life). For (an additional reason confirming the above) to a dog alive it is (emphatic) good above the lion (with the article, because this is generic; it is not a lion, but lion qualities generally), the dead (again generic, for the same reason——‘a live dog is better than the lion when he is dead,’ is the exact turn of thought).
5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
Yet the living are quite aware that they shall die; but the dead are not aware of anything; and they can have no further recompense, because a forgotten thing is their memorial:
(5.) For the living ones are knowing that they will die (this is an additional reason to the above, and so may be rendered, ‘but the living are certain that they will die‘), but the dead (plural, with the article, ‘the dead persons generally’) are not those who are knowing anything (it is not here, be it observed, the existence of knowledge on the part of the dead which is denied, but that, from the author’s point of view, the dead are persons who do not know anything: an unevangelic sense has been given to this passage by not attending to this distinction), and there is nothing further to them (emphatic) which is a hire (or a reward in this life accruing to them as a recompense for their toil), because forgotten (niphal in its usual objective sense) is their remembrance.
6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.
and then their love and their hatred also, and their envy as well, as far as this Present is concerned, are perished; and there is no further participation for them in the age, in anything that may be done within this work-day world.