(8.) In all season (עת, a providential season——see [chapter iii. 1], [19]) let them be (even) thy garments white (it is hardly possible here, when we remember the constant use in Scripture of white garments, not to discover one of those hidden allusions with which this book abounds to a pure as alone a happy life; the garments of the sensualist and drunkard are, in the emphatic language of the apostle, ‘spotted with the flesh’), and oil (see [chapter vii. 1], as the symbol of luxury and wealth) on thy head do not spare (chapter iv. 8; ‘do not stint’ or ‘save it as for another time,’ is the meaning: ‘use it when you have the occasion’).
9 [¹]Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.
[¹] Hebrew See or enjoy life.
Enjoy life with that woman whom thou lovest, all the days of thy evanescent life, which He grants thee in this hot work-day world,——all these evanescent days, I say, for that is all thou canst possess in thy life, and from that toil thyself art toiling ever in this same work-day world.
(9.) See lives together with the woman which thou lovest (it is to be remarked here that Koheleth speaks of a woman in the singular; the idea thus implied is cognate with that of the white garments, it is pure domestic love) all the days of the lives of thy vanity (i.e. thy evanescent life) which He gives to thee (the nominative is no doubt the Deity; but as this nominative is so far off, the verb becomes almost an impersonal) under the sun all the days of thy vanity (repeated); for that same is thy portion in lives in thy toil which thou (emphatic) toilest at under the sun (repeated, and therefore having the meaning, ‘under that same sun,’ the whole being thus strictly limited to the horizon of this world).
10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
All that thy hand finds to do, to the utmost do it, because there is no work, nor device, nor wisdom, nor knowledge in the grave, and that is whither thou art hastening.