Looking at the wind one does not sow, and gazing into the clouds one does not reap.
(4.) Regarding wind! not does one sow (impersonal), and looking into clouds neither is one reaping (we must attend to the precise form of the words in this sentence in order to gather the true nature of the sarcasm hidden in it; the LXX. have clearly marked these forms in their rendering).
5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
Just as thou art not one who knows the way of the spirit, how the bones are in the womb of the pregnant: just so thou knowest nothing with respect to the working of the Almighty, who is working out the whole.
(5.) As thou art not one who knows what is the way of the spirit, like the bones in the womb of the pregnant, just so, thou dost not know, with respect to the working of the Deity, Who is He that (full relative) performs with regard to the whole. (The LXX. render the first part ἐν οἷς οὐκ ἔστιν γινώσκων, ‘among whom none knows,’ taking no notice of the pronoun thou. Did they read the כ at the end of אינך as beginning the following word? That the sentence is equivocal, and that this equivoke helps the general drift of the passage is not to be doubted.) The subject now returns to the previous train of argument, which directs man to do his duty in submission to the inscrutable ways of Providence.
6 In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether [¹]shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.