17 Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
I was even disgusted with respect to life itself: for an evil to me is the work at which I toil in this hot work-day world, since the whole is evanescent, and vexation of spirit.
(17.) Then hated I, with respect to the lives (an emphatic את, which the LXX. note by the adverbial σὺν, and meaning not exactly that he hated his own life, as that he felt a disgust with respect to life generally), because an evil to me (emphatic with על, giving the notion of pressing upon) the work which I worked under the sun, because (כי following in a sentence with כי at the commencement; this particle thus doubled I believe to be often nearly equivalent to our ‘for,’ ‘as,’) the whole is vanity and vexation of spirit.
18 ¶ Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
I for my part was disgusted with all my toil that I had moiled at it, in this work-day world, because I shall leave it to the man that succeeds me,
(18.) I hated then, I myself (emphatic pronoun, because again we have Koheleth’s personal experience, as we should say, ‘I was disgusted’), with respect to all my toil which I (again strongly personal, meaning so far as it was my toil) had toiled at under the sun that I should leave it (close relative qualifying the verb, and giving the idea that the grievance was that he would have to leave this work) to a man (i.e. some man as a human person) which will be after me.