(12.) I know how there is nothing good (‘nothing’ and ‘good’ are two nouns in closest apposition, and hence having the meaning ‘there is no good thing’) in them (emphatic and a distributive plural, referring to אדם singular) except to rejoice and to do good (but not in the sense of doing right, which, of course, is foreign to the train of thought, but to the obtaining of good; and as this last idea is repeated from what went before, we have the meaning ‘that good’) in their lives (which the LXX. render by the singular ‘in his life,’ noticing the distributive plural. Hence then the sense of the whole passage is plain: ‘I know that there can be no real good thing belonging to them, except it be that they should rejoice and do good each one in their lives,’ and this is exactly true, as death so completely bounds the vision and terminates the earthly existence of every human soul that what is not obtained in this life is clearly not obtained at all. Of course the entire argument proceeds on the supposition that we are regarding the whole matter as under the sun, that is, limited to this earthly stage of existence).
13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.
And beside, if any way humanity should eat or drink, and thus sees this good by any of his toil, it is simply God’s gift.
(13.) And moreover (an additional consideration added to the above) all the man (i.e. all humanity generally, a proposition universally true of the whole of them) when he eats (contract relative with present tense of the verb, ‘as he eats then’——and eating is here put as the general type of use and enjoyment) and drinks (this is not superfluous; a man can drink when he can no longer eat; he can quench the fever thirst when food is loathsome, hence drinking is the type of solace) and sees good (as a past tense follows a present, we have the equivalent of our imperfect; and as also the conjunction is repeated before each verb, we may render them as dependent = ‘if he should eat or even drink, and so should have a sight of a good’) in all his toil (or by means of it). A gift (chapter v. 19, see also 1 Kings xiii. 17, where it appears that the meaning of the word is a ‘present.’ LXX. δόμα) of God it is (feminine, in close agreement with מתת. Here again we think that there may be noticed a more subjective, or active idea, when the feminine is used, than with corresponding masculines. In this way we may possibly find a grammatical explanation of the anomalous genders so common in Hebrew. In the Pentateuch הוא is used of females, and a possible reason may be that in the earlier stages of the language there was less tendency to regard mere grammatical concords and more to follow the logic of the passage. It is worth noticing that grammatical concord as such becomes more and more developed as the language advances, hence Syriac is as strict as Greek or Latin in this respect. Whatever be the reason, however, the fact of such closer connexion is manifest by a careful collation of places).
14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
I am aware also that all which the Almighty effects must be done with regard to all time, that to it nothing can be added, and that from it nothing either can be taken away, and that the Almighty acts that men may fear in his presence;