True wisdom is to observe God’s commandments. The ways of God are
unsearchable.
8:1. The wisdom of a man shineth in his countenance, and the most
mighty will change his face.
8:2. I observe the mouth of the king, and the commandments of the oath
of God.
8:3. Be not hasty to depart from his face, and do not continue in an
evil work: for he will do all that pleaseth him:
8:4. And his word is full of power: neither can any man say to him: Why
dost thou so?
8:5. He that keepeth the commandment, shall find no evil. The heart of
a wise man understandeth time and answer.
8:6. There is a time and opportunity for every business, and great
affliction for man:
8:7. Because he is ignorant of things past, and things to come he
cannot know by any messenger.
8:8. It is not in man’s power to stop the spirit, neither hath he power
in the day of death, neither is he suffered to rest when war is at
hand, neither shall wickedness save the wicked.
8:9. All these things I have considered, and applied my heart to all
the works that are done under the sun. Sometimes one man ruleth over
another to his own hurt.
8:10. I saw the wicked buried: who also when they were yet living were
in the holy place, and were praised in the city as men of just works:
but this also is vanity.
8:11. For because sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil,
the children of men commit evils without any fear.
8:12. But though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and by patience be
borne withal, I know from thence that it shall be well with them that
fear God, who dread his face.
8:13. But let it not be well with the wicked, neither let his days be
prolonged, but as a shadow let them pass away that fear not the face of
the Lord.
8:14. There is also another vanity, which is done upon the earth. There
are just men to whom evils happen, as though they had done the works of
the wicked: and there are wicked men, who are as secure as though they
had the deeds of the just: but this also I judge most vain.
8:15. Therefore I commended mirth, because there was no good for a man
under the sun, but to eat, and drink, and be merry, and that he should
take nothing else with him of his labour in the days of his life, which
God hath given him under the sun.
No good for a man, etc.... Some commentators think the wise man here
speaks in the person of the libertine: representing the objections of
these men against divine providence, and the inferences they draw from
thence, which he takes care afterwards to refute. But it may also be
said, that his meaning is to commend the moderate use of the goods of
this world, preferably to the cares and solicitudes of worldlings,
their attachment to vanity and curiosity, and presumptuously diving
into the unsearchable ways of divine providence.
8:16. And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the
distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night
take no sleep with their eyes.
8:17. And I understood that man can find no reason of all those works
of God that are done under the sun: and the more he shall labour to
seek, so much the less shall he find: yea, though the wise man shall
say, that he knoweth it, he shall not be able to find it.