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ECCLESIASTES CHAPTER 9
All things in the hand of God: his love or hatred not visible in them; but the like happeneth to good and bad in this life, and in death they know nothing hereof, and are themselves forgotten, Ecc_9:1-6. It is best therefore for a man to enjoy the gifts of God with cheerfulness, Ecc_9:7-9; to be diligent in his calling, Ecc_9:10, and leave the issue to God, Ecc_9:11,12. The praise of wisdom, Ecc_9:13-18.
For; or, therefore, as the seventy interpreters render it.
All this; all that I have said concerning the methods of Divine Providence towards good and bad men.
To declare all this; to make this evident, first to myself, and then to others, as occasion required.
The righteous and the wise; whom he mentions not exclusively, as if wicked men were not in God’s hand, for the next clause relates both to good and bad men; but eminently, because by the course of God’s providence towards them they might seem to be quite neglected and forsaken by God.
Their works; either efficiently, all their actions and employments; or objectively, all things done to them, all events which befall them.
Are in the hand of God; are subject to his power, and governed by his providence, as this phrase is used Pro_21:1 Joh_3:35, compared with Mat_28:18. And therefore although we cannot fully understand the reasons of all God’s works, as he now said, Ecc_8:17, yet because they are done by his unerring hand, we may be assured that they are done both righteously and justly, and that no man hath cause to murmur at the prosperity of the wicked, or at the calamities of good men.
No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them; no man can judge by their present and outward conditions or dispensations of God’s providence whether God loves or hates them, for whom he loves he chastens, and permitteth those whom he hates to prosper in the world. And this translation and interpretation agreeth well with the following verse. But I must confess it differs from almost all other, both ancient and modern, translations. And these words with the foregoing clause are translated otherwise, and that word for word according to the Hebrew, the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; also love and hatred (understand out of the foregoing clause, are in God’s hand. And this may be meant either,
1. Of God’s love and hatred, which he disposeth when, and to whom, and in what manner he pleaseth. Or,
2. Of, men’s love and hatred, also their love and their hatred, the pronoun their being repeated out of the former clause, as is frequent in Scripture. And so the sense is, that not only men’s works, as he now said, but even their inward passions or affections, which seem to be most in their own power, are as much in God’s disposal as their outward actions. Then follows the last clause in the same order in which the words lie in the Hebrew text): no man knoweth all, or any thing, which is before him. Which I thus understand, whereas all men, and all their affections, and actions, and the events of them, are perfectly known to God, and disposed by him, men know nothing, no, not such things as are most plain, and easy, and familiar to them, and can neither foresee the plainest things, nor dispose of the smallest things as they please; but all things are wholly ordered and overruled by God’s providence, not as men imagine or desire, but as he sees fit.