Ecclesiastes 8
1 Who is a wise man? Who knows what the events in life mean? Wisdom in a man causes his face to shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.
[I will tell you about] those who are truly wise [RHQ] with the result that they can explain why everything happens. Being wise enables people to be happy [MTY] and enables them to smile.
2 I advise you to obey the king's command because of God's oath to protect him.
You solemnly promised God that you would obey what the king commands, so do that.
3 Do not hurry out of his presence, and do not stand in support of something wrong, for the king does whatever he desires.
Do not quickly disobey the king. And do not join those who want to rebel against him, because the king will do what he wants to do.
4 The king's word rules, so who will say to him, “What are you doing?”
We need to obey what the king says more than we need to obey what anyone else says; no one can say to the king, “(Why are you doing that?/You should not be doing that.) [RHQ]”
5 Whoever keeps the king's commands avoids harm. A wise man's heart recognizes the proper course and time of action.
If you obey what the king commands, he will not harm you. [So] be wise, and know the correct/right time to do things and the right way to do them.
6 For every matter there is a correct response and a time to respond, because the troubles of man are great.
Although people experience many troubles/difficulties, there is a right/correct time to do things, and there is a right/correct way [to do them].
7 No one knows what is coming next. Who can tell him what is coming?
No one knows what will happen in the future, so there is no one [RHQ] who can tell us what is going to happen.
8 No one is ruler over his breath so as to stop the breath, and no one has power over the day of his death. No one is discharged from the army during a battle, and wickedness will not rescue those who are its slaves.
We cannot control the wind, and we cannot control when we will die. Soldiers are not permitted to go home during a battle, and evil people will not be saved by [doing what is] evil.
9 I have realized all this; I have applied my heart to every kind of work that is done under the sun. There is a time when a person oppresses another person to that person's hurt.
I thought about all those things, and I thought about all [HYP] the other things that happen on this earth. I saw that [sometimes] people cause those whom they control to suffer.
10 So I saw the wicked buried publicly. They were taken from the holy area and buried and were praised by people in the city where they had done their wicked deeds. This also is uselessness.
I also saw that [sometimes] after evil [people] die, they are highly honored at their funerals by the people in the cities where they had done [evil] deeds. It seemed to be difficult to understand why that happens.
11 When a sentence against an evil crime is not executed quickly, it entices the hearts of human beings to do evil.
If evil people are not immediately punished, it causes [other] people [SYN] to [also] want to do evil things.
12 Even though a sinner does evil a hundred times and still lives a long time, yet I know that it will be better for those who respect God, for those who stand before him and show him respect.
But even if sinful people commit 100 crimes, and [even if they] live for a long time, I know that things will go better for those who greatly respect and revere God.
13 But it will not go well for a wicked man; his life will not be prolonged. His days are like a fleeting shadow because he does not honor God.
[I also know] that things will not go well go for those who are evil, because they do not revere God. Shadows [do not last a long time]. Similarly [SIM], evil people will not live a long time.
14 There is another useless vapor—something else that is done on the earth. Things happen to righteous people as they happen to wicked people, and things happen to wicked people as they happen to righteous people. I say that this also is useless vapor.
Another thing that [sometimes] happens on this earth is that bad things happen to righteous people, and good things happen to evil people. It is difficult to understand why that happens.
15 So I recommend happiness, because a man has no better thing under the sun than to eat and drink and to be happy. It is happiness that will accompany him in his labor for all the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.
[So] I decided that I would recommend that people be happy while they are alive, because the best thing that people can do here on this earth is to eat and drink and be happy. Enjoying doing those things will help people while they do their work, all the time that God has given to them to remain alive here on the earth.
16 When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to understand the work that is done on the earth, work often done without sleep for the eyes at night or in the day,
I thought about being wise and about people who work very hard, working day and night and not taking time to sleep.
17 then I considered all of God's deeds, and that man cannot understand the work that is done under the sun. No matter how much a man labors to find the answers, he will not find them. Even though a wise man might believe he knows, he really does not.
Then I thought about everything [HYP] that God has done, and I realized that no one can understand everything that happens here on this earth. Truly, people are not able to fully understand everything [that God understands], even if they try hard to do that. Even if wise people claim that they understand it all, they cannot.
