It is one who is by himself, without a second, and without son or brother; but there is no end to all his work, and he has never enough of wealth. For whom, then, am I working and keeping myself from pleasure? This again is to no purpose, and a bitter work.

The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much; but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.

For what does a person gain from everything that he accomplishes and from his inner life struggles that he undergoes while working on earth?

Sow your seed in the morning, and don't stop working until evening, since you don't know which of your endeavors will do well, whether this one or that, or even if both will do equally well.

Then I saw all the works which my hands had made, and everything I had been working to do; and I saw that all was to no purpose and desire for wind, and there was no profit under the sun.

He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]—yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end.

And this again is a great evil, that in all points as he came so will he go; and what profit has he in working for the wind?

What the excellence of him working in what he labored?

If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perversion of judgment and justice in a province, wonder not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there are higher than they.

Then I saw all the work of God, and that man may not get knowledge of the work which is done under the sun; because, if a man gives hard work to the search he will not get knowledge, and even if the wise man seems to be coming to the end of his search, still he will be without knowledge.