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1. All this. That is, the problem of the adversity of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked.

I considered. Solomon exercised his mind in the endeavor to solve the problem.

The righteous. A man’s deeds declare him for what he is. By his fruits he will be known (Matt. 7:15-20).

The hand of God. His will is supreme. The hand is figurative of power and authority (Deut. 33:3; Isa. 62:3).

Love or hatred. It is often difficult to know what purpose lies back of the various experiences of life. For the most part, these experiences illustrate the working of cause and effect (see Gal. 6:7). At times God may overrule for the accomplishment of that which in His wisdom He knows is best. But every experience may, in the providence of God, become an opportunity for character development.

All that is before them. Human reason alone often cannot fathom the vicissitudes of life, the nature of God’s plans for the life, or what lies in the future. Several ancient versions take the first Hebrew word of v. 2, hakkol, literally, “the all,” as the last word of v. 1 and read it as hebel, “vanity.” In the Hebrew consonantal text this represents a change of but one letter, a b for a k, which are very similar (see Vol. I, p. 22), either of which might easily be mistaken for the other. Accordingly such versions read, “everything before them is vanity” (RSV). See on v. 2.