2:22 What does a man acquire from all his labor
and from the anxiety that accompanies his toil on earth? 1
6:5 though it never saw the light of day 2 nor knew anything, 3
yet it has more rest 4 than that man –
1 tn Heb “under the sun.” The rhetorical question is an example of negative affirmation, expecting a negative answer: “Man acquires nothing” (see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 949-51).
2 tn Heb “it never saw the sun.”
3 tn The word “anything” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity.
4 sn The Hebrew term translated rest here refers to freedom from toil, anxiety, and misery – part of the miserable misfortune that the miserly man of wealth must endure.