Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

A summary of the second, and the more important part. The whole forms the epilogue, an epitome of the book.

Verse 13. Hear the conclusion - the conclusion of the discourse: the grand inference of the whole book.

Fear God - the antidote to following creature-idols and "vanities," whether self-righteousness (; ) or wicked oppression and other evils (Ecclesiastes 8:12), or mad mirth (; Ecclesiastes 7:2), or self-mortifying avarice (; ), and gloomy complaining and discontent, or youth spent without God (; ).

This (is) the whole (duty) of man - literally, this is the whole man: the full ideal of man, as originally contemplated, realized wholly by Jesus Christ alone; and, through Him, by saints, now in part, hereafter perfectly (1 John 3:22; ). Hengstenberg less spiritedly translates, 'This is the duty of all men.'

Verse 14. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with (literally, upon; i:e., concerning) every secret thing - (; cf. note, above.) The future judgment is the test of what is "vanity," what solid, as regards the chief good, the grand subject of the book.

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