Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

The best thing for a man is to get what pleasure he can out of life. And after all this is the Divine scheme of life, the ordinance of God. No one can eat or be happy apart from Him (see mg.). Ecclesiastes 2:26 (except the detached sentence at the close which declares that even the conclusion reached in Ecclesiastes 2:24 is vanity), contradicts Qoheleth's central contention, and must be regarded as the comment of a pious annotator. That the good man prospers while the sinner suffers, and even has to hand over his gains to the good man, is teaching found in many parts of OT, but certainly not in Ec. It did not square with the facts of life, as Qoheleth and the author of Job saw; but while the latter made a brave attempt to grapple with the problem the former was content to state it and dwell in the gloom which he could not dissipate.