Ecclesiastes 2:14

The wise man's eyes are in his head The figurative language is so much of the nature of an universal parable that we need hardly look to any special source for it, but we are at least reminded of those that "walk on still in darkness," who have eyes and yet "see not" in any true sense of seeing (Isaiah 6:10). In Proverbs 17:24 we have the opposite form of the same thought: "The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth." Comp. also John 11:10; John 12:33.

and I myself perceived also Better, And yet I myself perceived. The thought of Ecclesiastes 2:13 which had given an apparent resting-place for the seeker, is traversed by another which sends him once more adrift. Wisdom is better than folly. True, but for how long? With an emphasized stress on his own personal reflections, he goes on, "Yes, I myself, learning it for myself, and not as a topic of the schools, saw that there is one event for the wise and for the fool." In a few short years the difference in which the former exults will vanish, and both will be on the same level. So sang the Epicurean poet:

"Omnes una manet nox,

Et calcanda semel via lethi."

"One dark black night awaits us all;

One path of death we all must tread."

Hor. Od.i. 28. 15.