Ecclesiastes 6:1

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun The picture is substantially the same as that of ch. Ecclesiastes 4:7-8. The repetition is characteristic, consciously or unconsciously, of the pessimism from which the writer has not yet emancipated himself. He broods over the same thought, chews, as it were, the "cud of bitter fancies" only, "semper eandem canens cantilenam." Here the picture is that of a man who has all outward goods in abundance, but he just lacks that capacity for enjoyment which is (as in ch. Ecclesiastes 5:20) the "gift of God," and he dies childless and a stranger becomes the heir. We are reminded of the aged patriarch's exclamation, "I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus" (Genesis 15:2).