Ecclesiastes 6:12

who knoweth what is good for man We have once more the distinctive formula of Pyrrhonism. "Who knows?" was the sceptic's question, then as at all times. See note on ch. Ecclesiastes 3:21. After all discussions on the supreme good, some pointing to pleasure, and some to virtue, and some to apathy, who can give a definite and decisive answer? Life remained after all vain, and not worth living. See again the poem of Omar Khayyam in the Appendix.

which he spendeth as a shadow The thought was so natural as to be all but universal. It had been uttered by Job (Ecclesiastes 8:9), and by David (1 Chronicles 29:15). It was uttered also by Sophocles:

ὁρῶ γὰρ ἡμᾶς οὐδὲν ὄντας ἄλλο, πλὴν

εἴδωλʼ, ὅσοιπερ ζῶμεν, ἢ κούφην σκιάν.

"In this I see that we, all we that live,

Are but vain shadows, unsubstantial dreams."

Aias, 127.

for who can tell a man Man's ignorance of the future, of what may become of children or estate, is, as before in chs. Ecclesiastes 2:18-19; Ecclesiastes 4:7, another element in the "vanity" of human life. Granted that it is long and prosperous to the end, still the man is vexed or harassed with the thought that his work may be all undone, his treasures wasted, his plans frustrated.