Ecclesiastes 9:10

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do Here again men have interpreted the maxim according to their characters; some seeing in "whatsoever thy hand findeth" simply opportunities for enjoyment; others taking the precept as meaning practically, "do whatever thou hast strength to do, let might be right with thee;" others, as it seems, more truly, finding in it a call to work as well as enjoyment; to work as the condition of enjoyment (chs. Ecclesiastes 1:14; Ecclesiastes 5:12). It may be questioned whether the word for "work" is ever used of mere activity in sensual pleasure. For the phrase "whatsoever thy hand findeth" see the marginal reading of 1 Samuel 10:7; Judges 9:33.

for there is no work, nor device The words find a parallel, though in a far higher region, and with a far nobler meaning, in those which were spoken by the Son of Man, "I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work" (John 9:4). From the standpoint of the Debater the region behind the veil, if there be a region there, is seen as a shadow-world in which all the energies that belong to a man as a "being of large discourse looking before and after" are hushed in the deep sleep of death. The common saying, often in men's mouths as if it came from the Bible, "There is no repentance in the grave," is probably an echo of this passage. It is obvious, however, that the state of the dead which is in the writer's thoughts approximates to a theory of annihilation rather than to that of a state of torment in which repentance is impossible or unavailing. The "grave" stands as elsewhere (Job 7:9; Psalms 6:5, et al.) for the Hebrew Sheôl, the Hades of the Greek, the unseen world of the dead. It is noticeable that this is the only passage in the book in which the word occurs.