16 I took another good look at what's going on: The very place of judgment - corrupt! 17 The place of righteousness - corrupt! I said to myself, "God will judge righteous and wicked." There's a right time for every thing, every deed - and there's no getting around it. 18 I said to myself regarding the human race, "God's testing the lot of us, showing us up as nothing but animals." 19 Humans and animals come to the same end - humans die, animals die. We all breathe the same air. So there's really no advantage in being human. None. Everything's smoke. 20 We all end up in the same place - we all came from dust, we all end up as dust. 21 Nobody knows for sure that the human spirit rises to heaven or that the animal spirit sinks into the earth. 22 So I made up my mind that there's nothing better for us men and women than to have a good time in whatever we do - that's our lot. Who knows if there's anything else to life?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:16-22
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:16-22
(Read Ecclesiastes 3:16-22)
Without the fear of the Lord, man is but vanity; set that aside, and judges will not use their power well. And there is another Judge that stands before the door. With God there is a time for the redressing of grievances, though as yet we see it not. Solomon seems to express his wish that men might perceive, that by choosing this world as their portion, they brought themselves to a level with the beasts, without being free, as they are, from present vexations and a future account. Both return to the dust from whence they were taken. What little reason have we to be proud of our bodies, or bodily accomplishments! But as none can fully comprehend, so few consider properly, the difference between the rational soul of man, and the spirit or life of the beast. The spirit of man goes upward, to be judged, and is then fixed in an unchangeable state of happiness or misery. It is as certain that the spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth; it perishes at death. Surely their case is lamentable, the height of whose hopes and wishes is, that they may die like beasts. Let our inquiry be, how an eternity of existence may be to us an eternity of enjoyment? To answer this, is the grand design of revelation. Jesus is revealed as the Son of God, and the Hope of sinners.