(8.) =In all season= (עת, a providential season――see chapter iii. 1, 19) =let them be= (even) =thy garments white= (it is hardly possible here, when we remember the constant use in Scripture of _white_ garments, not to discover one of those hidden allusions with which this book abounds to a pure as alone a happy life; the garments of the sensualist and drunkard are, in the emphatic language of the apostle, ‘spotted with _the flesh_’), =and oil= (see chapter vii. 1, as the symbol of luxury and wealth) =on thy head do not spare= (chapter iv. 8; ‘do not stint’ or ‘save it as for another time,’ is the meaning: ‘use it when you have the occasion’). 9 ¹Live joyfully with the │ Enjoy life with that woman wife whom thou lovest all the │ whom thou lovest, all the days days of the life of thy vanity,│ of thy evanescent life, which which he hath given thee under │ He grants thee in this hot the sun, all the days of thy │ work-day world,――all these vanity: for that _is_ thy │ evanescent days, I say, for portion in _this_ life, and in │ _that_ is all thou canst thy labour which thou takest │ possess in thy life, and from under the sun. │ that toil thyself art toiling │ ever in this same work-day ¹ _Hebrew_ See _or_ enjoy │ world. life. │ (9.) =See lives together with the woman which thou lovest= (it is to be remarked here that Koheleth speaks of a woman in the singular; the idea thus implied is cognate with that of the white garments, it is pure domestic love) =all the days of the lives of thy vanity= (_i.e._ thy evanescent life) =which= He =gives to thee= (the nominative is no doubt the Deity; but as this nominative is so far off, the verb becomes almost an impersonal) =under the sun all the days of thy vanity= (repeated); =for that same is thy portion in lives in thy toil which thou= (emphatic) =toilest at under the sun= (repeated, and therefore having the meaning, ‘under that same sun,’ the whole being thus strictly limited to the horizon of this world). 10 Whatsoever thy hand │ All that thy hand finds to do, findeth to do, do _it_ with │ to the utmost do it, because thy might; for _there is_ │ there is no work, nor device, no work, nor device, nor │ nor wisdom, nor knowledge in knowledge, nor wisdom, in the │ the grave, and that is whither grave, whither thou goest. │ thou art hastening.