26 For _God_ giveth to a man │ and so to man just as is right that _is_ good in his sight │ in His sight He gives wisdom wisdom, and knowledge, and │ and knowledge and gladness, but joy: but to the sinner he │ to the transgressor He gives giveth travail, to gather and │ the anxiety of accumulating to heap up, that he may give │ and collecting what is to be to _him that_ is good before │ granted to any, as also is good God. This also _is_ vanity and │ in the sight of God. So this is vexation of spirit. │ another instance of evanescence │ and vexation of spirit. (26.) =For= (repeated again, so that this word becomes emphatic and prominent. Accordingly _four_ reasons follow, comprising as it were the whole cycle of the argument) =to a man= (still generic, as a specimen of the human race) =which is good before him= (not altogether with the meaning ‘a good man,’ but as ‘God thinks good’) =He gives wisdom,= and =knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner= (_i.e._ the _erring_ sinner) =he gives=, on the other hand, =anxious-travail to collect and to gather= (♦כנס, occurs chapter ii. 8, 26, iii. 5; the meaning is ‘to collect piece by piece;’ see also Psalm xxxiii. 7, 1 Chronicles xxii. 2), =to give it to the good= in =the sight of God= (_i.e._ as God sees fit it should be given); =so this also is vanity and vexation of spirit.= ♦ “כנם” replaced with “כנס” Thus, then, the first part of the argument is completed. Man obtains nothing by his labour. It is the gift of a mysterious and inscrutable Providence which alone confers any happiness or gratification. CHAPTER III. III. At this point Koheleth commences another line of argument; he notices that all things proceed according to a fixed and settled order of providence. This truth he brings into great prominence by instancing eight-and-twenty――a fourfold seven――different times or seasons existing in human life. From this he deduces the conclusion, that as it is impossible to alter the order of Providence, the toil of man is useless to effect any real good, so far as this world is concerned. The way in which this thought is worked out is peculiar. Koheleth is both sarcastic and paradoxical in his arguments; but his sarcasms are never ill-natured and his paradoxes promote thought. He also enlivens his subject with a considerable number of plays upon words, and striking and pregnant aphorisms.