Verses 16-17
Ecc 8:16-17 “When I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to view the business which is done on the earth (for neither day nor night doth he see sleep with his eyes): then have I seen all the work of God, that a man is unable to find out the work which is done under the sun: therefore that a man wearieth himself to seek out, and yet findeth not; and although a wise man taketh in hand to know, - he is unable to find.” A long period without a premeditated plan has here formed itself under the hand of the author. As it lies before us, it is halved by the vav in veraithi (“then I have seen”); the principal clause, introduced by “when I gave,” can nowhere otherwise begin than here; but it is not indicated by the syntactical structure. Yet in Chr. and Neh. apodoses of כאשׁר begin with the second consec. modus, e.g., 1Ch 17:1; Neh 4:1, and frequently; but the author here uses this modus only rarely, and not (vid., Ecc 4:1, Ecc 4:7) as a sign of an apodosis.
We consider, first, the protasis, with the parenthesis in which it terminates. The phrase נתן את־הלב ל, to direct the heart, to give attention and effort toward something, we have now frequently met with from Ecc 1:13 down. The aim is here twofold: (1) “to know wisdom” (cf. Ecc 1:17), i.e., to gain the knowledge of that which is wisdom, and which is to be regarded as wisdom, viz., solid knowledge regarding the essence, causes, and objects of things; (2) by such knowledge about that which wisdom is in itself “to see earthly labour,” and - this arises from the combination of the two resolutions - to comprehend this labour in accordance with the claims of true wisdom from the point of view of its last ground and aim. Regarding 'inyan, vid., under Ecc 3:10. “On the earth” and “under the sun” are parallel designations of this world.
With גּם כּי begins a parenthetical clause. Ki may also, it is true, be rendered as at Ecc 8:17: the labour on the earth, that he, etc. (Zöckl.); but this restlessness, almost renouncing sleep, is thereby
