Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.
Solomon, in a fret, had praised the dead more than the living (Ecc 4:2); but here, considering the advantages of life to prepare for death and make sure the hope of a better life, he seems to be of another mind. I. He shows the advantages which the living have above those that are dead, Ecc 9:4-6. 1. While there is life there is hope.
Commenting on Ecclesiastes 9:4-10
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest,.... Or "see", or "enjoy life" (d): this is one of the ways of enjoying life comfortably, and one of the principal ones; that if a man has a wife whom he ought to love as himself as his own flesh, to take delight in her company, be pleasant with her, and rejoice in her, Pro 5:18; and...
wife . . . lovest--godly and true love, opposed to the "snares" of the "thousand" concubines (Ecc 7:26, Ecc 7:28), "among" whom Solomon could not find the true love which joins one man to one woman (Pro 5:15, Pro 5:18-19; Pro 18:22; Pro 19:14).