| Ecclesiastes 9:1
| All these things have I considered in my heart, that I might carefully understand them: There are just men and wise men, and their works are in the hand of God: and yet man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love, or hatred:
| Of God. He seems to treat both alike, so that the just themselves cannot say whether their sufferings be a punishment or a trial. (St. Jerome) (Calmet) --- Knoweth not certainly, and in an ordinary manner. (Worthington) --- Hatred. Hebrew and Septuagint, "yet love and hatred man knoweth not." (Haydock) --- Prosperity or adversity proves nothing. (Calmet) --- Mortals cannot tell whether their afflictions tend to their greater improvement, like Job's, or they are in punishment of sin, like those of Pharao, and of the Egyptians. This they shall know after death. (Worthington) --- Yet the wicked know already that they are displeasing to God. (Salmeron in 2 Corinthians xii.) "The just and....their works are in the hand of God, even love and hatred; men know not," etc. (De Dieu; Amama)
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