Ecclesiastes 1:8,9 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

All things Not only the sun, and winds, and rivers, but all other creatures; are full of labour They are in continual restlessness and change, never abiding in the same state. The eye is not satisfied As there are many things in the world vexatious to men, so even those things which are comfortable are not satisfactory, but men are constantly desiring some longer continuance or fuller enjoyment of them, or variety in them. The eye and ear are here put for all the senses, because these are most spiritual and refined, most curious and inquisitive, most capable of receiving satisfaction, and exercised with more ease and pleasure than the other senses. The thing that hath been, &c. There is nothing in the world but a continued and tiresome repetition of the same things. The nature and course of the beings and affairs of the world, and the tempers of men, are the same that they ever were, and shall ever be; and therefore, because no man ever yet received satisfaction from worldly things, it is vain for any person hereafter to expect it. And there is no new thing In the nature of things, which might give us hopes of attaining that satisfaction which hitherto things have not afforded.