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

No man hath power over the spirit That is, over the soul of man; to retain the spirit To keep it in the body beyond the time which God hath allotted to it. This is added as another evidence of man's misery. Neither hath he power in the day of death Or, against the day, that is, to avoid, or delay that day; and there is no discharge As there is in other wars; in that war In that fatal conflict between life and death, when a man is struggling with death, though to no purpose, for death will be always conqueror. Neither shall wickedness deliver, &c. And although wicked men, who most fear death, use all possible means to free themselves from it, yet they shall not escape it. The most subtle wickedness cannot out-wit death, nor the most daring wickedness out-brave it.