Good and prosperous days are in God’s design special times of comfort and rejoicing: the days of affliction and trouble, are in God’s design the proper seasons of recollection and serious consideration. The Providence of God hath so contrived it, that our good and evil days should be intermingled each with the other. This mixture of good and evil days is by the Divine Providence so proportioned, that it sufficiently justifies the dealings of God toward the sons of men, and obviates all their discontent and complaints against Him.
Set the one over against the other - Rather, made this as well as that, i. e., the day of adversity, as well as the day of prosperity. The seeming imitation of this passage in Ecclesiasticus (Ecclesiasticus 36:13-15) affords a strong presumption that this book was written before the days of the son of Sirach.
To the end ... - God hath constituted the vicissitude of prosperity and adversity in such a way that no man can forecast the events that shall follow when he is removed from his present state. Compare the Ecclesiastes 6:12 note.