This verse presents some difficulties of translation which need not be discussed here. The Authorised Version gives the following very good sense: If the king has failed in his experiment, what likelihood is there that a private person should be more successful? Yet bearing in mind that in Ecclesiastes 5:18 the “man that cometh after the king” means his successor, and also that the theme of the whole section is that in human affairs there is no progress, it is more simple to understand this verse: the king’s successor can do no more than run the same round that has been trodden by his predecessor.
Related Commentaries of Ecclesiastes 2:12
Ecclesiastes 2:12
12 And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done.