Ecclesiastes 8:8 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The spirit, i.e. the soul of man, which is oft called a spirit, as Job 7:7, Job 10:12 Psalms 78:39, Psalms 104:29, &c. 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. In the day; or, against the day, i.e. to avoid or delay that day. There is no discharge, as there is in other wars, when soldiers either are dismissed from the service, or escape by flight or otherwise. In that war; in that fatal conflict between life and death, between nature and the disease, when a man is struggling with death, though to no purpose, for death shall always be conqueror. Neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it; and although wicked men, who most fear death, use all possible means, whether good or bad, to free themselves from this deadly blow, yet they shall not escape it.