Ecclesiastes 8:8 - Wesley's Explanatory Notes

To retain — To keep it in the body. This is added as another evidence of man's misery. No discharge — 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 — 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 outwit death, nor the most daring wickedness out — brave it.