Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
A summary of the second, and the more important part. The whole forms the epilogue, an epitome of the book.
Verse 13. Hear the conclusion - the conclusion of the discourse: the grand inference of the whole book.
Fear God - the antidote to following creature-idols and "vanities," whether self-righteousness (Ecclesiastes 7:16; Ecclesiastes 7:18) or wicked oppression and other evils (Ecclesiastes 8:12-13), or mad mirth (Ecclesiastes 2:2; Ecclesiastes 7:2-5), or self-mortifying avarice (Ecclesiastes 8:13; Ecclesiastes 8:17), and gloomy complaining and discontent, or youth spent without God (Ecclesiastes 11:9; Ecclesiastes 12:1).
This (is) the whole (duty) of man - literally, this is the whole man: the full ideal of man, as originally contemplated, realized wholly by Jesus Christ alone; and, through Him, by saints, now in part, hereafter perfectly (1 John 3:22-24; Revelation 22:14). Hengstenberg less spiritedly translates, 'This is the duty of all men.'
Verse 14. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with (literally, upon; i:e., concerning) every secret thing - (2 Corinthians 5:10; cf. note, Ecclesiastes 12:7 above.) The future judgment is the test of what is "vanity," what solid, as regards the chief good, the grand subject of the book.