For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I?
Who can eat, or who else can hasten (hereunto), more than I? - Hebrew, yaachuwsh (H2363) chuwts (H2351) mimeniy (H4480): Who can hasten more than I, and beyond me? The Syriac, Arabic, and Septuagint, read, 'without Him' - i:e., without His permission (cf. Ecclesiastes 2:24). "Hasten," eagerly pursue such enjoyments. None can compete with me in this. If I, then, with all my opportunities of enjoyment, failed utterly to obtain solid pleasure, of my own making, apart from God (Ecclesiastes 2:24), who else can? God mercifully spares His children the sad experiment which Solomon made, by denying them the goods which they often desire. He gives them the fruits of Solomon's experience, without their paying the dear price at which Solomon bought it. Hengstenberg makes Solomon to say that he has richly enjoyed this gift of God-namely, the power to eat and drink and enjoy present goods; whereas the miser does not "hasten" to eat, because his eye is looking to the uncertain future. I can by my experience (says Solomon) attest that eating and hastening to enjoy the present in a cheerful, though not a sensual spirit, is the only good to be gotten from life, by the gift of God.