Enjoy life is literally “See life.” Qoheleth has used the verb “see” on several occasions in combination with the word “good” to express the idea of enjoyment (2.1; 3.13).

With the wife whom you love may also be rendered “[the] woman you love.” Hebrew along with many other languages uses the same word for “woman” and for “wife,” with the precise sense depending on context or the attachment of a pronoun suffix. However, this advice certainly does not suggest fickle love affairs with a variety of women. The verb love uses a Hebrew verb form implying a steady state. In the interests of inclusive language, some translators may be tempted to use a wider term that can apply to both a wife or husband, such as “spouse.” While we sympathize with the intent of such a solution, it will be truer to the Hebrew culture to translate the verse as it stands, that is, as addressed to a man.

With the phrase all the days of your vain life we again encounter the word hevel, rendered here as vain. Throughout this Handbook we have suggested that hevel does not mean worthless or meaningless (see Good News Translation “useless”) but rather “enigmatic,” “mysterious,” or “difficult to understand.” We suggest such a translation here. Alternatively we can follow New Jerusalem Bible or Bible en français courant, which highlight the fleeting nature, or brief span, of our existence on earth.

At first glance the time phrase all the days of your vain life seems to be modifying the verb love: “… whom you love all the days of your vain life.” However, it is also possible that it modifies the first clause, “enjoy life.” We can say “Enjoy life in this enigmatic world with the woman you love.”

Which he has given you under the sun: see comments on 8.15. This relative clause appears to connect with the previous phrase, all the days … life. That is a possible interpretation and seems to be the one generally held by most scholars and translations. There is, however, another possibility, one made more obvious if we link the time phrase all … life with the verb enjoy. If we follow this understanding, the second relative clause, which … under the sun, is an additional description of the woman. The first relative clause described her as “the one you love.” This second clause provides the additional information that she is given by God. This means that the woman is to be loved and cherished because she is God’s gift, in the same way that other things, like food and drink, are also God’s gifts and so to be enjoyed.

If we are to translate in accord with this interpretation, we almost certainly will need to use an independent sentence and indicate that it is God who is the subject of the verb give, as in 2.25-25 and 3.13. Thus “she is God’s gift to you for your life in this [enigmatic] world.”

Because that is your portion: justification for the advice follows the command, in the same manner as in verse 7 above. That is masculine and so probably points back to the entire call to enjoy life, not to the woman. There is some textual evidence that the feminine form should be read, in which case the woman would be indicated. To make it clearer what that refers to, we can say “such pleasure [or, enjoyment].”

Portion is Qoheleth’s term for the material benefits a person gets from work and for the pleasure that it gives (“reward” in 2.10; “lot” in 3.22; 5.18). Each previous call to enjoyment says that the portion we get is to enjoy all God’s gifts. It is the same term that Revised Standard Version renders as “share” in verse 6. It is parallel with “this is what God gives you” earlier in this verse. If the idea of “portion” is difficult to convey in this context, a phrase similar to “what God gives you” will serve well.

In life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun: see comments on 1.3. The first preposition in carries the sense of “during.” A model for translation is: “Such pleasure is the portion you get during [or, in] life from all your earthly labor.”

The entire verse can be translated:

• Enjoy life with the woman you love—the one God has given to live beside you—throughout your days in this enigmatic world. Such joy is what God provides in all the work you have to do here.

• In this world that is so hard to understand, each day God gives, make it a point to enjoy life with the woman you love, because this is God’s gift to you during your life of hard work on this earth.

There is a great deal of repetition in the Hebrew of this verse that is not reflected in Revised Standard Version, nor in most other versions. The text is literally “Enjoy life with the woman you love all the days of your enigmatic [hevel] lives that he gave to you under the sun, all the enigmatic [hevel] days; for this is your portion in the lives and in the work that you are working under the sun.” Translators should determine if such repetition will be effective in their language. In Hebrew the repetition of “lives of hevel” and “days of hevel” sounds a note of resignation and sadness. The translator may wish to render this emotion through some appropriate stylistic device.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .