And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.
Solomon, in the beginning of the chapter, had warned us against having any thing to do with seditious subjects; here, in these verses, he encourages us, in reference to the mischief of tyrannical and oppressive rulers, such as he had complained of before, Ecc 3:16; Ecc 4:1. 1. He had observed many such rulers, Ecc 8:9.
Commenting on Ecclesiastes 8:9-13
And so I saw the wicked buried,.... Or "truly" (k), verily, as the Targum, this is matter of fact; or "then I saw", as Aben Ezra and others, upon applying his heart to every work; or when be observed particularly wicked magistrates, he took notice that some of them continued in their power until death, and died in their beds, and were carried to their...
the wicked--namely, rulers (Ecc 8:9). buried--with funeral pomp by man, though little meriting it (Jer 22:19); but this only formed the more awful contrast to their death, temporal and eternal, inflicted by God (Luk 16:22-23). come and gone from the place of the holy--went to and came from the place of judicature, where they sat as God's representatives (Psa 82:1-6), with pomp [HOLDEN].