The Preacher opens this chapter from a place of deep moral weight. He looks at all the oppression done under the sun: the tears of the oppressed, and the fact that there is no one to comfort them. The oppressors have power, and the oppressed have none, and neither side has a comforter. The observation is so bleak that he says the dead are better off than the living. And better still, he says, is the one who was never born at all and has never seen the evil done under the sun.
From there he turns to something subtler: not dramatic cruelty, but the ordinary envy that good work produces. He considers all skillful labor, every right and excellent work, and sees that it earns a man his neighbor's envy. Even doing your job well makes someone resent you. This too is vanity. He notes the balance: the fool folds his hands and does nothing, consuming himself. But a handful of peace is better than two handfuls gained through grinding toil and vexation of spirit.
Then the Preacher lands on one of the loneliest portraits in the book: a person utterly alone, no child, no brother, laboring without end, his eye never satisfied with riches, yet never pausing to ask himself: who am I doing this for? Why am I depriving myself of any good? The Preacher calls this a sore travail.
Out of that portrait comes the chapter's most practical and direct wisdom: two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. If one falls, the other lifts him up, but woe to the one who falls alone with no one to help him rise. If two lie together, they are warm; one alone has no warmth. If an enemy overpowers one, two will stand against him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.
The chapter closes with a political observation. A poor and wise youth is better than an old and foolish king who can no longer receive counsel, even a youth who came up from prison to reign, while the one born to the kingdom ends up poor. The Preacher watches all the living follow this new young successor. But the people who come after him will not rejoice in him either. He too will be forgotten. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
