Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
As in Ecclesiastes 3:16, so here the difficulty suggests itself. If God is so exact in even punishing hasty words (Ecclesiastes 5:1-6), why does He allow gross injustice? In the remote "provinces," the "poor" often had to put themselves for protection from the inroads of Philistines, etc., under chieftains, who oppressed them even in Solomon's reign (I Kings 12:4).
the matter—literally, "the pleasure," or purpose (Isaiah 53:10). Marvel not at this dispensation of God's will, as if He had abandoned the world. Nay, there is coming a capital judgment at last, and an earnest of it in partial punishments of sinners meanwhile.
higher than the highest— (Daniel 7:18).
regardeth— (II Chronicles 16:9).
there be higher—plural, that is, the three persons of the Godhead, or else, "regardeth not only the 'highest' kings, than whom He 'is higher,' but even the petty tyrants of the provinces, namely, the high ones who are above them" (the poor) [WEISS].
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Ecclesiastes 5:8:
Ecclesiastes 5:19
Ecclesiastes 6:2
Ecclesiastes 7:7
Lamentations 3:35
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