| Geneva Study Bible There is no man that hath power {g} over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. (g) Man has no power to save his own life and therefore must not rashly cast himself into danger. Wesley's Notes 8:8 To retain - To keep it in the body. This is added as another evidence of man's misery. No discharge - In that fatal conflict between life and death, when a man is struggling with death, though to no purpose, for death will be always conqueror. Neither - And although wicked men, who most fear death, use all possible means, to free themselves from it, yet they shall not escape it. The most subtle wickedness cannot outwit death, nor the most daring wickedness out - brave it. King James Translators' Notes discharge: or, casting off weapons Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 8. spirit-"breath of life" (Ec 3:19), as the words following require. Not "wind," as Weiss thinks (Pr 30:4). This verse naturally follows the subject of "times" and "judgment" (Ec 8:6, 7). discharge-alluding to the liability to military service of all above twenty years old (Nu 1:3), yet many were exempted (De 20:5-8). But in that war (death) there is no exemption. those . given to-literally, the master of it. Wickedness can get money for the sinner, but cannot deliver him from the death, temporal and eternal, which is its penalty (Isa 28:15, 18). Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 8:6-8 God has, in wisdom, kept away from us the knowledge of future events, that we may be always ready for changes. We must all die, no flight or hiding-place can save us, nor are there any weapons of effectual resistance. Ninety thousand die every day, upwards of sixty every minute, and one every moment. How solemn the thought! Oh that men were wise, that they understood these things, that they would consider their latter end! The believer alone is prepared to meet the solemn summons. Wickedness, by which men often escape human justice, cannot secure from death. | 
