Translation
For I gave my inner being to all this so I could explain it clearly: that the works of the righteous and the wise are in the hands of ELOHIM.
Go to footnote numberMan does not know either love or hatred,
Go to footnote numberall are before his face.
Go to footnote numberParaphrase
So I committed myself on a deep level to be able to understand and explain the big questions of life, and here are some of my conclusions: 1) Everything that a righteous and wise person does is in the hands of THE CREATOR AND RULER OF ALL THINGS. 2) Man does not know whether eternal acceptance or eternal rejection awaits him; both options are before him as possibilities.
Footnotes
1: “in the hands of Elohim”
We strive for a life of obedience lived by faith but we seldom reach the level we want to reach. We have to leave the results up to God which is a good thing; He can take our feeble efforts, our ignorant stumblings and our clumsy attempts and make good things come out of them for His glory.
2
Something is missing here and once again it is supplied in the second clause. Here it is the idea that something is before his face, i.e. something is awaiting him in his future. Once the reader has that important bit of information, he can retroactively plug that into the first clause as well and it all makes sense.
3: “before his face”
He has said earlier that the wicked will have one set of consequences and the righteous will have a different set of consequences. So, why can’t someone know what awaits him? This is an admission that our spiritual status with God is not as clear as we would like. Many people wonder because their lives are characterized by both good and bad. God is the judge, we are not. He will judge justly, but He does not reveal all His plans and opinions to us ahead of time, only what we need to know.
I will add that it is not a matter of balancing our good and bad and having our good outweigh our bad; rather it is a matter of relationship. Do you have a love-filled and peace-filled relationship with God?