Charles Ellicott Commentary Ecclesiastes 4:2

"Wherefore I praised the dead that have been long dead more than the living that are yet alive;" — Ecclesiastes 4:2 (ASV)

I praised the dead.—Job 3:11; Exodus 32:32; 1 Kings 19:4; Jeremiah 20:14; Jonah 4:3. The word which is translated “yet” in this verse belongs to later Hebrew, and does not occur elsewhere in the Old Testament.