Charles Ellicott Commentary Ecclesiastes 8:16

"When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes)," — Ecclesiastes 8:16 (ASV)

It would have been better if the new chapter had been made to begin here. The sentiment is that already expressed in Ecclesiastes 3:11.

Seeth sleep with his eyes. —Psalms 132:4; Proverbs 6:4; Genesis 31:40. The identical expression occurs in Terence, Heaut III. 1:82, “Somnum hercle ego hac nocte oculis non vidi meis.”