Charles Ellicott Commentary Ecclesiastes 8:9

"All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: [there is] a time wherein one man hath power over another to his hurt." — Ecclesiastes 8:9 (ASV)

Own hurt. —The Hebrew is ambiguous. We might omit “own,” and understand the verse of the misery inflicted by a tyrant on his subject, not on himself. But the context speaks of the small gain from his oppressions to the tyrant himself.