FOR A LIVING DOG IS BETTER THAN A DEAD LION: MEDITATIONS ON ECCLESIASTES NINE

It shows how precious life is albeit short, yet must still be lived fully because in the grave, the dead, even the memory of them will be forgotten and forgotten forever (...for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun). He even hints that when you wake up the next day it means God has accepted you (Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest). But he brings to our minds the rude awakening of accountability, that we are going to account for our time here. That both the dead and the living, however much fuller or lesser they enjoyed life or made the best of it, will not elude judgement, and even worse is that no one knows when calamity will hit ( For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them). Therefore he admonishes, be swift if you are a runner, be skilled if you are an artisan but you still would not elude judgment, what is the difference therefore between you and others - living or dead? And then being a prophet, the writer, he reveals Christ to be the remedy or the way out of this dichotomy. Time and chance means being at the right place at the right time and that spiritual location is in Christ (I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all). 

NB:Please read the whole chapter.