Comentario citado sobre Eclesiastés 9:10

• Nor is Bildad’s response that their kind, together with their collective and individual progeny, will be cut off, correct. For there are many wicked people whose children are alive and well off (ibid. 8) and whose homes are steadfast (ibid. 20-29).¹This reference to the text appears to be a misprint in the Hebrew text, as the evildoer's home is barely mentioned in them. Most probably Malbim intended verses 9 and 21. As for his statement that their souls will be cut off and they will be punished in the eternity of the Hereafter, who knows anything about this hidden punishment that is concealed from every eye? Death spreads its wings over all flesh, indiscriminately (ibid. 30-34). Like the righteous, so are the wicked gathered to the grave; and who knows whether there is wisdom or knowledge, or any reckoning, in the Sheol whither they all are bound (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

אשר אנכי מצוך היום לעשותם, “which I command you this day to perform.” Our sages in Eiruvin 22 use the superfluous word “this day,” to teach that whereas performance of the commandments is incumbent upon us “this day,” G’d does not promise that the reward will also be paid immediately, i.e. “this day.” Basically, our terrestrial world is perceived a the עולם העשיה, the world of “action,” as opposed to being the period in which one enjoys the reward for one’s actions. Solomon already alluded to this when he said in Kohelet 9,10: “for there is no action, no reasoning, no learning no wisdom in Sheol, where you are going.” His message is that it is too late to rectify after death what one has failed to rectify while alive. Once one has died one has forfeited all one’s former potential. This is why one has to perform all the good one can while on this earth and capable of exercising one’s faculties. This is what Solomon had said in the first half of the verse we just quoted, where we read: “whatever it is in your power to do, do with all your might.”
Our sages in Avodah Zarah 3 have paraphrased this thought when they said that he who labors on the Sabbath eve will have what to eat on the Sabbath, When will the one who did not trouble himself on Sabbath eve have food to eat on the Sabbath? All these considerations commit each one of us to spend as much effort to perform a so-called מצוה קלה, an easy commandment, or one that appears capable of fulfilling with little effort as that which requires great efforts on our part. We do not know which mitzvah will be rewarded more greatly. G’d did not take us into His confidence [else nobody would perform the מצות קלות.] Our sages in Avot 2,1 spelled this out quite clearly. We must not commit the error of applying our yardsticks to G’d’s thinking and deciding what in His view deserves a great deal of reward and what does not. In referring to the inadequacy of our intellect, Solomon writes in Proverbs 5,6: “she does not chart a path of life, her ways are unstable; you do not know them.” We must not overestimate the reliability of the conclusions we draw about what is good and bad by second-guessing G’d. David had a similar message in Psalms 119,14 and 16: by emphasizing the positive, i.e. the delight of accepting G’d’s law, His teaching in preference to all riches available on this earth.

We have already elucidated in the tenth chapter of Sanhedrin that there is no completion or addition after death. Instead, a person increases and completes his virtue in this world. And about this Shlomo hinted when he stated (Ecclesiastes 9:10), "for there is no action, no reasoning, no knowledge, no wisdom in the grave to where you are going." But this matter is that [the situation] to which a person goes will remain [the same] forever. And because of this a man should make efforts during this short time and not waste his time, but only [spend it] on the acquisition of virtues - as his loss would [otherwise] be great, since he has no replacement [for it] and he cannot acquire [it later]. And since the pious ones knew this, they only saw [fit] to finish their time with wisdom and the increase of virtues; and they benefited from all of their time in the true way. And they only frittered very little time on physical matters and on a thing that it is necessary and impossible without it. But others spent all of their time only in physicality and they left [the world] like they came [to it] - 'all corresponding to how it came, so will it go' - and they lost an eternal loss. And the masses all switched the truth about this question and said that the first group lost the world and that the last group profited [from] the world. And the matter is the opposite, as we have recounted. And they make darkness into light and light into darkness. And woe is it to those that destroy the truth. And Shlomo, peace be upon him, made this matter a fundamental in Ecclesiastes, in his praising the profit of the world and his disgracing its loss. And its elucidation is that there is neither gain nor [any] other acquisition of that which he refrained from here, after death. And this is all true. And when you examine that book from this perspective, the truth will be clear.