C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Ecclesiastes 2:9

Ecc 2:9 “And I became great, and was always greater than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And all that mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I refused not any kind of joy to my heart; for my heart had joy of all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. And I turned myself to all the works which my hands had done, and to the labour which I had laboured to accomplish: and, behold, all was vain, and windy effort, and there was no true profit under the sun.” In vehosaphti there is here no obj. as at Ecc 1:16; the obj. is the gedullah, the greatness, to be concluded and thought of from vegadalti, “and I became great.” To the impers. היה for היוּ, 7 b, cf. 7 a, Ecc 1:16, Ecc 1:10. He became great, and always greater, viz., in the possession of all the good things, the possession of which seemed to make a man happy on this earth. And what he resolved upon, in the midst of this dulcis insania, viz., to deport himself as a wise man, he succeeded in doing: his wisdom forsook him not, viz., the means adapted to the end, and ruling over this colossal apparatus of sensual lust; אף, as e.g., at Psa 16:6, belongs to the whole clause; and עמד, with ל, does not mean here to stand by, sustain (Herzfeld, Ewald, Elster), which it might mean as well as על עמד, Dan 12:1, but to continue, as Jerome, and after him, Luther, translates: sapientia quoquo perseveravit mecum; the Targ. connects the ideas of continuance (lxx, Syr., Venet.) and of help; but the idea intended is that of continuance, for נהג, e.g., does not refer to helping, but self-maintaining.