Ecclesiastes 2:17
Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Solomon's cry of hatred toward life came not from theory but from bitter personal experience after he turned away from communion with God to seek satisfaction and the highest good in earthly things. The pursuits he tested in that search were great works and achievements, possessions and wealth, pleasures and labor, even to the worship of heathen gods whose promise of rest to the soul proved vain.
Looking back over all the works he had done, he judged that life and labor under the sun are grievous and yield no lasting profit, satisfaction, or good, but are vanity and vexation and anguish of spirit. What he found was despair and hatred of life instead of the promised rest, for joy and peace gave way to troubled thoughts and emptiness, and the future appeared dark and hopeless.
Wearied and thirsting, he turned at last from earth's broken cisterns to drink again at the fountain of life, and the discipline of suffering finally accomplished its work in him. By inspiration he then recorded the history of his wasted years as a warning for later generations, so that although his people reaped harvests of evil from his sowing, his life-work was not wholly lost.