There is nothing good for man, but that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.
Solomon writes this line at the end of a long experiment. He had tried pleasure, building projects, wisdom and folly. None of it gave him lasting profit. So is "eat and drink and find enjoyment" God's counsel for a happy life? Or is it the best a man can manage when he looks no higher than this world?
The verse is a landing point, not a starting point. One commentator traces the failed attempts that come just before it:
So mirth is tried next... It was all in vain, and the feeling of disappointment returns. Might not activity in great works succeed better? Solomon tried this and carried it out with extraordinary diligence and splendour. But looking back over all this work he did and the toil he toiled at, he could rest in none of it. The whole was vanity and distress of spirit, and no profit under the sun.
The chapter that leads up to this verse is crowded with one word. A writer counts how often the speaker says "I":
Ecclesiastes 2 is Solomon's "I" chapter: that personal pronoun occurs 16 times in the first 9 verses: a true chapter of the self-gratified "I."
The second half of the verse changes the tone of the first. Food and work come to him from God's hand:
The conclusion reached in verses 24-26 is to receive thankfully what comes from the hand of God. He gives man good in His sight: wisdom and knowledge and joy. But to the sinner He gives hard labour, to gather and heap up, so that it may be given to the one who is good in God's sight. And what is this but vanity and distress of spirit?
Owning food, drink and work is not the same as being able to take pleasure in them. That distinction is the point the searcher finally reaches:
The conclusion reached is that, apart from God, man has no capacity to enjoy his labour.
Ecclesiastes reasons only from what a man can see "under the sun". That is why some of its lines sound almost faithless:
This book gives us the experience of man, and the reasonings of man, on all that happens under the sun. Remember that, and there is no difficulty in those passages that have the appearance of unbelief. The experience of man is necessarily unbelieving. He confesses his ignorance; for beyond what is seen, experience can know nothing. But the solution of all moral problems is above and beyond what is seen. The only rule of life then is to fear the God who controls our life, and who judges every action. There is no question, in this book, of grace or of redemption, but only of the experience of this present life.
Some read the verse as a sober, thankful conclusion. Others read it far more sharply — as Solomon's own poor thinking, faithfully preserved for our warning:
We must never overlook the difference between revelation and inspiration. All Scripture is inspired by God, but not every word found in it is a revelation from God. Take what Solomon wrote, for instance: "There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink…" He was not speaking a revelation from God. He was speaking his own foolishness — inspired to put it on record for our warning.
The same writer then applies that test to this verse:
Is this a revelation from God? Is it God's voice telling us that food and drink are, after all, the highest good? Emphatically no! What, then? It is the divinely inspired record of the extreme folly that the wisest of men may be led into if he has no light above his natural reason and observation. And how good of God to give us a glimpse of this in His inspired record.
Whatever weight we give the advice, no one claims it satisfies. The book's own repeated phrase marks the boundary:
We may sum it all up in a brief sentence. Man under the sun, whatever he does, finds no satisfaction. All his labours, all his riches, all his seeking for good, all his achievements cannot give what the soul of man craves and needs... What man needs is not anything "under the sun" but what is "from above the sun."
- Search. Solomon tried mirth, wine, wisdom, folly and vast building projects. He could rest in none of it. The whole was vanity and no profit under the sun.
- Self. Chapter 2 says "I" sixteen times in nine verses: the chapter of the self-gratified "I."
- Gift. The counsel is to receive with thanks what comes from God's hand. Even the ability to enjoy your own work is not in man apart from God.
- Limit. The book records man's experience and reasoning under the sun. Experience knows nothing beyond what it sees, so lines like this can sound unbelieving. Grace and redemption are not its subject; its one rule of life is to fear God, who judges every action.
- Above. Commentators differ. Is this a sober conclusion, or Solomon's folly recorded for our warning? Both agree on one thing: what man needs is not found under the sun, but above it.
For who can eat, or who be eager, more than I?
Solomon has just said that even the simple enjoyment of food and work comes from God's hand, and here he presses the point home. Some older translations read the line differently — "who else can hasten (or enjoy) more than I?" — yet both readings raise the same issue: no one produces enjoyment for himself.
The man asking was not shut out from pleasure. He had everything a human being could want, which is why his verdict carries weight.
God gave him wisdom greater than all who came before him, and no one after him has ever matched it. He was king in Jerusalem. He held wealth beyond any ruler the world has ever seen ("for silver was counted as nothing in the days of Solomon"). All that wealth could buy, all that power could command, all that wisdom could search out — he could enjoy and understand. "What," then, "can the man do who comes after the king?" "Who can eat, or who else can hasten (or enjoy) more than I?"
Owning food and being able to enjoy it are two different things. This verse settles where the second one comes from.
The conclusion reached is that, apart from God, man has no capacity to enjoy his labor.
If the power to enjoy is His to give, the fitting response is an open hand, not a grasping one. One writer sums up how the chapter closes:
The conclusion in verses 24-26 is to receive with thanks what comes from the hand of God. He gives man good in His sight — wisdom and knowledge and joy. But He gives the sinner toil, to gather and heap up, so that it goes to the one who is good in God's sight. And what is this but vanity and frustration of spirit?
The problem was never a shortage of supply. The human heart is too large for any created thing to fill — and only God can enlarge it and fill it.
No human object could satisfy an immortal soul. A dying man could not find rest in what he was about to die and leave behind… We need a large capacity for the enjoyment of God Himself — a capacity that none but God can give and none but God can fill.
Another writer starts from the opening image of the book.
Solomon says, "All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full." The sea is the human heart. If you could direct into those discontented hearts every river of earthly pleasure, they would still remain unfilled, unsatisfied. Men hunt for satisfaction where it can never be found. An iceberg yields no heat, salt no sweetness, and wine cannot be pressed from turnips. Man's heart was made for God, and only God, in Christ, can fill and satisfy it.
Commentators differ here. Some, as above, treat them as a real call to receive God's gifts with thanks. Others read them as the inspired record of where human reasoning ends up when it stays under the sun.
Do you need an illustration of this? Turn to Ecclesiastes 2:24: "There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil." Is this a revelation from God? Is it God's voice telling us that food and drink are, after all, the highest good? Emphatically no! What then? It is the God-inspired record of the extreme folly the wisest of men can be led into if he has no light above his own natural reason and observation. And how good of God to give us a glimpse of this in His inspired record!
- The tester. The question comes from the one man who could try everything wealth could buy, power could command and wisdom could search out. No one can say he lacked the means to enjoy life.
- The verdict. Apart from God, man has no capacity to enjoy his own labor. The goods and the gladness are two separate things.
- The source. The ability to enjoy is a gift. So receive with thanks what comes from the hand of God, instead of gathering and heaping up.
- The capacity. No created object can satisfy an immortal soul. Only God can give the capacity to enjoy Him, and only God can fill it.
- The caution. Commentators differ. Is this conclusion God's counsel, or a record of how far reasoning gets when it stays under the sun? Read it alongside the rest of Scripture, not on its own.