Behold what I have seen good and comely [it is] to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labour wherewith [man] laboureth under the sun, all the days of his life which God hath given him for that is his portion.
Ecclesiastes 5 has just watched money fail. Wealth does not satisfy the man who holds it, and he leaves the world as naked as he came. Into that wreckage comes a quiet verdict: eat, drink, enjoy your work. Is that surrender, or a gift from God?
The chapters around this verse trace a man who has everything and holds nothing:
No resources satisfy the owner; they fall to others. So the labourer's lot is often better. Riches are a hurt instead of a comfort, and they do not last. He goes as he came, naked. Where is the profit of such labour?
The verse points to the ordinary day used to the full. The day, the work, and the joy in it are all a man's portion from God. (Verse 20 below is quoted from an older translation; the ESV has "God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.")
He draws the conclusion that it is good and fitting for one to eat and to drink. It is good to enjoy to the fullest extent the good he has obtained. This is for all the days of his life, the life and length of days given him by the Creator. And if God has given him riches and wealth and the capacity to enjoy it, then he ought to take his portion and rejoice in his labour. Such a spirit of enjoyment will make him forget the evil in his day. It will carry him over the unpleasant things of life. "For he shall not much remember the days of his life, because God answers him in the joy of his heart." The last phrase means that God Himself corresponds to his joy. Real enjoyment is a spirit that acknowledges God.
Owning and enjoying are two different gifts. The next chapter separates them:
The first evil the wise searcher sees is a discouraging contradiction. God gives a man riches, wealth, and honour, so that he lacks nothing at all. But God does not give him the power to enjoy it; a stranger eats it instead. This makes impossible what he stated in the closing verses of the previous chapter. Where then is "the good and fitting" of chapter 5:18? This is vanity and it is an evil disease, he confesses.
The same truth comforts those who have little. What matters is not the size of the estate:
If your estate is small, God can still bless a little. It is not how much money we have, but how much blessing... Another may have more estate than you, but more care; more riches, less rest; more income, but more reasons to spend. He has a greater inheritance, yet perhaps God does not give him "power to enjoy them" (Eccl. 6:2). He holds more, but enjoys less; in a word, you have less gold than he — perhaps less guilt.
The phrase "under the sun" sets the limit. This is life measured by what a man can see:
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 the passages that have the appearance of unbelief. The experience of man must be unbelieving. 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 orders our life and judges every action, all the days of the life of our vanity.
Commentators differ here. Where the same conclusion appears earlier in the book, one writer reads it as a record of folly, not counsel:
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 fall 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!
If the joy is God's gift, thanks is what receives it. The difference is not in the food:
Take it simply as it stands. I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I thanked God for it. A person may say he enjoys his food because he is hungry — that is eating the way a pig eats. But if you thank God for it, it is another thing, for then you enjoy it as given by God.
- Emptied first. The verse follows a man whose riches hurt him and left him as naked as he came. Enjoyment comes only after ownership proves to be no profit.
- Portion given. The good and fitting thing is the ordinary day used to the full: food, drink, work, and days measured out by the Creator.
- Power given. Wealth and the power to enjoy it are two separate gifts. Chapter 6 shows a man with the first and not the second. A small estate with blessing beats a large one with care.
- Horizon marked. "Under the sun" is the ceiling of what a man can observe. Some read the counsel as wisdom for daily life under God; others as the folly of the wisest man reasoning without light from above.
- Thanks received. God answers the heart with joy. Thanks turns a breakfast from appetite into a gift.
Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and power to eat thereof, and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labour that is a gift of God.
Just before this verse, Solomon watches wealth hoarded, lost in a bad deal, and then left behind at death. Then comes the surprise: wealth is God's gift, and so is the power to enjoy it.
Ecclesiastes never calls money evil, and never calls it enough.
He speaks of wealth. It has its use. Money is a defence (Chapter 7:12); it is God's gift; yet how often do men feel the vanity of it all. He craves it and works for it as the one great good. He gets his wealth, he fills his money bags, and still he is not satisfied... How can things of earth really satisfy an immortal spirit?
The verse names two gifts, not one: the riches, and the power to taste them. Only when God gives both can a man take his share and be glad in his work.
He draws the conclusion that it is good and fitting for one to eat and to drink. Then he should enjoy to the fullest extent the good he has obtained, all the days of his life — the life and length of days given him by the Creator. And if God has given him riches and wealth and the capacity to enjoy it, then he ought to take his portion and rejoice in his labour. Such a spirit of enjoyment will make him forget the evil in his day. It will carry him over the disagreeable things of life.
God can withhold that second gift. Then a bigger estate only brings a bigger burden.
Another may have more estate than you, but more care. More riches, less rest. More income, but with it more reasons to spend. He has a greater inheritance, yet perhaps God does not give him "power to enjoy them" (Ecclesiastes 6:2). He holds more, but enjoys less. In a word, you have less gold than him — perhaps less guilt.
There is a difference between what belongs to you and what you take up and enjoy.
My portion is what belongs to me — what is mine, whether or not I enjoy it. My cup is what I actually take up, or make my own. Eating and drinking stand for real participation and enjoyment. Many a person in this world has a portion he cannot enjoy. And many a one has a portion he does not enjoy — perhaps through a moral fault in himself.
Thanks is what turns eating into enjoyment. The same meal can be either.
Take it simply as it stands. I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I thanked God for it. A person may say he enjoys his food because he is hungry — that is eating like a pig eats. But if you thank God for it, it is another thing, for then you enjoy it as given of God.
Paul's charge to the rich sounds the same note.
Paul shows us the privileges that come with wealth. It may be used in the service of God, in the help of His people. So the man who starts out rich in money may end up rich in good works, and this is wealth of a more enduring kind. Earthly riches are uncertain. The man who stores them up for himself may find his store badly depleted just when he needs it most. He who uses his riches in the service of God is laying up a good foundation of reward in eternity. Meanwhile his trust is in the living God. And God, after all, does not deny us what is good — He gives it to us richly for our enjoyment. Only those who hold and use their possessions as stewards responsible to God can be trusted to enjoy God's good gifts without misusing them.
The book's own conclusion is short: take what God hands you, and use it before Him.
Receiving what God gives and using it all in His fear is wisdom.
But even a full, joyful life here runs out in days.
What a contrast between this life of "days" and "vanity" and "shadow" and life eternal! That life is now given in Christ to the believer, with the bright hope of being with Him who is its source and fullness... But all was veiled then. Now Christ has brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel.
- The Giver. Wealth is God's gift, not a trophy. It has real use — but it cannot satisfy a soul made to outlast it.
- The second gift. God gives riches; He also gives the power to enjoy them. The two are separate, and the second may be withheld from the man who has the first.
- Portion into cup. A portion is what belongs to you; a cup is what you actually taste. Many hold a portion they never enjoy.
- Thanks unlocks it. The meal enjoyed without God is animal eating. Thank the Giver, and the same meal is enjoyed as from His hand.
- Stewards enjoy best. Hold what you own as answerable to God, and you can be trusted to enjoy His gifts. Your hope rests on a life that outlasts the days.
For he will not much remember the days of his life, because God answereth [him] with the joy of his heart.
Solomon ends a long look at wealth with a man who simply eats, drinks and enjoys his work. Where does that contentment come from, and why does the verse trace it to God?
Chapter 5 has tested wealth from every side and found nothing in it that holds. One writer sums up where that search leaves a man.
The weakness of man, fallen as he is, follows him everywhere. The only resource for the wise man is to fear God... Rank or wealth is so far from being everything. A king depends on the field. No resources satisfy the man who owns them; they fall to others instead. So the labourer's lot is often better. Riches are a hurt instead of a comfort, and they do not last, so he goes as he came, naked. Where is the profit of such labour?
The ESV says God "keeps him occupied with joy in his heart." Older translations read the phrase as God answering him in the joy of his heart. One writer explains both halves of the verse — why the man forgets his hard days, and what that answer means.
Suppose God has given him riches and wealth and the capacity to enjoy it. Then he ought to take his portion and rejoice in his labour. Such a spirit of enjoyment will make him forget the evil in his day. It will carry him over the disagreeable things of life... The phrase means that God Himself corresponds to his joy, for real enjoyment is a God-acknowledging spirit.
A man does not win his enjoyment from life. Food, work and satisfaction come to him as gifts.
As a man, he is to receive what his nature needs, given ungrudgingly to him so that he may see or enjoy good in all his labour. What could man's toil have achieved, if it were not God's gift?
The next chapter proves the point. There a man has everything except the power to enjoy it. So this verse's picture is not automatic for anyone with money.
God gives a man riches, wealth, and honour so that he lacks nothing whatever. But God does not give him the power to enjoy it; a stranger eats it instead. This makes impossible what he stated in the closing verses of the preceding chapter. The cherished desires of man have found no fulfilment.
Joy is a place where God belongs, and a place where the heart can lose sight of Him. Writers note the danger of a joy that fixes only on the thing that caused it.
The godly heart, under the influence of grace, refers its joy to God too. If the heart dwells only on the cause of its joy, this becomes a danger to it. But as God is a refuge in distress, so He is the portion of the soul in joy... if the soul gives itself up to joy, it becomes empty and light; the heart grows distant from God, and folly takes hold of it.
The verse measures life by "the days of his life." One writer sets that short measure beside what Christ has brought.
What a contrast this life of "days" and "vanity" and "shadow" is with life eternal! That life is now given in Christ to the believer. With it comes the bright hope of being with Him who is its source and fullness. There, where He is, we shall have its perfect, unhindered expansion and display in its proper heavenly sphere. But all was veiled then. Now Christ has brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel.
- Given, not gained — this enjoyment is God's gift; toil alone could never produce it.
- Given, then withheld — the next chapter shows a man with riches and honour but no power to enjoy them. The gift is owed to no one.
- Given, and answered — God Himself corresponds to the joy He gives. Real enjoyment is a God-acknowledging spirit.
- Given, so referred back — a godly heart traces its joy back to God. A heart that dwells only on the cause of its joy is in danger.
- Given, but bounded — this is life measured in "days." Life eternal in Christ is greater, and Christ has brought it to light through the gospel.