So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety?
Parallel translations
- WEB For what has a man of all his labor, and of the striving of his heart, in which he labors under the sun?
- KJV For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?
- BSB For what does a man get for all the toil and striving with which he labors under the sun?
- NKJV For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun?
- NASB For what does a person get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
He asks what a person really gains from all the toil and anxious striving of life. The implied answer is that such striving yields no lasting profit.
Overview
Qoheleth poses again the book's central question about the net gain of human labor. The mention of striving and anxiety captures the inner toll that ceaseless work exacts. This pointed question dismantles confidence in self-made gain and prepares the reader to receive contentment as a gift from God rather than an achievement of effort.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 19
- Ps 127:2It is vain for you to rise up early, to stay up late, eating the bread of toil; for he gives sleep to his loved ones.
- Eccl 1:3What does man gain from all his labor in which he labors under the sun?
- Matt 6:34Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient.
- Phil 4:6In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
- Eccl 4:6Better is a handful, with quietness, than two handfuls with labor and chasing after wind.
- 1 Tim 6:8But having food and clothing, we will be content with that.
- Eccl 3:9What profit has he who works in that in which he labors?
- 1 Pet 5:7casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.
- Eccl 4:8There is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all of his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. “For whom then, do I labor, and deprive my soul of enjoyment?” This also is vanity. Yes, it is a miserable business.
- Matt 16:26For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?
- Eccl 6:7–8All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
- Eccl 8:15Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.
- Matt 6:11Give us today our daily bread.
- Eccl 5:17All his days he also eats in darkness, he is frustrated, and has sickness and wrath.
- Eccl 5:10–11He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase: this also is vanity.
- Luke 12:22He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life, what you will eat, nor yet for your body, what you will wear.
- Prov 16:26The appetite of the laboring man labors for him; for his mouth urges him on.
- Matt 6:25Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
- Luke 12:29Don’t seek what you will eat or what you will drink; neither be anxious.
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Christ at the center
The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.
How Ecclesiastes 2:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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