What does the worker gain from his toil?
Parallel translations
- WEB What profit has he who works in that in which he labors?
- KJV What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
- NKJV What profit has the worker from that in which he labors?
- NASB What benefit is there for the worker from that in which he labors?
- NLT What do people really get for all their hard work?
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 profit the worker gains from all his toil. The question recalls the book's theme that labor yields no lasting earthly gain.
Overview
Following the poem of times, Qoheleth returns to his recurring question about the value of labor. The implication is that, since times are in God's hands and not ours, we cannot secure permanent gain by effort. This humbles human striving and redirects trust toward God, who alone gives meaning and reward beyond what we can achieve.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Eccl 1:3What does a man gain from all his labor, at which he toils under the sun?
- Eccl 5:16This too is a grievous evil: Exactly as a man is born, so he will depart. What does he gain as he toils for the wind?
- Prov 14:23There is profit in all labor, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
- Eccl 2:11Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
- Eccl 2:22–23For what does a man get for all the toil and striving with which he labors under the sun?
- Matt 16:26What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 3:9 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.