All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
Parallel translations
- KJV All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
- BSB All a man’s labor is for his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied.
- NKJV All the labor of man is for his mouth, And yet the soul is not satisfied.
- NASB All a person’s labor is for his mouth, and yet his appetite is not satisfied.
- NLT All people spend their lives scratching for food, but they never seem to have enough.
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
All a person's labor is to feed his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied. It matters because human striving never fully quiets our deepest hunger.
Overview
The Preacher observes that despite endless toil for sustenance, desire remains unfilled, a recurring theme of insatiability (5:10). Earthly provision meets immediate needs but cannot satisfy the soul. This restless hunger points beyond physical bread to Jesus, the bread of life, in whom alone our deepest longing finds rest (John 6:35).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- John 6:27Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”
- Prov 16:26The appetite of the laboring man labors for him; for his mouth urges him on.
- 1 Tim 6:6–8But godliness with contentment is great gain.
- 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?
- Eccl 6:3If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial; I say, that a stillborn child is better than he:
- Luke 12:19I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.”’
- Eccl 5:10He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase: this also is vanity.
- Gen 3:17–19To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life.
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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 6:7 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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