24 Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.
25 For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?
26 For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.
A life of honest labor ministers a happiness appointed by the hand of God. “Eat and drink” in this verse is to be understood as enjoyment of needful food with an appetite quickened by honest “labor” … He who thus works for his daily bread in obedience to the Divine Will (v.26), to him God recompenses wisdom, knowledge and joy; but to the disobedient He gives the fruitless toil of amassing wealth for honest men to enjoy. This latter “travail” Solomon found to be vanity and a striving after wind.
“Labor” (v.24) means fruitful toil, “travail” (v.26) on the other hand means toil that only gives fatigue. Had Solomon profited by the Proverbs of the wise men, and had he listened to his father’s dying words (1 Chronicles 28:9), he would have been spared the suffering here recorded. — Williams, pages 440-441.
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