{"id":9383,"date":"2026-03-13T20:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/?p=9383"},"modified":"2026-03-13T20:02:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:02:22","slug":"ecclesiastes-224-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/?p=9383","title":{"rendered":"Ecclesiastes 2:24-26"},"content":{"rendered":"

24\u00a0<\/sup>Nothing\u00a0is\u00a0better for a man\u00a0than\u00a0that he should eat and drink, and\u00a0that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

25\u00a0<\/sup>For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

26\u00a0<\/sup>For\u00a0God\u00a0gives\u00a0wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who\u00a0is\u00a0good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that\u00a0he may give to\u00a0him who is\u00a0good before God. This also\u00a0is\u00a0vanity and grasping for the wind.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

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. <\/span><\/h3>\n

“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. \u2014 Williams, pages 440-441.<\/span><\/h3>\n

__________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

To “eat and drink” signify contentment. It is God’s will for us to be content with life (Psalm 104:13-15<\/span><\/a>; 1 Timothy 6:6-8<\/span><\/a>). \u2014 Grace, page 1170.<\/span><\/h3>\n

My take on these verses is that God wants us to be content and enjoy the things He has provided for us \u2014 but always in the context of His provision. We enjoy food as from Him and thank Him for it. We experience satisfaction from labor well done because we do it to glorify Him. It’s when we enjoy things while disregarding Him or in order to give our lives meaning, that those things become worthless.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24\u00a0Nothing\u00a0is\u00a0better for a man\u00a0than\u00a0that he should eat and drink, and\u00a0that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. 25\u00a0For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I? … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecclesiastes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9383"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9542,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9383\/revisions\/9542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}