Ecclesiastes 6

Ecclesiastes 6 is the sixth of the twelve chapters of Ecclesiastes. At the end of Ecclesiastes 5, the Preacher described receiving wealth and enjoying it as a gift of God. This chapter takes up the opposite case: receiving wealth but being unable to enjoy it. Some commentators read this chapter as the conclusion of the first half of the book.

Outline

• Verses 1–2 The Preacher calls it "an evil disease" when a person receives riches, wealth, and honor from God but cannot enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead.
• Verses 3–6 Even if a man begets a hundred children and lives many years, if his soul is not filled with good and he has no burial, an untimely birth is better than he. Even if he lives a thousand years twice over, all go in the end to one place.
• Verses 7–9 All the labor of man is for his mouth, yet the appetite is never filled. The sight of the eyes is better than the wandering of desire, but this too is a striving after wind.
• Verses 10–12 Man cannot contend with one mightier than he. The chapter asks who knows what is good for a person in a life that passes like a shadow, and who can tell what will happen under the sun after he is gone.

Key Verses

• Ecclesiastes 6:2 "yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it" (KJV). This verse captures the chapter's central theme: possessing and enjoying are not the same.
• Ecclesiastes 6:7 "and yet the appetite is not filled." A succinct summary of insatiable human desire.
• Ecclesiastes 6:12 "For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow?" The chapter closes with a question about the transience of life and the human inability to know the future.

People and Places

• The Preacher: The narrator of the entire book. Jewish and Christian tradition commonly identifies him with Solomon, though scholars hold differing views on the question of authorship.

Points for Reflection

• Many interpreters take "him that is mightier than he" in verse 10 to refer to God. Others read it as referring to a fixed order that human beings cannot resist.
• The "one place" in verse 6 is commonly understood as the grave or the realm of death.
• The theme of verse 2 is often read alongside the New Testament Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:20). The shadow imagery of verse 12 is frequently connected with James 4:13–15, which likens life to a vapor, and the problem of desire in verses 7–9 with 1 Timothy 6:6–9, which speaks of contentment.