Ecclesiastes 6: Wealth Without Enjoyment

"There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: a man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it" (6:1–2). Chapter 5 ended with the gift of enjoyment. Chapter 6 shows its absence: everything, and no capacity to enjoy it.

"If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years… and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he" (v. 3). In Israel many children and long life were the very signs of blessing (Psalm 127:3–5; Job 42:12–17). Qoheleth imagines them multiplied beyond any real family, and says they do not compensate for a life without satisfaction and without an honorable burial.

The stillborn "cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness" (v. 4); it has not seen the sun, "this hath more rest than the other" (v. 5). "Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?" (v. 6).

"All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite (nefesh) is not filled" (v. 7). What advantage has the wise over the fool, or the poor man who knows how to conduct himself before others (v. 8)? "Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire" (v. 9): better to enjoy what is in front of you than to roam after what you crave.

"That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he" (v. 10). Words multiply hevel (v. 11). "For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?" (v. 12).

Children, burial and memory

In ancient Israel a large family and a proper burial were among the deepest hopes: children carried the family name and land (Deuteronomy 25:5–6; Ruth 4:10), and burial with one's ancestors completed a life (Genesis 25:8–9; 2 Samuel 19:37). Infant and child mortality were high in the ancient world; archaeologists find many infant burials in Iron Age and later settlements. The image in 6:3–5 would have been painfully familiar to its first hearers. Its purpose is to make the contrast as sharp as possible, not to rank the worth of human lives.

A midpoint

Ecclesiastes has 222 verses in the library's Hebrew. Chapter 6 ends the first half in content as well as length: the questions of 6:12 ("who knoweth what is good… who can tell what shall be after") are answered in the second half by "better than" sayings (chapter 7) and by Qoheleth's insistence that humans "cannot find out" God's work (8:17; 9:1; 10:14; 11:5). Some commentators (A. G. Wright, 1968) built a numerical structure on this division; others think the book is less tightly planned. That 6:10–12 marks a turning point is widely accepted.

6:2: God gives, but does not give enjoyment

This verse is theologically bold: the same God who gives the power to enjoy (5:19) can withhold it (6:2). Qoheleth does not explain why. He does not say the man sinned. He reports a case that does not fit tidy theories of reward. Compare Job, whose sufferings also come without explanation, and 7:15 and 8:14 later in Ecclesiastes.

6:10: "one mightier than he"

The Hebrew "him that is mightier than he" (she-taqqif mimmennu) carries a ketiv/qere note: the written consonants have an extra letter (she-hattaqqif, "the one who is mighty"), read without it. Most interpreters take the mightier one to be God, with whom humans cannot argue (Job 9:3, 32; Isaiah 45:9); others think of death, or of any stronger power; the Greek and Latin simply say "one stronger than himself." "That which hath been is named already" (v. 10) recalls Genesis 2:19–20, where naming defines what things are; "it is known that it is man (adam)" may play on adam/adamah (human/ground), as in Genesis 2:7.

Qumran

The fragment 4Q109 (4QQoh-a), dated by palaeography to the mid-2nd century BC, is reported to preserve parts of 6:3–8 and 6:12, alongside parts of 5:13–17 and 7:1–10, 19–20. It is among the oldest manuscripts of any biblical book, copied perhaps a century or less after the book was written on most datings. Its exact text and differences from the Masoretic Text are a C check against DJD XVI (EC-C03).

The library's Greek here

The library's French file of the Greek gives 6:9 only as "La vision des yeux est bonne" (the sight of the eyes is good), without the comparison with roaming desire; Giguet's file is short in a few places in this book, so this is not evidence that the Greek lacked the words. The Vulgate expands the verse into a moral: "Better to see what you desire than to desire what you do not know."