Commentary - Ecclesiastes 5:10-17

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, Qoheleth, continues his examination of life "under the sun," turning his sharp-eyed wisdom to the subject of wealth. Having just discussed the importance of fearing God in worship, he now shows us the foolishness of fearing anything else, particularly the lack of money or the loss of it. The central argument is a frontal assault on the idolatry of materialism. He demonstrates with a series of hard-headed observations that wealth, when pursued as an end in itself, is a chasing after the wind. It is a god that cannot deliver on its promises. It promises satisfaction but breeds anxiety. It promises security but is notoriously insecure. It promises success but ultimately leaves a man as naked as the day he was born. This is not a screed against riches, but rather a diagnosis of a sick love affair with them. The Preacher shows that the problem is not in the having, but in the loving; not in the possessions, but in the heart's obsession. Ultimately, this passage pushes the man who lives under the sun to a crisis point: either despair in the vanity of it all, or look above the sun to the God who gives not only wealth, but the gift of enjoying it.

This passage functions as a crucial part of the Preacher's broader argument that everything in this life, when disconnected from God, is hebel, a vapor or a vanity. Money is one of the chief idols that men trust in to give them meaning, and Solomon systematically dismantles that idol. He shows that the pursuit of riches is an unsatisfying, vexing, and ultimately futile endeavor. This prepares the ground for his later conclusion: that the only sane way to live is to fear God and keep His commandments, receiving every good thing, including material blessings, as a gift to be enjoyed from His hand. Without God, wealth is a curse. With God, even a little is a profound blessing.

Outline

Context In Ecclesiastes

This passage sits within a larger section (Ecclesiastes 3:1-5:20) where the Preacher is exploring God's sovereignty over all of life's activities and frustrations. Having established that God has a time for everything and that man cannot fathom His work (Ch. 3), and having warned against oppression and the vanity of solitary labor (Ch. 4), he then turns to the proper worship of this sovereign God (5:1-7). The warnings against rash vows and the fear of God set the stage for this discussion of wealth. If God is the one to be feared, then money is not. If true worship is the highest good, then the accumulation of riches is not. This section on the vanity of wealth serves as a case study for the book's central thesis. It is a prime example of how something that appears good and desirable "under the sun" becomes a source of profound vexation and emptiness when it is made into an ultimate thing.

Key Issues

Chasing the Wind

The Preacher is a master realist. He is not a monk in a cave telling us that money is dirty. He was a king who had more of it than anyone, and he is giving us a field report from the top of the heap. His conclusion is that laboring for the wind is a fool's game. And the love of money is the primary way men sign up for that game. To love money is to set your heart on a vapor, to try and hug a mist. It has no substance. The desire for it is a black hole; the more you feed it, the larger and emptier it becomes. This is a spiritual law, as fixed as gravity.

The man described here is not an atheist in theory, but he is a practical atheist. His functional god is his portfolio. His salvation is his savings. His sanctification is his next acquisition. And the Preacher tells us this is a "sickening evil." It is a spiritual disease that eats a man from the inside out, leaving him anxious, angry, and in the dark. The only cure is to see that all of life, including our possessions, is a gift from the sovereign God. As has been said, God gives his beloved not only the can of peaches, but the can opener as well. The man in this passage has a warehouse full of canned peaches, but no way to enjoy them. He can only lick the label. This is vanity.

Verse by Verse Commentary

10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its produce. This too is vanity.

The Preacher lays his finger directly on the spiritual disease: the love of money. It is not the money itself, but the love of it, that is the problem. This love is, by definition, an insatiable desire. It is a thirst that salt water can never quench. The man who loves silver will get some silver, and the first thing he will discover is that his love for it has grown, while his satisfaction has not. He thinks the problem is that he doesn't have enough, but the Preacher tells us the problem is in the nature of the love itself. To love abundance is to never be satisfied with its fruit. Why? Because you are asking a created thing to give you what only the Creator can give: contentment, security, life. This is the very definition of idolatry, and the first characteristic of every idol is that it is a lie. It cannot deliver. Therefore, this entire enterprise is hebel, a vapor, a chasing after the wind.

11 When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the success to their masters except to look on with their eyes?

Here is the practical outworking of acquiring wealth. You get more stuff, and what happens? You get more people to help you use it. Your payroll increases. Your entourage grows. You have more accountants, more managers, more servants, more relatives you didn't know you had. Your overhead expands to meet your income. So the Preacher asks a pointed, almost sarcastic, question. What real advantage, what "success," does the owner have? He just gets to watch it all happen. He gets a bigger spectacle to look at. He can stand on his balcony and watch the flurry of activity his wealth generates, but his actual, personal enjoyment does not increase. He is the master of it all, but in reality, he is just the chief spectator at a parade he is paying for. The net gain in personal satisfaction is zero.

12 The sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the satisfaction of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.

The contrast here is stark and powerful. The ordinary working man, the man who puts in a hard day's labor, earns his rest. His body is tired, his conscience is clear, and he sleeps the deep, sweet sleep of the weary. It doesn't matter if his belly is full or half-empty; his sleep is a gift earned by his toil. But the rich man, the one who loves abundance, is another story. The word translated "satisfaction" can also mean surplus or fullness. His very abundance keeps him awake. Why? He is worried about his investments. He is anxious about market fluctuations. He is concerned about thieves. He is vexed by the complexities his wealth has created. His full stomach might give him indigestion, but his full portfolio gives him insomnia. The simple laborer has a peace the rich man cannot buy.

13 There is a sickening evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being hoarded by their master to his own evil demise.

The Preacher now intensifies his language. This is not just vanity; it is a "sickening evil." The picture is of a man hoarding his wealth, piling it up, counting it, guarding it. He thinks he is protecting his life, but the Preacher says this hoarding is "to his own evil demise," or to his own hurt. The riches that were meant to be a tool and a blessing become a poison. The man is not master of his riches; they are the master of him. They own him. And their ownership is malevolent. This is the miser, the man who has money but gets no good from it. He lives like a pauper so he can die rich, which is the definition of insanity.

14 And those riches were lost through a bad endeavor; and he became the father of a son, but there was nothing in his hand for him.

Here is the tragic punchline to the hoarder's story. The very wealth he so jealously guarded is wiped out. It is lost in a "bad endeavor," a risky business deal. The thing he trusted in proves to be utterly untrustworthy. All his years of scrimping and saving and worrying come to nothing in a single stroke of bad fortune. To add pathos to the tragedy, he has a son. He has an heir, but now he has no inheritance to give him. The whole purpose of his accumulation, from a worldly perspective, has been frustrated. He has failed not only himself but his posterity. He has nothing in his hand to pass on.

15 As he had come naked from his mother’s womb, so will he return as he came. He will carry nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can bring in his hand.

This is a foundational truth of the human condition, a truth the materialist spends his whole life trying to forget. We enter this world with nothing, and we will leave it with nothing. The richest man and the poorest beggar share this same destiny. All the "fruit of his labor," all the things he worked for and hoarded, must be left behind. You never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul. The man's hands, which were once full of deeds and titles, will be empty in the grave. His life's work, dedicated to accumulation, is revealed to be a grand exercise in futility.

16 This also is a sickening evil, exactly as a man came, so will he go. So what is the advantage to him who labors for the wind?

The Preacher repeats his diagnosis: this is a "sickening evil." The raw deal of coming and going with nothing is, from a purely "under the sun" perspective, a grievous state of affairs. He then asks the great summary question of this whole section. If this is the end of the story, what is the profit? What advantage is there for the man who spends his life's energy "laboring for the wind?" The answer is implicit: there is no advantage whatever. It is all loss. To invest your soul in what cannot last is to guarantee the bankruptcy of that soul.

17 Also, all his days he eats in darkness with much vexation, and his sickness and anger.

This final verse describes the quality of the materialist's life, not just his destiny. It is a grim portrait. "He eats in darkness." This is not literal, but spiritual and emotional. There is no joy, no light, no fellowship at his table. His life is characterized by "much vexation," constant frustration and anxiety. And it is filled with "sickness and anger." This is a man whose soul is ill, and the symptom of that illness is a perpetual, simmering rage. He is angry that his wealth does not satisfy, angry at the threats to his wealth, and angry at the vanity of it all. This is the good life that materialism offers: a dark, vexing, sickly, angry journey to an empty-handed death.

Application

This passage ought to land on us with great force, because we live in the most materialistic culture in the history of the world. We are constantly bombarded with the message that the Preacher is refuting: that our lives consist in the abundance of our possessions. We are taught to love money and the things money can buy. The result is that our culture is riddled with the very sickness described here: rampant anxiety, vexation, and anger.

The application for the Christian is first to repent. We must repent of the ways we have bought the lie. Where have we placed our trust in our 401(k) instead of in our sovereign God? Where has the love of things choked out our love for God and neighbor? Where has the pursuit of more stuff led us into sleepless nights and a vexed spirit? We must ask God to give us eyes to see the vanity of it all.

But the answer is not to become ascetics who despise God's material gifts. The answer, which the Preacher points to later, is to receive all these things with thanksgiving from the hand of a good God. The only man who can truly enjoy money is the man who does not love it. The only one who can steward wealth without being mastered by it is the one whose treasure is in heaven. Christ told us not to lay up treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but to lay up treasures in heaven (Matt. 6:19-20). He is the answer to the Preacher's dilemma. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we do not have to labor for the wind. We can labor for that which is eternal. We came into this world naked, but through faith in Christ, we can leave it clothed in a righteousness that is not our own, and enter an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and will not fade away.