Commentary - Ecclesiastes 6:7-9

Bird's-eye view

In this pointed section of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, Solomon, continues his relentless diagnosis of life "under the sun." Having just described the man who has everything but lacks the God-given ability to enjoy it, he now drills down into the universal human condition of restless dissatisfaction. These three verses form a tight, logical argument about the futility of labor when the soul is not right with God. The core problem is a spiritual hunger that no amount of physical food or worldly gain can satisfy. Man works to fill his belly, but his soul, the part of him that truly lives, remains cavernously empty. This predicament levels the playing field between the wise and the fool, the rich and the poor. Without God, all our striving is just a chasing of the wind, a frantic attempt to find satisfaction in the creature rather than the Creator. The passage masterfully sets the stage for the only possible solution, which is not found under the sun at all, but in the fear of the Lord and the grace of Jesus Christ.

Solomon is a master physician, and here he is pressing on the tender spot. Why do we work? To eat. Why do we eat? To work some more. It is a closed loop, a cycle of vanity. And yet, the central part of us, what the Bible calls the nephesh or soul, is never filled by this process. This creates a universal ache. The wise man feels it, the fool feels it. The poor man, who knows how to get by, still feels it. Solomon concludes with a piece of practical, yet still penultimate, wisdom: it is better to enjoy what you have right in front of you than to be constantly driven by insatiable, roving desires. But even this bit of common sense, apart from God, is ultimately just another form of vanity, another puff of smoke. It is a good insight, but not the ultimate one. The ultimate insight is that God must give you the ability to enjoy what is in front of you, and this gift is given only in Christ.

Outline

Context In Ecclesiastes

This passage sits in the heart of the Preacher's grand argument about the nature of hebel, or vanity. In the preceding verses (Eccl 6:1-6), he has just painted the grim picture of a man blessed with immense wealth and honor, yet whom God does not give the power to enjoy. Such a man is worse off than a stillborn child. This sets the stage for our text, which universalizes the problem. It is not just a rich man's problem; it is every man's problem. The theme of dissatisfaction runs through the entire book. Man's pursuit of wisdom (Ch. 1), pleasure (Ch. 2), and wealth (Ch. 5) all end in the same cul-de-sac of vanity. These verses in chapter 6 serve as a crucial link in his argument, showing that the fundamental issue is not the lack of things, but the state of the soul. This relentless exposure of the world's bankruptcy is designed to drive the reader to the book's ultimate conclusion: "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (Eccl 12:13).

Key Issues

The Unfillable Man

Augustine famously said that God has made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. Solomon, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit centuries earlier, is making the very same point. The central problem of man is not economic or intellectual; it is theological. We were created with a God-shaped hole in our souls. After the fall, we spend all our energy trying to cram the things of the world into that hole, hoping to fill it. We work, we build, we acquire, we learn. And all of it, as Solomon says, is for the mouth. It is for our consumption, our immediate gratification.

But the soul, the nephesh, is a different kind of appetite altogether. It cannot be fed with bread, or promotions, or accolades, or learning. It was designed to be fed by God Himself. When we labor for the mouth, we are feeding the body, which is a good and necessary thing. But when we expect that labor to satisfy the soul, we are asking a hamburger to do the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a category error of the highest order. This is the very definition of futility. It is like trying to fill a sieve with water. The water runs right through, and the sieve remains as empty as ever. This is the human condition east of Eden.

Verse by Verse Commentary

7 All a man’s labor is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not fulfilled.

Here is the foundational premise, the diagnosis of the human condition in one crisp sentence. All our toil, all our sweat, all the scurrying around we do from dawn to dusk, has a very basic end: to feed ourselves. This is true of the farmer in his field, the executive in his boardroom, and the scholar in his library. We work to sustain our lives. But Solomon immediately introduces the great paradox. The mouth gets fed, the stomach is temporarily full, but the soul is not. The Hebrew word is nephesh, which refers to the whole person, the seat of our appetites, our desires, our very life-force. This inner man is never satisfied by what the mouth consumes. There is a profound disconnect between our physical and spiritual appetites. We are creatures with an infinite longing, and we are trying to satisfy it with finite things. It cannot be done. This is the engine that drives the world's frantic activity, this deep, gnawing, spiritual hunger.

8 For what advantage does the wise man have over the fool? What advantage does the afflicted man have, knowing how to walk before the living?

Given the problem stated in verse 7, Solomon now shows that no worldly strategy can solve it. He considers two opposite ends of the spectrum. First, the wise man. Surely his wisdom gives him an edge, right? No. When it comes to this fundamental hunger of the soul, the wise man's belly rumbles just as loudly as the fool's. His PhD cannot fill the void. His clever life-hacks and prudent investments do not touch the core problem. He may be able to arrange his life more efficiently, but he ends up just as unfulfilled as the fool who lives from one blunder to the next. Both die. Both face God. Second, he considers the afflicted, or poor, man. But this is a specific kind of poor man, one who is savvy, who has street smarts, who knows "how to walk before the living." He knows how to survive, how to navigate the complexities of life with nothing. But does this practical, hard-won knowledge give him an advantage in this ultimate sense? Again, no. He may know how to get his next meal, but he does not know how to feed his soul. In the final analysis, both the wise man and the street-smart poor man are in the same boat, rowing hard but going nowhere, because the boat has a hole in it.

9 What the eyes see is better than what the soul goes after. This too is vanity and striving after wind.

Solomon now offers a piece of practical, proverbial wisdom. "What the eyes see," meaning what is present, tangible, and in your possession, is better than the "wandering of the soul," or the endless roving of desire for what you do not have. This is the biblical equivalent of "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." It is a call to contentment. It is better to enjoy the sandwich you have for lunch than to spend your lunch hour fantasizing about a five-star meal you cannot have. This is good advice, as far as it goes. But then, with a characteristic twist of the knife, Solomon says, "This too is vanity and striving after wind." Why? Because even this contentment, if it is merely a humanistic strategy for coping with an unfillable soul, is a dead end. It is a good tactic, but a terrible soteriology. Learning to be content with what you have is better than being a slave to your cravings, but it cannot solve the root problem identified in verse 7. It is still life "under the sun." It is still just a clever way of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The only true contentment is a gift from God, rooted in the knowledge that He is our portion, not the things He gives us. Apart from that, even our contentment is just a puff of smoke, a shepherding of the breeze.

Application

The diagnosis in these verses is bleak, and it is meant to be. Solomon is holding up a mirror to our restless, striving, unfulfilled hearts. We must see ourselves in his words. We are the ones who labor for the mouth, stuffing our lives with work, food, entertainment, and knowledge, all the while wondering why we feel so empty. We are the ones who think our wisdom, our theology, our cleverness, or our ability to "get by" will somehow give us an edge. We are the ones who try to settle for a kind of stoic contentment, telling ourselves to enjoy what we have, while our souls are still wandering, still craving something more.

The application is not to try harder to be content, or to work less, or to become a fool. The application is to despair of finding fulfillment "under the sun" at all. This passage is designed to make us cry out for a Savior. The soul is not fulfilled by our labor because it was made to be fulfilled by Christ's labor. He is the Bread of Life, and whoever comes to Him shall never hunger (John 6:35). Our problem is that we are trying to feed our souls with sawdust, when God is offering us a feast. The wise man has no advantage over the fool because the gospel is not for the wise, but for those who are willing to become fools for Christ's sake (1 Cor 1:27). The only true and lasting contentment is found when we stop our soul's frantic wandering and set our eyes on what truly matters: Jesus Christ, and Him crucified and risen. He is the one thing that is better than a bird in the hand, because in Him, we have the one who holds all the birds, and the bushes too. When we have Him, we can finally enjoy the gifts He gives, not as soul-filler, but as what they are: gracious tokens from a Father who loves us.