The Unfillable Soul and the Open Secret Text: Ecclesiastes 6:7-9
Introduction: The Modern Hunger
We live in the most prosperous, technologically advanced, and well-fed society in human history. We have gadgets to fill every moment, entertainment to banish every silence, and opportunities for self-expression that would make a Roman emperor blush. We labor for our mouths, and our mouths are, by and large, full. Our refrigerators are stocked, our pantries are overflowing, and our delivery apps can bring us any kind of food we desire in under an hour. And yet, the soul is not fulfilled. There is a deep, gnawing spiritual hunger that all our frantic activity cannot satisfy.
Our culture is a living, breathing commentary on this passage from Ecclesiastes. We are obsessed with the wandering of the soul, the endless pursuit of the next thing, the next experience, the next purchase, the next relationship that will finally fill the void. We are a generation of spiritual nomads, chasing mirages in the desert. We have more, do more, and see more than any generation before us, yet anxiety, depression, and a profound sense of meaninglessness are rampant. Why? Because we have been sold a lie. The lie is that the hole in our soul is stomach-shaped, and if we just cram enough of the world into it, we will eventually feel full.
Solomon, the Preacher, takes a sharp needle to this balloon of self-deception. He is not a black-pilled nihilist wallowing in despair. He is a clear-eyed realist who has run the great experiment. He has had it all, done it all, and bought the t-shirt. And his conclusion, under the sun, is that it is all vanity, a striving after wind. This is not bad news for the believer. It is the best news. Because when you finally give up trying to shepherd the wind, you can begin to learn how to sail. God has put this futility, this unfillable hunger, into the very fabric of the world for a glorious purpose: to drive us out of ourselves and into Him. He wants us to see that the world is a locked can of peaches, and only He can give us the can opener.
In these three verses, Solomon diagnoses the universal human condition, dismisses worldly solutions, and delivers a dose of profound, practical wisdom that is the foundation of all true contentment.
The Text
All a man’s labor is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not fulfilled.
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?
What the eyes see is better than what the soul goes after. This too is vanity and striving after wind.
(Ecclesiastes 6:7-9 LSB)
The Endless Treadmill (v. 7)
The Preacher begins with a foundational observation about the nature of our work in this world.
"All a man’s labor is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not fulfilled." (Ecclesiastes 6:7)
At the most basic level, this is obviously true. We work to eat. We labor to provide for our physical needs. The farmer tills the soil, the factory worker punches the clock, the software engineer writes code, all of it, at the end of the day, is to put food on the table. It is a cycle. We eat to get strength to work, and we work to get food to eat. This is the rhythm of life under the sun, a consequence of the curse in Genesis 3 where man must eat by the sweat of his brow.
But Solomon immediately pivots from the physical to the metaphysical. The labor is for the mouth, but the real problem is with the soul. The Hebrew word here is nephesh, which means soul, life, or appetite. You can fill the belly, but you cannot fill the nephesh. This is the central crisis of fallen humanity. We were created with an infinite longing for God, but after the fall, we tried to fill that God-shaped hole with finite things. It is like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a teaspoon. You can keep busy for a long time, but you will never make any real progress.
This is why the wealthiest men are often the most miserable. They have everything for their mouth, for their physical comfort, but their souls are cavernously empty. God has given them a thousand cans of peaches, but He has not given them the can opener. They can only lick the label. The man who thinks his next promotion, his next million, or his next vacation will finally satisfy him is a fool. He is on a treadmill, running faster and faster, but never arriving. The appetite, the nephesh, is a black hole that swallows up all worldly labor and is never filled.
The Great Equalizer (v. 8)
Given this universal condition, Solomon asks a series of rhetorical questions to dismantle our proud human distinctions.
"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?" (Ecclesiastes 6:8 LSB)
When it comes to this fundamental problem of the unfillable soul, our earthly advantages mean nothing. First, he considers the wise man versus the fool. The wise man might manage his affairs better. He might make better investments. He might live a more disciplined life. But his wisdom, under the sun, cannot fill his nephesh. He is just as susceptible to the gnawing dissatisfaction as the fool who wastes his inheritance. In fact, his wisdom might even make it worse, because he is smart enough to see the futility of it all, but not wise enough to look up.
Then he considers another kind of man: the afflicted, or poor, man who knows how to "walk before the living." This is the respectable poor man. He has integrity. He knows how to conduct himself with dignity despite his circumstances. He is not a fool. He has a kind of practical, social wisdom. But what advantage does he have? His integrity, while commendable, cannot satisfy the deep craving of his soul. He can earn the respect of his neighbors, but he cannot earn peace with God or contentment within himself.
Both the wise man and the respectable poor man are on the same treadmill as the fool. Their methods may be different, their running form more elegant, but the destination is the same: nowhere. This is a radical leveling of the playing field. From the perspective of eternity, the CEO in his skyscraper and the beggar on the street share the same fundamental problem. Their souls are not fulfilled, and no amount of worldly wisdom or personal integrity can fix it.
The Open Secret of Contentment (v. 9)
After diagnosing the disease and dismissing the world's snake-oil cures, Solomon gives the prescription. It is profoundly simple and yet, for fallen man, impossibly difficult.
"What the eyes see is better than what the soul goes after. This too is vanity and striving after wind." (Ecclesiastes 6:9 LSB)
"What the eyes see" refers to your present reality. It is what is right in front of you. Your wife, your children, your home, your job, your plate of food, the sun in the sky. It is the tangible, present grace of God in your life. "What the soul goes after," or the "wandering of the appetite," is the restless craving for what you do not have. It is the greener grass on the other side of the fence. It is the fantasy life where you are richer, smarter, better-looking, with a different spouse and a different set of problems.
Solomon's counsel is revolutionary: learn to love what is, instead of lusting after what is not. Contentment is found not in getting what you want, but in wanting what you have. This is not a call to resignation, but to reception. It is about receiving your life, right now, as a gift from the hand of a sovereign God. The man who can enjoy the sandwich in his hand is infinitely richer than the man who owns a thousand restaurants but is always dreaming of a new menu.
But notice the twist at the end. "This too is vanity and striving after wind." What is "this"? It refers to the whole sorry business of chasing after the wandering desire. That pursuit is the very definition of shepherding the wind. You can't catch it, and you look like a fool trying. The life of discontent is a life of utter futility. It is to be perpetually hungry at a banquet.
The Gospel for Hungry Souls
So what is the answer? If all our labor cannot fill our souls, if our wisdom gives us no advantage, and if our natural inclination is to chase the wind, where do we turn? The Preacher has been clearing the ground, bulldozing all our self-sufficient shacks, to lay one foundation. The answer is not found under the sun. The answer is the God who is over the sun.
The reason our nephesh is unfillable by the world is that it was made by God and for God. As Augustine said, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." The entire project of Ecclesiastes is to make us despair of finding satisfaction in the creation so that we will turn to the Creator.
Jesus Christ steps into this world of hungry souls and makes an audacious claim: "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). He is the only thing that can fill the nephesh. All the labor for the mouth is a picture, a shadow, of our need for this true bread. Our physical hunger returns every day to remind us that we have a deeper, spiritual hunger that must also be met daily.
When we come to Christ by faith, God performs a miracle. He gives us the can opener. He gives us the gift of enjoyment (Eccl. 5:19). He doesn't remove the vanity of the world, the endless cycles and the toil. Rather, He gives us the ability to rejoice in the midst of it. The Christian is the only one who can truly practice verse 9. We can delight in what our eyes see, in our ordinary, repetitive lives, because we know it is all a gift from our Father's hand. We are not trying to wring ultimate meaning from it; our ultimate meaning is secure in Christ. Therefore, we are free to simply receive it with thanksgiving.
The wandering of the soul is crucified with Christ. We are no longer nomads searching for a home. We have found our home in Him. Our labor is no longer a frantic effort to fill a void. It is now a joyful service of gratitude to the One who has already filled us to overflowing. We still work for our mouths, but we no longer expect the bread to satisfy our souls. We have tasted the Bread of Heaven, and we are, at last, fulfilled.