Ecclesiastes 5:9 - Meaning and Application

Solomon has already shown the emptiness of pleasure, laughter, fine work, honor, power, and royal splendor. Many greedy people may agree with him about those things, yet they still think money is the one solid thing. They believe that if they can only get enough wealth, they will be happy. Solomon corrects that mistake here. He shows that there is as much emptiness in great riches, and in the desire for them, as there is in sinful desire for pleasure and pride.

He begins by admitting that the earth’s produce, the crops and goods that sustain life, are good gifts. “The profit of the earth is for all” means that the earth provides what people need to live. Human bodies come from the earth, and their support comes from it too (Job 28:5). It is a sign of God’s kindness that the earth is not barren to us, even though, because of rebellion, we deserve hardship (Psalm 68:6). There is enough for everyone. This is true not only for people, but also for the lower creatures. The same ground gives grass to cattle and herbs for human use. Israel had bread from heaven, which was like the food of angels, yet even so, the earth is our storehouse, and the animals share it with us.

Even the king depends on the field, and he would be poorly served, even starved, without its yield. That gives great honor to farming, because it is the most necessary work for human life. The many benefit from it, and the mighty cannot live without it. So those who have plenty of the earth’s fruit should remember that it is meant for others too. They should see themselves as stewards, managing their abundance for the good of those in need. Fine foods and soft clothes are for only some people, but the earth’s produce is for all. Even those who enjoy the riches of the sea (Deuteronomy 33:19) still need the fruit of the earth, while those with enough from the earth may not need the sea’s abundance.

Solomon then says that riches beyond these, riches kept for piling up instead of being used, are empty. They will not make a person content or happy. This supports what Jesus later says, that a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of what he owns (Luke 12:15). The first reason is simple, the more people have, the more they want. A man may have a little silver and be satisfied. He may know when he has enough and desire no more. Godliness, together with contentment, is great gain. Jacob could say, “I have enough,” and Paul could say, “I have all, and abound.” But the one who loves silver and sets his heart on it will never feel full. His desires keep growing wider, like hell (Habakkuk 2:5). He keeps adding house to house and field to field (Isaiah 5:8), and, like the daughters of the horse leech, he keeps crying, “Give, give.”

Natural desires rest when they get what they want, but sinful desires never do. Nature is content with little, grace with even less, but greed is satisfied with nothing. Even when a man has silver in great amount, and it keeps increasing quickly, he still does not find real peace in it. Some bodily desires cannot be satisfied by silver at all. If a man is hungry, silver bars will not feed him any more than lumps of clay. And worldly wealth can never satisfy spiritual needs. The person who has much silver still wants more, and often wants something else too, something of a different kind. Those who slave for the world spend their labor on what cannot satisfy (Isaiah 55:2), what fills the belly but never fills the soul (Ezekiel 7:19).

A second reason is that the more wealth people have, the more use they must make of it, so it brings more burden with it. “When goods increase, they are increased that eat them” means that more money usually means more mouths. If the estate grows, the household often grows too. Children grow up and need more. Bigger wealth requires a bigger house, more servants, more guests, and more giving to the poor. It also draws more people who lean on the owner for support, like birds drawn to a carcass. Anything we have beyond food and clothing is for others as well. So what does the owner gain, except the pleasure of looking at it? And even that is a poor pleasure. The owner sees it as his own, while others enjoy much of the real benefit. He may feel the joy of helping others, and that is a true joy for the one who believes Christ’s words, that it is more blessed to give than to receive. But to the greedy man, who thinks anything given away is wasted, it is a constant irritation to see others share in his gain.

A third reason is that the more wealth people have, the more care they carry, and that troubles their rest. Sleep is a major support and comfort in this life, as important as food. The laboring man often sleeps best, not only because work makes him tired, but also because he has little to keep his mind worried and awake. His sleep is sweet, even if he eats little or much, because his labor brings him a healthy tiredness and good digestion. In the same way, the diligent Christian’s sleep, even long sleep, is sweet. Having spent himself and his time in God’s service, he can gladly return to God and rest in him.

But people who have everything else often do not get a good night’s sleep. Their eyes stay open, or their sleep is restless and gives no refreshment. Their wealth disturbs them, both by the care it brings, like the rich fool who asked, “What shall I do?” when his land produced plenty (Luke 12:17), and by the amount they eat and drink, which burdens the heart, makes them sick, and keeps them from resting. Ahasuerus, after a wine banquet, could not sleep. And often the knowledge of guilt, both in how wealth was gained and how it is used, breaks sleep as much as anything else. But God gives sleep to those he loves.

The more people have, the more danger they face, both from doing harm and from being harmed. Solomon had seen a painful evil under the sun, in this fallen world, where riches are left to the owners’ hurt, even though they worked hard to gather and guard them (Ecclesiastes 5:13). In some cases, wealth itself harms people. It makes them proud, careless, and in love with the world, pulls their hearts away from God and duty, and makes it hard for them to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Wealth also gives people the means to sin against others. It can feed their own desires and high living, but it can also open the door to oppression and harsh treatment of other people. Many times, wealth brings danger to its owner as well. If a person were not rich, others might not envy him or rob him, and he would not be singled out for trouble. A very rich man has sometimes been left out of a general pardon, both in life and in property, simply because he had such a large estate. So riches often become the cause of a man’s ruin, as in Proverbs 1:19.

The more people have, the more they have to lose, and they may lose it all (Ecclesiastes 5:14). Riches that were stored up with much effort and kept with great care can perish through bad business, through the very efforts used to secure and grow them. Many have ruined their estate by being too anxious to increase it, and they lost everything by reaching for more. Riches are temporary things, and all our worry cannot change that. They grow wings and fly away.

One person may expect to make his son well off, but leave him poor instead. He raises a son with the promise of an inheritance, but when he dies he leaves debts that swallow up the estate, so there is nothing left in his hand. This happens often. Estates that looked impressive do not always turn out as they seemed, and they can deceive the heir.

No matter how much a person has when he dies, he must leave it all behind him (Ecclesiastes 5:15, 16). As he came from his mother’s womb naked, so he will return. When he came into the world, his friends kindly wrapped him in cloth; when he leaves it, they cover him with grave clothes, and that is all. See Job 1:21 and Psalm 49:17. This should remind us to be content with what we have, as 1 Timothy 6:7 teaches.

As far as the body is concerned, we must go out as we came in. The dust returns to the earth as it was. But our case would be far worse if the soul returned as it came. We are born in sin, and if we die in sin, without being made holy, it would be better never to have been born. That seems to be the case with the worldly person here. He returns just as he came, sinful, miserable, and even more so.

This is a very sad evil to the person whose heart is tied to the world. He cannot take anything from all his labor that he can carry in his hand. His riches do not go with him into the next world, and they help him there in no way. But if we labor in religion, the grace and comfort we gain from that labor we can carry in our hearts, and it will benefit us forever. That is food that lasts. If we labor only for this world, filling our hands with it, we cannot take it with us. We are born with clenched hands, but we die with open hands, letting go of what we held tightly. So it is fair to ask, What profit does he have who has labored for the wind?

Those who labor for the world labor for the wind, for something that has more sound than substance. It is uncertain, always changing, unsatisfying, and often harmful. We cannot hold it fast, and if we take it as our portion, it will not feed us any more than the wind does (Hosea 12:1). People will see that they have labored for the wind when, at death, they find that the profit of all their work is gone, gone like the wind, and they do not know where it has gone.

Those who have much, if they set their hearts on it, often have unhappy lives as well as unhappy deaths (Ecclesiastes 5:17). This greedy worldly person, always bent on building an estate, spends all his days in darkness and great sorrow. His life is marked by sickness and anger. He has no true pleasure in his wealth, and no real enjoyment of it himself, for he eats the bread of sorrow (Psalm 127:2). He also feels much grief when others benefit from what he has.

Even his necessary expenses make him uneasy and troubled. He seems angry that he and those around him cannot live without food. If we read the last part this way, it also shows how poorly such a person handles the ordinary troubles of life. When he is healthy, he still eats in darkness, always dull with care and fear about what he owns. When he is sick, he has much sorrow and anger with his sickness. He is upset that sickness keeps him from business and slows his pursuit of the world. He is upset that all his wealth cannot give him relief. He is especially afraid of death, which his sickness is warning him about, because he must leave this world and all its things behind, and he is going to a world for which he has made no preparation.

His sorrow is not sorrow that leads to repentance. He does not grieve in a godly way. Instead, he has sorrow and anger. He is angry with God’s providence, angry at his sickness, and angry with everyone around him. He is fretful and peevish, and that only adds to his pain. A good man lessens and softens such suffering by patience and joy in sickness.