Ecclesiastes 5:10-20
In Living Life Backward (page 37), David Gibson quotes Iain Provan (Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs [The NIV Application Commentary Ecclesiastes]) as summarizing the main message of Ecclesiastes this way: “Life in God’s world is gift, not gain.” He later condenses that a bit into, “Life is gift, not gain.” I love that, not just because it’s on target, but because it is pithy and really easy to remember. That summary fits today’s reading like a glove.
Where does the pursuit of gain get you? Nowhere. Wealth slips through your fingers. The more you get, the more it is consumed, so all you get to do is look at it for a while. (Ecc. 5:11) And overfilling your stomach just gives you indigestion so you can’t even sleep. (Ecc. 5:12 — By the way, I love the humor in that verse!) Or you gain riches only to lose them in some bad business venture, so you have nothing left to provide for your children, and even if you manage to hold onto some of it, you still can’t take it with you when you die, so you live your life in bitterness. (Ecc. 5:13-17)
And the alternative to that empty pursuit of wealth? Accepting life as God’s gift and enjoying whatever He gives you. (Ecc. 5:18-20) Stop struggling against reality. Accept reality. Accept the gift of God’s amazing grace.
So there you have it. Life is gift, not gain.
Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun… (v. 18a) At first glance this verse may seem familiar to those of us who have been reading daily; we have seen “eat and drink” twice earlier (Ecc. 2:24, 3:13) and we’ll see it twice more later (Ecc. 8:15, 9:7). When I first saw this “eat and drink” item a few days ago my mind quickly said “Eat, drink, and be merry…”). We will see this exact translation later in Ecc. 8:15. However, our writer today is less concerned with our merriment than with our labor. We see this in verse 18a above (and find enjoyment in all [your] toil), and in Ecc. 2:24 (…and enjoy [your] work) and in Ecc. 3:13 (…and find satisfaction in all [your] labor—this is the gift of God). That is, “work” is good; enjoy it! So says Fred, happily retired…!! 😊