Christian Standard Bible
Ecclesiastes 3:9
9What does the worker gain from his struggles?
Ecclesiastes 3:9 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
- New International Version (NIV)What do workers gain from their toil?
- English Standard Version (ESV)What gain has the worker from his toil?
- New King James Version (NKJV)What profit has the worker from that in which he labors?
Context of Ecclesiastes 3:9
7a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; 8a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. What does the worker gain from his struggles? 10I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied. 11He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end.
Read all of Ecclesiastes 3Ecclesiastes 3:9 word by word
מַה־יִּתְרוֹן֙ הָֽעוֹשֶׂ֔ה בַּאֲשֶׁ֖ר ה֥וּא עָמֵֽל׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for Ecclesiastes 3:9
- Ecclesiastes 1:3What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?
- Ecclesiastes 2:11When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 5:16This too is a sickening tragedy: exactly as he comes, so he will go. What does the one gain who struggles for the wind?
- Proverbs 14:23There is profit in all hard work, but endless talk leads only to poverty.
- Matthew 16:26For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life?
Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 3:9
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 9What profit hath he - What real good, what solid pleasure, is derived from all the labors of man? Necessity drives him to the principal part of his cares and toils; he labors that he may eat and drink; and he eats and drinks that he may be preserved alive, and kept from sickness and pain. Love of money, the basest of all passions, and restless ambition, drive men to many labors and expedients, which perplex and often destroy them. He, then, who lives…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 9gain from his toil?: See Ecclesiastes 3:12–13.Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 99. But these earthly pursuits, while lawful in their season, are "unprofitable" when made by man, what God never intended them to be, the chief good. Solomon had tried to create an artificial forced joy, at times when he ought rather to have been serious; the result, therefore, of his labor to be happy, out of God's order, was disappointment. "A time to plant" (Ec 3:2) refers to his planting (Ec 2:5); "laugh" (Ec 3:4), to Ec 2:1, 2; "his mirth,"…Read the comment
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 3
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
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Commentaries