God’s Word Translation
Ecclesiastes 3:9
9What do working people gain from their hard labor?
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 apart and a time to sew together, a time to keep quiet and a time to speak out, 8a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. What do working people gain from their hard labor? 10I have seen mortals weighed down with a burden that God has placed on them. 11It is beautiful how God has done everything at the right time. He has put a sense of eternity in people’s minds. Yet, mortals still can’t grasp what God is doing from the beginning to the end ⌞of time⌟.
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 do people gain from all their hard work under the sun?
- Ecclesiastes 2:11But when I turned to look at all that I had accomplished and all the hard work I had put into it, I saw that it was all pointless. ⌞It was like⌟ trying to catch the wind. I gained nothing ⌞from any of my accomplishments⌟ under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 5:16This also is a painful tragedy: They leave exactly as they came. What advantage do they gain from working so hard for the wind?
- Proverbs 14:23In hard work there is always something gained, but idle talk leads only to poverty.
- Matthew 16:26What good will it do for people to win the whole world and lose their lives? Or what will a person give in exchange for 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
God’s Word Translation — © 1995 God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society
Commentaries