New English Translation
Ecclesiastes 3:9
9What benefit can a worker gain from his toil?
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 rip, and a time to sew; a time to keep 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 benefit can a worker gain from his toil? 10I have observed the burden that God has given to people to keep them occupied. 11God has made everything fit beautifully in its appropriate time, but he has also placed ignorance in the human heart so that people cannot discover what God has ordained, from the beginning to the end of their lives.
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 benefit do people get from all the effort which they expend on earth?
- Ecclesiastes 2:11Yet when I reflected on everything I had accomplished and on all the effort that I had expended to accomplish it, I concluded: “All these achievements and possessions are ultimately profitless – like chasing the wind! There is nothing gained from them on earth.”
- Ecclesiastes 5:16This is another misfortune: Just as he came, so will he go. What did he gain from toiling for the wind?
- Proverbs 14:23In all hard work there is profit, but merely talking about it only brings poverty.
- Matthew 16:26For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what can a person 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