Ecclesiastes 2:25

Easy-to-Read Version

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him?

Hebrew Names Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

King James Version
For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I?

English Standard Version
for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

New American Standard Bible
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?

New Century Version
because no one can eat or enjoy life without him.

Amplified Bible
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?

World English Bible
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

Geneva Bible (1587)
For who could eate, and who could haste to outward things more then I?

Legacy Standard Bible
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment outside of Him?

Berean Standard Bible
For apart from Him, who can eat and who can find enjoyment?

Contemporary English Version
and no one enjoys eating and living more than I do.

Complete Jewish Bible
For who will eat and who will enjoy except me?

Darby Translation
For who can eat, or who be eager, more than I?

George Lamsa Translation
For who can eat or who can drink except he?

Good News Translation
How else could you have anything to eat or enjoy yourself at all?

Lexham English Bible
For who can eat and drink, and who can enjoy life apart from him?

Literal Translation
For who can eat, or who can enjoy, apart from me?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For who maye eate, drynke, or brynge eny thige to passe without him? And why?

American Standard Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

Bible in Basic English
Who may take food or have pleasure without him?

JPS Old Testament (1917)
For who will eat, or who will enjoy, if not I?

King James Version (1611)
For who can eate? or who else can hasten hereunto more then I?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
For who wyll eate or go more lustyly to his worke then I?

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For who shall eat, or who shall drink, without him?

English Revised Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Who schal deuoure so, and schal flowe in delicis, as Y dide?

Update Bible Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

Webster's Bible Translation
For who can eat, or who else can hasten [to it] more than I?

New English Translation
For no one can eat and drink or experience joy apart from him.

New King James Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I? [fn]

New Living Translation
For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?

New Life Bible
For who can eat and who can find joy without Him?

New Revised Standard
for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For who could eat and who could enjoy, so well as I?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Who shall so feast and abound with delights as I?

Revised Standard Version
for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

Young's Literal Translation
For who eateth and who hasteth out more than I?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?

Contextual Overview

¹⁷ This made me hate life. It was depressing to think that everything in this life is useless, like trying to catch the wind. ¹⁸ I began to hate all the hard work I had done, because I saw that the people who live after me would get the things that I worked for. I will not be able to take them with me. ¹⁹ Some other person will control everything I worked and studied for. And I don't know if that person will be wise or foolish. This is also senseless. ²⁰ So I became sad about all the work I had done. ²¹ People can work hard using all their wisdom and knowledge and skill. But they will die and other people will get the things they worked for. They did not do the work, but they will get everything. That makes me very sad. It is also not fair and is senseless. ²² What do people really have after all their work and struggling in this life? ²³ Throughout their life, they have pain, frustrations, and hard work. Even at night, a person's mind does not rest. This is also senseless. ²⁴There is no one who has tried to enjoy life more than I have. And this is what I learned: The best thing people can do is eat, drink, and enjoy the work they must do. I also saw that this comes from God. ²⁶ If people do good and please God, he will give them wisdom, knowledge, and joy. But those who sin will get only the work of gathering and carrying things. God takes from the bad person and gives to the good person. But all this work is useless. It is like trying to catch the wind.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

who can: Ecclesiastes 2:1-12, 1 Kings 4:21-24

Reciprocal: Genesis 48:15 - fed me Ecclesiastes 2:12 - I turned 1 Corinthians 7:31 - use

Cross-References

Genesis 2:10
A river flowed from Eden and watered the garden. The river then separated and became four smaller rivers.

Genesis 2:11
The name of the first river was Pishon. This river flowed around the entire country of Havilah.

Genesis 3:7
Then it was as if their eyes opened, and they saw things differently. They saw that they were naked. So they got some fig leaves, sewed them together, and wore them for clothes.

Exodus 32:25
Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get out of control. They were being wild, and all their enemies could see them acting like fools.

Psalms 25:3
No one who trusts in you will be disappointed. But disappointment will come to those who try to deceive others. They will get nothing.

Psalms 31:17
Lord , I am praying to you. Don't let me be disappointed. The wicked are the ones who should be disappointed. Let them go to the grave in silence.

Isaiah 44:9
Some people make idols, but they are worthless. They love their statues, which are useless. Those who serve as witnesses for these statues cannot even see. They don't know enough to be ashamed.

Isaiah 47:3
Men will see your naked body and use you for sex. I will make you pay for the bad things you did, and I will not let anyone help you.

Isaiah 54:4
Don't be afraid! You will not be disappointed. People will not say bad things against you. You will not be embarrassed. When you were young, you felt shame. But you will forget that shame now. You will not remember the shame you felt when you lost your husband.

Jeremiah 6:15
They should be ashamed of the evil things they do, but they are not ashamed at all. They don't know enough to be embarrassed by their sins. So they will be punished with everyone else. They will be thrown to the ground when I punish the people." This is what the Lord said.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For who can eat?.... Who should eat, but such a man that has laboured for it? or, who has a power to eat, that is, cheerfully, comfortably, and freely to enjoy the good things of life he is possessed of, unless it be given him of God? see Ecclesiastes 6:1;

or who else can hasten [hereunto] more than I? the word "chush", in Rabbinical language, is used of the five senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting: and R. Elias says c, there are some that so interpret it here, "who has [his] sense better than I?" a quicker sense, particularly of smelling and tasting what be eats, in which lies much of the pleasure of eating; and this is of God; which interpretation is not to be despised. Or, "who can prepare?" according to the Arabic sense of the word d; that is, a better table than I? No man had a greater affluence of good things than Solomon, or had a greater variety of eatables and drinkables; or had it in the power of his hands to live well, and cause his soul to enjoy good; or was more desirous to partake of pleasure, and hasten more to make the experiment of it in a proper manner; and yet he found, that a heart to do this was from the Lord; that this was a gift of his; and that though he abounded in the blessings of life, yet if God had not given him a heart to use them, he never should have really enjoyed them.

c In Tishbi, p. 109. d Vid. Rambachium in loc.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Solomon having found that wisdom and folly agree in being subject to vanity, now contrasts one with the other Ecclesiastes 2:13. Both are brought under vanity by events Ecclesiastes 2:14 which come on the wise man and the feel alike from without - death and oblivion Ecclesiastes 2:16, uncertainty Ecclesiastes 2:19, disappointment Ecclesiastes 2:21 - all happening by an external law beyond human control. Amidst this vanity, the good (see Ecclesiastes 2:10 note) that accrues to man, is the pleasure felt Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 in receiving God’s gifts, and in working with and for them.

Ecclesiastes 2:12

What can the man do ... - i. e., “What is any man - in this study of wisdom and folly - after one like me, who, from my position, have had such special advantages (see Ecclesiastes 1:16, and compare Ecclesiastes 2:25) for carrying it on? That which man did of old he can but do again: he is not likely to add to the result of my researches, nor even to equal them.” Some hold that the “man” is a reference to Solomon’s successor - not in his inquiries, but in his kingdom, i. e., Jeroboam.

Ecclesiastes 2:14

Event - Or, “hap” Ruth 2:3. The verb from which it is derived seems in this book to refer especially to death. The word does not mean chance (compare Ecclesiastes 9:1-2), independent of the ordering of Divine Providence: the Gentile notion of “mere chance,” or “blind fate,” is never once contemplated by the writer of this book, and it would be inconsistent with his tenets of the unlimited power and activity of God.

Ecclesiastes 2:16

Seeing that ... - Compare Ecclesiastes 1:11. Some render, “as in time past, so in days to come, all will be forgotten;” others, “because in the days to come all will have been long before forgotten.”

Ecclesiastes 2:17

I hated life - Compare this expression, extorted from Solomon by the perception of the vanity of his wisdom and greatness, with Romans 8:22-23. The words of Moses Numbers 11:15, and of Job Job 3:21; Job 6:9, are scarcely less forcible. With some people, this feeling is a powerful motive to conversion Luke 14:26.

Ecclesiastes 2:19

Labour - Compare Ecclesiastes 2:4-8.

Ecclesiastes 2:20

I went about - i. e., I turned from one course of action to another.

Ecclesiastes 2:23

Are sorrows ... grief - Rather, sorrows and grief are his toil. See Ecclesiastes 1:13.

Ecclesiastes 2:24

Nothing better for a man, than that ... - literally, no good in man that etc. The one joy of working or receiving, which, though it be transitory, a man recognizes as a real good, even that is not in the power of man to secure for himself: that good is the gift of God.

Ecclesiastes 2:26

The doctrine of retribution, or, the revealed fact that God is the moral Governor of the world, is here stated for the first time (compare Ecclesiastes 3:15, Ecclesiastes 3:17 ff) in this book.

This also is vanity - Not only the travail of the sinner. Even the best gifts of God, wisdom, knowledge, and joy, so far as they are given in this life, are not permanent, and are not always (see Ecclesiastes 9:11) efficacious for the purpose for which they appear to be given.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 25. For who can eat - more than I? — But instead of חוץ ממני chuts mimmenni, more than I; חוץ ממנו chuts mimmennu, without HIM, is the reading of eight of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., as also of the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic.

"For who maye eat, drynke, or bring enythinge to pass without him?" - COVERDALE.

I believe this to be the true reading. No one can have a true relish of the comforts of life without the Divine blessing. This reading connects all the sentences: "This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God;-for who can eat, and who can relish without HIM? For God giveth to man that is good." It is through his liberality that we have any thing to eat or drink; and it is only through his blessing that we can derive good from the use of what we possess.