What Does Ecclesiastes 3:13 Mean?
And also, every human eats and drinks, and sees good in all his toil. This is the giving of God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.THE KEY
Enjoyment is not a bonus added to your labor; seeing good within it is itself God’s gift.
THE MEANING
Your life includes the plain acts of eating, drinking, and finding good in your work. The verse calls this good a gift from God: the labor remains, yet its goodness can be seen and received.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that ordinary pleasure is too small or too separate from spiritual life to count as God’s gift.
THE ROOT
וְרָאָה
vera’ah
GROWS FROM
ראה
to see, look, or perceive
“sees” in this verse is vera’ah. The Hebrew says, more literally, to “see good” in all one’s labor. The word opens enjoyment into perception: good is found and received within the work already present.
ALSO GROWS
ra’ah: to see, look, or perceive
רָאָה
This is the verb behind “enjoy”; its basic sense lets the verse’s picture of enjoyment remain one of seeing good.
mar’eh: appearance or sight
מַרְאֶה
This related form keeps the root’s connection to what is seen, underscoring the verse’s language of perceiving good.
מַתַּת
mattat
GROWS FROM
נתן
to give, set, or place
“This is the giving of God” in this verse is mattat. The word translated “gift” grows from the root for giving and placing. What the verse names as gift is the received goodness of eating, drinking, and seeing good in one’s labor.
ALSO GROWS
natan: to give, set, or place
נָתַן
This is the root itself; it presents the good in the verse as something given by God.
mattanah: a gift or present
מַתָּנָה
This related noun makes the same giving-root visible in another word for gift.
עֲמָלוֹ
amalo
GROWS FROM
עמל
to toil or labor, with the sense of strain or trouble
The Hebrew word retains the weight of toil; the verse does not say labor vanishes. It places the possibility of seeing good within the full span of that labor.
ALSO GROWS
amal: toil, labor, or trouble
עָמָל
This noun shares the root and shows that the verse’s labor includes strain, not just its pleasant results.
amel: one who toils or labors
עָמֵל
This related form names the person engaged in the work, linking the verse’s gift to lived labor.
THE PATTERN
Ordinary provision and the ability to find good in one’s labor are received as God’s gift.
There is nothing better for a person than to eat and to drink, and to make his living soul see good in his toil. This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God.For you eat the weariness of your palms; flourishing is yours, and goodness is yours.Charge those who are rich in this age, that they not be lifted high in mind, nor set their hope on uncertain riches, but upon the living God, who holds out to us richly all things to feast on.THE THREAD
Every human to whom God gives wealth and possessions, and gives reign to eat from them, and to lift his portion and rejoice in his toil. This is the giving of God.This verse repeats the same Hebrew word for “gift,” mattat, and also uses natan, the root meaning “give,” for what God has given. It spells out the same gift as the power to eat, receive one’s portion, and rejoice in one’s labor.
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