What Does Ecclesiastes 5:9 Mean?
And the surplus of the earth is for all, and even the king is served by the field.
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
Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.THE KEY
The king is sustained by the same field whose yield reaches everyone: power does not free anyone from dependence on the earth.
THE MEANING
The earth’s yield belongs to all, and even a king depends on what the field provides. The highest rank still receives what the soil and the work around it make possible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that power makes a person self-sufficient dissolves here: even a king is served by the field.
THE ROOT
נֶעֱבָד
neʿevad
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
to work, labor, or serve
The king is described as being served by the field. The same root connects service with labor, tying his sustenance to the work that makes the land yield.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeved: servant
עֶבֶד
The word for a servant shares the root behind the king being served, linking rank and service in the verse.
ʿavodah: work, labor, or service
עֲבֹדָה
This branch brings the labor behind the field’s provision into view: the king’s support comes through work and service.
יִתְרוֹן
yitron
GROWS FROM
יתר
y-t-r
to remain, be left over, or exceed
The word translated “profit” carries the sense of what remains or exceeds. That shade makes the earth’s gain sound like its surplus, available across the community, including to the king.
ALSO GROWS
yeter: remainder or surplus
יֶתֶר
This related form makes the sense of what is left over audible within “profit.”
yoter: more or greater
יוֹתֵר
This branch echoes the root’s sense of exceeding, illuminating the earth’s capacity to provide beyond bare need.
THE PATTERN
The earth’s yield sustains life across every rank, while no one stands outside dependence on what is given.
And God said, "Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant upon the face of all the earth, and every tree bearing fruit with seed in it. It shall be yours for food."He makes the grass sprout for the cattle, and the herb for the service of humankind, to bring bread out from the earth.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
And the LORD God took Adam and set him down in the garden of Eden, to serve it and to guard it.“Dress” translates עבד (ʿavad), meaning to work or serve, the same root behind the king being served by the field. The field sustains the king, while human life meets the field through work and care; the shared root links both sides of that exchange.
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