What Does Ecclesiastes 3:13 Mean in the King James?

And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

Ecclesiastes 3:13 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

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

“enjoy” 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

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

“labour” in this verse is amalo. 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 man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.

Ecclesiastes 2:24 · KJVLike the present verse, it places the enjoyment of food and good in one’s labor in God’s hand.

For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

Psalm 128:2 · KJVIt joins eating with the work of one’s hands and the well-being found in that provision.

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;

1 Timothy 6:17 · KJVIt names God as the giver of what people enjoy, extending the pattern beyond the harvest of labor.

THE THREAD

Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.

Ecclesiastes 5:19 · KJV

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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