Ecclesiastes Chapter Two, What Is Gained?

Ecclesiastes 2:22 For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? [23] For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

This accusation is a broad stroke involving not just human vocation, but every work man does under Heaven. The idea then involves our work, pastimes, hobbies, thoughts, family time, et al. The effort we expend in our many pursuits great or small are encompassed by this indictment.

The NASB and the Tanakh render the beginning of verse 22, “For what does a man get?” In other words, what do we benefit from by toiling after the many things that arrest both our interest and attention? We progress through school, college, career, family, and retirement. We pursue art or reading, fishing or sports or collectables, but the lingering, insistent question of the preacher remains: “what do I get from this?” Is there genuine purpose or benefit? Or do I go through the motions of what life is apparently supposed to be, in the absence of purpose and benefit? The preacher tells his readership that man’s labor is akin to the striving of his heart. The heart motivates the man to pursue his labor in which he toils under the sun.

The heart, like the ideas of seeing and light in Scripture, is spoken of frequently. Rarely is the heart mentioned in flattering terms. If the heart is the seat of human will and motivation, it is thoroughly corrupt. “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” Genesis 6:5. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings,” Jeremiah 17:9, 10.

The intents and thoughts of man spring from the heart, which Jesus our Lord warned is what actually defiles us, Matthew 15:18, 19. Note that God twice calls man’s heart wicked. In fact it is so much worse than this. Every intent of our thoughts is only evil always. The human heart is deceitful above any other descriptor, and desperately wicked. It seeks evil and deceives the hearer into sin. So the man that fills his life with labor or toil does so to spite the Creator whom he is disobeying by refusing to acknowledge the presence of. Since the Creator alone gives His creations purpose (having created mankind with a specific intention) folly’s core is the deliberate effort to remove God from earthly ambitions, and fill the void of His absence with said ambitions. It is why some certain people become fanatics about their sports team, hunting, the car they own, etc. Accomplishment is being substituted for relationship. And it is a pale, shallow, cheap, imperfect and hopeless substitution that CANNOT provide mankind with the metanarrative they crave to solve the riddle of daily life.

Life “under the sun,” is taxing for mankind. The preacher states that it is sorrowful everyday, and that is true. Little or great, sorrow seeps into the fixtures of our happiest times and achievements. As a father watching my children grow up, rapidly approaching adulthood I find sorrow mingled with my joy consistently. I know the hardship of life, physical exhaustion, the spiritual battles that abound, and the temptation life tantalizes even the wary with. My children will forge their own paths, and though my wife and I may guide them, teach them, help them, they are their own person, and they alone are accountable to the Lord for the choices they make and will make. It is both amazing and sorrowful even now as decisions bring consequences they dislike, or the actions of others impact them for the worse. That is why the preacher says that daily life is both sorrowful and burdensome.

Christ our Lord never promised that the Christian life would be sorrow or burden free; He actually said something of the opposite: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,” John 16:33. We remain in the world and experience tribulation, or trouble. But we are also to remain in the Word, that is in Christ, who is our peace. Why? Because in Him we find purpose and relationship. We understand why we exist, and who we exist for, and that knowledge is potently transformable. It makes our vocation, our hobbies, or family, etc. sanctified, so that we do them now in Him, and our actions possess meaning and worth in both time and eternity.

For the man under the sun, the preacher shares the experience that even sleep is not the rest we want it to be. Solomon elsewhere writes, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the beard of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep,” Psalm 127:1, 2. What man creates apart from God’s presence and providence is not capable of enduring, and mankind knows this. Instinctively a part of us knows this, so the futility of human experience and endeavor is always going to be tainted with sorrow, while sleep fails to provide the restful escape it boasts of.