Ecclesiastes 2:12–26 | World English Bible Classic
12 I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly; for what can the king’s successor do? Just that which has been done long ago. 13 Then I saw that wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness. 14 The wise man’s eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness—and yet I perceived that one event happens to them all.
15 Then I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise?” Then I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no memory forever, since in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. Indeed, the wise man must die just like the fool!
17 So I hated life, because the work that is worked under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
18 I hated all my labor in which I labored under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me. 19 Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all of my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 Therefore I began to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor in which I had labored under the sun.
21 For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, with knowledge, and with skillfulness; yet he shall leave it for his portion to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 For what does a man have of all his labor and of the striving of his heart, in which he labors under the sun? 23 For all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.
24 There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God. 25 For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I? 26 For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
The king turns from the works he has made to consider wisdom, madness, and folly. The language recalls his inquiry in 1:17, where he applied his heart to know wisdom and its opposites. The pleasure and achievement described in 2:1–11 have not removed the need to ask whether one way of living is better than another. He considers the capacities and choices governing life, as well as the things those choices can acquire.
Verse 12 asks what the person who comes after the king can do. The Hebrew is compressed, and translations differ over whether the question emphasizes a successor or a person arriving after an already completed royal experiment. Either way, the king has pushed the available experiment to its limits. A successor cannot escape the conditions of human life simply by repeating what the king has already done.
Verse 13 supplies a positive judgment: ‘wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness.’ The Preacher does not flatten the difference between wise and foolish living. Wisdom has a real advantage, even though it cannot secure the enduring profit sought in the previous passage.
The word translated ‘excels’ is related to the language of advantage or profit that runs through the book. Its presence is deliberate: wisdom offers a genuine relative advantage without solving the larger question of what remains after death. The Preacher is measuring two different things, and he refuses to confuse them.
Verse 14 develops the image: “The wise man’s eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness.” The wise person uses the capacity to see; the fool proceeds as someone deprived of light. The contrast concerns perception put to use in living.
Halfway through verse 14, the argument turns: ‘and yet I perceived that one event happens to them all.’ The wise person's eyes may be open while the fool walks in darkness, but both remain mortal. The advantage of wisdom operates within life; it cannot remove the event that ends it.
In verse 15 the king applies the observation to himself: ‘As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me.’ His wisdom is exceptional, but his mortality is ordinary. He cannot use intelligence to purchase an exemption from death.
His question, ‘Why was I then more wise?’ comes from that collision. He has paid the cost of seeking understanding and received its advantages, yet the final event overtakes him as surely as it overtakes the fool. The question is a lament about wisdom's limit, not a retraction of its value.
Verse 16 presses the problem beyond death into memory. Time erodes the distinction between the wise and the fool in the minds of those who follow. A generation may praise a person's judgment; later generations may scarcely know the name. Even fame cannot guarantee that the living will remember accurately or indefinitely.
The sentence ends with the force of lament: “Indeed, the wise man must die just like the fool!” This is not a detached entry in a table of human outcomes. The king has brought together wisdom's superiority, his own attainment, the failure of remembrance, and the death he cannot avoid. The conclusion hurts because he has taken wisdom seriously.
The emotional consequence appears in verse 17: ‘So I hated life.’ This is stronger than disappointment with the results of an experiment. The king has discovered that wisdom truly helps a person navigate the world, but it cannot prevent the wise person from sharing the fool's fate. The clearer his sight becomes, the more sharply he sees the boundary that neither effort nor intelligence can cross. The work done ‘under the sun’ has become grievous to him because even his best accomplishments cannot answer the question of what will endure. His hatred of life expresses the anguish of that discovery; it is not a command for the reader to despise living.
Verse 18 turns from the worker's death to the future of his work: ‘I hated all my labor in which I labored under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.’ The achievements do not necessarily disappear. In fact, their survival creates another problem: someone else will possess and direct what the original worker made.
Verse 19 makes the uncertainty explicit: ‘Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool?’ The builder can choose methods, supervise labor, and assess results. He cannot choose the judgment of the person who inherits his position. The successor will have power over what the predecessor gained through wisdom.
The succession of Rehoboam offers a historical illustration of that danger. Solomon's son inherited a kingdom that had been enlarged and organized under his father. When the people asked for relief from burdensome service, Rehoboam rejected the counsel of older advisers and followed the harsher advice of his peers (1 Kings 12:1–15). His decision fractured the kingdom.
1 Kings 12:13–16 | World English Bible Classic
The king answered the people roughly, and abandoned the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
So the king didn’t listen to the people; for it was a thing brought about from Yahweh, that he might establish his word, which Yahweh spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. When all Israel saw that the king didn’t listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, “What portion have we in David? We don’t have an inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, Israel! Now see to your own house, David.” So Israel departed to their tents.
Rehoboam's answer shows how quickly an heir can endanger what a predecessor established. First Kings also presents the division as the fulfillment of God's announced judgment. The episode therefore illustrates the danger of succession without reducing the entire event to the personal incompetence of one young king.
Verse 20 describes the Preacher turning toward despair over his labor. Verse 21 explains why: someone may work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, yet leave the result to a person who did not labor for it. The effort belongs to one person; the control and benefit may pass to another.
The word ‘portion’ recalls verse 10, where the king's portion was the joy he received while working. Here the portion passes to someone who did not do the work. The repeated word sharpens the contrast between enjoyment that can be received now and possessions that cannot be held indefinitely.
Verses 22–23 ask what finally comes to a person from all the labor and anxious striving of the heart. The Preacher looks beyond the visible product of work to its cost within the worker. Days can be filled with painful effort and frustration; then, when the tools are set down, the mind keeps working. ‘Even in the night his heart takes no rest’ describes an anxiety that does not obey the boundary between labor and sleep. The worker can finish a task without finishing the worry over whether it will succeed, survive, or remain in his hands. This sleeplessness prepares for verse 24: the ability to enjoy one's labor is itself a gift, not the inevitable reward of working harder.
Verse 24 introduces a surprising answer: ‘There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor.’ The Preacher has described work that outlives its owner and anxiety that follows its owner home. Now he identifies a good that can be received within the worker's limited days: food, drink, and genuine enjoyment of the work itself.
The explanation is decisive: ‘This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God.’ Enjoyment is not simply another achievement the king can manufacture. The language of God's hand identifies the giver. The king made houses and gardens for himself; he must receive the capacity to enjoy life's ordinary goods from God.
Verse 25 reads in the World English Bible Classic, ‘For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?’ The royal speaker's extraordinary access to pleasure makes the testimony pointed: even the man who could arrange almost every comfort recognizes enjoyment as a gift rather than a possession he can command.
Other translations read ‘apart from him,’ referring to God. The difference reflects a textual question about the pronoun. Both readings fit the immediate concern with enjoyment, but the WEB's ‘more than I’ makes the king's own experiment the immediate comparison.
Verse 26 gives the statement a moral dimension. God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to the person who pleases him; to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and storing, only for the gathered goods to pass to someone who pleases God. The repeated verb ‘gives’ places enjoyment and the eventual disposal of wealth under God's government. The Preacher is describing God's authority over what people acquire and who ultimately benefits from it, not offering a formula by which every righteous person becomes wealthy at a sinner's expense.
The irony reaches back through the chapter. A person may spend life collecting what he expects to keep, only to see the result go elsewhere. Earlier, the Preacher feared leaving his work to an unwise heir; here he sees that even the transfer of accumulated goods remains subject to God's judgment. The one who gathers cannot dictate the final destination of the gathering.
The final phrase, ‘This also is vanity and a chasing after wind,’ keeps the tension intact. God can grant genuine joy in work, while the labor of accumulating what cannot be secured remains vapor-like. The gift is real; so is the limit.
Paul's instruction to the wealthy makes a closely related distinction:
1 Timothy 6:17–19 | World English Bible Classic
Charge those who are rich in this present age that they not be arrogant, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to share; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal life.
Riches are uncertain, God provides things to enjoy, and those who have much should be ready to share. Possessions can serve neighbors and families without becoming the foundation of a person’s hope. Paul’s counsel gives the wealthy an active responsibility toward others within the dependence Ecclesiastes has described.
The Preacher has shown a wise man who cannot outlive the fool, a worker who cannot govern his heir, and a restless heart that cannot secure tomorrow. Yet food, drink, and satisfaction in one's labor can still be received from God's hand. That is the good available to a person whose work and future remain beyond his final control.