Ecclesiastes 2:23

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) The fact that the wise man must surrender his acquisitions exhibits the inutility of the painful toil by which he has gained them.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:18-26 Our hearts are very loth to quit their expectations of great things from the creature; but Solomon came to this at length. The world is a vale of tears, even to those that have much of it. See what fools they are, who make themselves drudges to the world, which affords a man nothing better than subsistence for the body. And the utmost he can attain in this respect is to allow himself a sober, cheerful use thereof, according to his rank and condition. But we must enjoy good in our labour; we must use those things to make us diligent and cheerful in worldly business. And this is the gift of God. Riches are a blessing or a curse to a man, according as he has, or has not, a heart to make a good use of them. To those that are accepted of the Lord, he gives joy and satisfaction in the knowledge and love of him. But to the sinner he allots labour, sorrow, vanity, and vexation, in seeking a worldly portion, which yet afterwards comes into better hands. Let the sinner seriously consider his latter end. To seek a lasting portion in the love of Christ and the blessings it bestows, is the only way to true and satisfying enjoyment even of this present world.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Are sorrows ... grief - Rather, sorrows and grief are his toil. See Ecclesiastes 1:13.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

23. The only fruit he has is, not only sorrows in his days, but all his days are sorrows, and his travail (not only has griefs connected with it, but is itself), grief.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For all his days are sorrows; or, though all his days were sorrows, i.e. full of sorrows. For this seems added to aggravate the evil mentioned in the foregoing verse. Though he took great and unwearied pains all his days, yet after death he hath no more benefit by it than another man hath.

His travail grief; the toils of his body are, or were, accompanied with the vexations of his mind.

Taketh not rest in the night; either because his mind is distracted, or his sleep broken, with perplexing cares and fears.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief,.... All his days are full of sorrows, of a variety of them; and all his affairs and transactions of life are attended with grief and trouble; not only the days of old age are evil ones, in which he can take no pleasure; or those times which exceed the common age of man, when he is got to fourscore years or more, and when his strength is labour and sorrow; but even all his days, be they fewer or more, from his youth upward, are all evil and full of trouble, Genesis 47:9;

yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night; which is appointed for rest and ease; and when laid down on his bed for it, as the word signifies; yet, either through an eager desire of getting wealth, or through anxious and distressing cares for the keeping it when gotten, he cannot sleep quietly and comfortably, his carking cares and anxious thoughts keep him waking; or, if he sleeps, his mind is distressed with dreams and frightful apprehensions of things, so that his sleep is not sweet and refreshing to him.

This is also vanity; or one of the vanities which belong to human life.

Geneva Study Bible

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23. yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night] The verse speaks out the experience of the men who labour for that which does not profit. There is no real pleasure, even at the time. The “cares of this world” come together with “the pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:14). We trace the same yearning after the “sweet sleep” that lies in the far-off past as in ch. Ecclesiastes 5:12, perhaps also in the “almond tree” of ch. Ecclesiastes 12:5. So has the great master-poet portrayed the wakefulness of successful ambition, the yearning for the sleep of the “smoky crib,” or even of the ship-boy on the mast, the terrible conclusion,

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

Shakespeare, Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. 1.

No “poppies” or “mandragora” can restore that sleep to the slave of mammon or the worn out sensualist.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 23. - All his days are sorrow, and his travail grief (comp. Ecclesiastes 5:16, 17). These are the real results of his lifelong efforts. All his days are pains and sorrows, bring trouble with them, and all his labor ends in grief. "Sorrows" and "grief" are pretreated respectively of "days" and "travail." Abstract nouns are often so used. Thus Ecclesiastes 10:12, "The words of a wise man's mouth are grace." The free-thinkers in Wisd. 2:1 complain that life is short and tedious (λυπηρὸς). Yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. He cannot sleep for thinking over his plans and hopes and disappointments. Not for him is the sweet sleep of the laboring man, who does his day's work, earns his repose, and frets not about the future. On the one hand care, on the ether satiety, murder sleep, and make the night torment. Ecclesiastes 2:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"For what has man of all his labour, and the endeavours of his heart with which he wearies himself under the sun? All his days are certainly in sorrows, and his activity in grief; his heart resteth not even in the night: also this is vain." The question literally is: What is (comes forth, results) to a man from all his labour; for "to become, to be, to fall to, happen to," is the fundamental idea of הוה (whence here הוה, γινόμενον, as at Nehemiah 6:6, γενεεσόμενος) or היה, the root signification of which is deorsum ferri, cadere, and then accidere, fieri, whence הוּה, eagerness precipitating itself upon anything (vid., under Proverbs 10:3), or object.: fall, catastrophe, destruction. Instead of שׁהוּא, there is here to be written שׁהוּא,

(Note: Thus according to tradition, in H, J, P, vid., Michlol 47b, 215b, 216a; vid., also Norzi.)

as at Ecclesiastes 3:18 שׁהם. The question looks forward to a negative answer. What comes out of his labour for man? Nothing comes of it, nothing but disagreeableness. This negative contained in the question is established by כּי, 23a. The form of the clause, "all his days are sorrows," viz., as to their condition, follows the scheme, "the porch was 20 cubits," 2 Chronicles 3:4, viz., in measurement; or, "their feast is music and wine," Isaiah 5:12, viz., in its combination (vid., Philippi's Stat. Const. p. 90ff.). The parallel clause is וכעם ענינו, not כו; for the final syllable, or that having the accent on the penult, immediately preceding the Athnach-word, takes Kametz, as e.g., Leviticus 18:5; Proverbs 25:3; Isaiah 65:17 (cf. Olsh. 224, p. 440).

(Note: But cf. also ולא with Zakeph Katan, 2 Kings 5:17; ואר וגו with Tiphcha, Isaiah 26:19; and וריב under Psalm 45:10.)

Many interpreters falsely explain: at aegritudo est velut quotidiana occupatio ejus. For the sake of the parallelism, ענינו (from ענה, to weary oneself with labour, or also to strive, aim; vid., Psalmen, ii. 390) is subj. not pred.: his endeavour is grief, i.e., brings only grief or vexation with it.

Even in the night he has no rest; for even then, though he is not labouring, yet he is inwardly engaged about his labour and his plans. And this possession, acquired with such labour and restlessness, he must leave to others; for equally with the fool he fails under the stroke of death: he himself has no enjoyment, others have it; dying, he must leave all behind him, - threefold הבל, Ecclesiastes 2:17, Ecclesiastes 2:21, Ecclesiastes 2:23, and thus הבלים הבל.