Ecclesiastes 2:25

Bible in Basic English

Who may take food or have pleasure without him?

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him?

Hebrew Names Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

King James Version
For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I?

English Standard Version
for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

New American Standard Bible
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?

New Century Version
because no one can eat or enjoy life without him.

Amplified Bible
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?

World English Bible
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

Geneva Bible (1587)
For who could eate, and who could haste to outward things more then I?

Legacy Standard Bible
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment outside of Him?

Berean Standard Bible
For apart from Him, who can eat and who can find enjoyment?

Contemporary English Version
and no one enjoys eating and living more than I do.

Complete Jewish Bible
For who will eat and who will enjoy except me?

Darby Translation
For who can eat, or who be eager, more than I?

George Lamsa Translation
For who can eat or who can drink except he?

Good News Translation
How else could you have anything to eat or enjoy yourself at all?

Lexham English Bible
For who can eat and drink, and who can enjoy life apart from him?

Literal Translation
For who can eat, or who can enjoy, apart from me?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For who maye eate, drynke, or brynge eny thige to passe without him? And why?

American Standard Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

JPS Old Testament (1917)
For who will eat, or who will enjoy, if not I?

King James Version (1611)
For who can eate? or who else can hasten hereunto more then I?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
For who wyll eate or go more lustyly to his worke then I?

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For who shall eat, or who shall drink, without him?

English Revised Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Who schal deuoure so, and schal flowe in delicis, as Y dide?

Update Bible Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?

Webster's Bible Translation
For who can eat, or who else can hasten [to it] more than I?

New English Translation
For no one can eat and drink or experience joy apart from him.

New King James Version
For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I? [fn]

New Living Translation
For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?

New Life Bible
For who can eat and who can find joy without Him?

New Revised Standard
for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For who could eat and who could enjoy, so well as I?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Who shall so feast and abound with delights as I?

Revised Standard Version
for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

Young's Literal Translation
For who eateth and who hasteth out more than I?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?

Contextual Overview

¹⁷ So I was hating life, because everything under the sun was evil to me: all is to no purpose and desire for wind. ¹⁸ Hate had I for all my work which I had done, because the man who comes after me will have its fruits. ¹⁹ And who is to say if that man will be wise or foolish? But he will have power over all my work which I have done and in which I have been wise under the sun. This again is to no purpose. ²⁰ So my mind was turned to grief for all the trouble I had taken and all my wisdom under the sun. ²¹ Because there is a man whose work has been done with wisdom, with knowledge, and with an expert hand; but one who has done nothing for it will have it for his heritage. This again is to no purpose and a great evil. ²² What does a man get for all his work, and for the weight of care with which he has done his work under the sun? ²³ All his days are sorrow, and his work is full of grief. Even in the night his heart has no rest. This again is to no purpose. ²⁴ There is nothing better for a man than taking meat and drink, and having delight in his work. This again I saw was from the hand of God. ²⁵ Who may take food or have pleasure without him? ²⁶ To the man with whom he is pleased, God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of getting goods together and storing up wealth, to give to him in whom God has pleasure. This again is to no purpose and desire for wind.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

who can: Ecclesiastes 2:1-12, 1 Kings 4:21-24

Reciprocal: Genesis 48:15 - fed me Ecclesiastes 2:12 - I turned 1 Corinthians 7:31 - use

Cross-References

Genesis 2:10
And a river went out of Eden giving water to the garden; and from there it was parted and became four streams.

Genesis 2:11
The name of the first is Pishon, which goes round about all the land of Havilah where there is gold.

Genesis 3:7
And their eyes were open and they were conscious that they had no clothing and they made themselves coats of leaves stitched together.

Exodus 32:25
And Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them loose to their shame before their haters:

Psalms 25:3
Let no servant of yours be put to shame; may those be shamed who are false without cause.

Psalms 31:17
Let me not be shamed, O Lord, for I have made my prayer to you; let the sinners be shamed, and let their mouths be shut in the underworld.

Isaiah 44:9
Those who make a pictured image are all of them as nothing, and the things of their desire will be of no profit to them: and their servants see not, and have no knowledge; so they will be put to shame.

Isaiah 47:3
The shame of your unclothed condition will be seen by all: I will give punishment without mercy,

Isaiah 54:4
Have no fear; for you will not be shamed or without hope: you will not be put to shame, for the shame of your earlier days will go out of your memory, and you will no longer keep in mind the sorrows of your widowed years.

Jeremiah 6:15
Let them be put to shame because they have done disgusting things. They had no shame, they were not able to become red with shame: so they will come down with those who are falling: when my punishment comes on them, they will be made low, says the Lord.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For who can eat?.... Who should eat, but such a man that has laboured for it? or, who has a power to eat, that is, cheerfully, comfortably, and freely to enjoy the good things of life he is possessed of, unless it be given him of God? see Ecclesiastes 6:1;

or who else can hasten [hereunto] more than I? the word "chush", in Rabbinical language, is used of the five senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting: and R. Elias says c, there are some that so interpret it here, "who has [his] sense better than I?" a quicker sense, particularly of smelling and tasting what be eats, in which lies much of the pleasure of eating; and this is of God; which interpretation is not to be despised. Or, "who can prepare?" according to the Arabic sense of the word d; that is, a better table than I? No man had a greater affluence of good things than Solomon, or had a greater variety of eatables and drinkables; or had it in the power of his hands to live well, and cause his soul to enjoy good; or was more desirous to partake of pleasure, and hasten more to make the experiment of it in a proper manner; and yet he found, that a heart to do this was from the Lord; that this was a gift of his; and that though he abounded in the blessings of life, yet if God had not given him a heart to use them, he never should have really enjoyed them.

c In Tishbi, p. 109. d Vid. Rambachium in loc.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Solomon having found that wisdom and folly agree in being subject to vanity, now contrasts one with the other Ecclesiastes 2:13. Both are brought under vanity by events Ecclesiastes 2:14 which come on the wise man and the feel alike from without - death and oblivion Ecclesiastes 2:16, uncertainty Ecclesiastes 2:19, disappointment Ecclesiastes 2:21 - all happening by an external law beyond human control. Amidst this vanity, the good (see Ecclesiastes 2:10 note) that accrues to man, is the pleasure felt Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 in receiving God’s gifts, and in working with and for them.

Ecclesiastes 2:12

What can the man do ... - i. e., “What is any man - in this study of wisdom and folly - after one like me, who, from my position, have had such special advantages (see Ecclesiastes 1:16, and compare Ecclesiastes 2:25) for carrying it on? That which man did of old he can but do again: he is not likely to add to the result of my researches, nor even to equal them.” Some hold that the “man” is a reference to Solomon’s successor - not in his inquiries, but in his kingdom, i. e., Jeroboam.

Ecclesiastes 2:14

Event - Or, “hap” Ruth 2:3. The verb from which it is derived seems in this book to refer especially to death. The word does not mean chance (compare Ecclesiastes 9:1-2), independent of the ordering of Divine Providence: the Gentile notion of “mere chance,” or “blind fate,” is never once contemplated by the writer of this book, and it would be inconsistent with his tenets of the unlimited power and activity of God.

Ecclesiastes 2:16

Seeing that ... - Compare Ecclesiastes 1:11. Some render, “as in time past, so in days to come, all will be forgotten;” others, “because in the days to come all will have been long before forgotten.”

Ecclesiastes 2:17

I hated life - Compare this expression, extorted from Solomon by the perception of the vanity of his wisdom and greatness, with Romans 8:22-23. The words of Moses Numbers 11:15, and of Job Job 3:21; Job 6:9, are scarcely less forcible. With some people, this feeling is a powerful motive to conversion Luke 14:26.

Ecclesiastes 2:19

Labour - Compare Ecclesiastes 2:4-8.

Ecclesiastes 2:20

I went about - i. e., I turned from one course of action to another.

Ecclesiastes 2:23

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

Ecclesiastes 2:24

Nothing better for a man, than that ... - literally, no good in man that etc. The one joy of working or receiving, which, though it be transitory, a man recognizes as a real good, even that is not in the power of man to secure for himself: that good is the gift of God.

Ecclesiastes 2:26

The doctrine of retribution, or, the revealed fact that God is the moral Governor of the world, is here stated for the first time (compare Ecclesiastes 3:15, Ecclesiastes 3:17 ff) in this book.

This also is vanity - Not only the travail of the sinner. Even the best gifts of God, wisdom, knowledge, and joy, so far as they are given in this life, are not permanent, and are not always (see Ecclesiastes 9:11) efficacious for the purpose for which they appear to be given.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 25. For who can eat - more than I? — But instead of חוץ ממני chuts mimmenni, more than I; חוץ ממנו chuts mimmennu, without HIM, is the reading of eight of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., as also of the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic.

"For who maye eat, drynke, or bring enythinge to pass without him?" - COVERDALE.

I believe this to be the true reading. No one can have a true relish of the comforts of life without the Divine blessing. This reading connects all the sentences: "This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God;-for who can eat, and who can relish without HIM? For God giveth to man that is good." It is through his liberality that we have any thing to eat or drink; and it is only through his blessing that we can derive good from the use of what we possess.