Ecclesiastes 2:25

New Living Translation

For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?

Parallel Translations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bible in Basic English
Who may take food or have pleasure without him?

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.

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?

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

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

Hebrew Names 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?

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

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?

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

Contextual Overview

¹⁷ So I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind. ¹⁸ I came to hate all my hard work here on earth, for I must leave to others everything I have earned. ¹⁹ And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless! ²⁰ So I gave up in despair, questioning the value of all my hard work in this world. ²¹ Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn't worked for it. This, too, is meaningless, a great tragedy. ²² So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? ²³ Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief; even at night their minds cannot rest. It is all meaningless. ²⁴ So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. ²⁵ For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him? ²⁶ God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please him. This, too, is meaningless—like chasing the 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
A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches.

Genesis 2:11
The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed around the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found.

Genesis 3:7
At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

Exodus 32:25
Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get completely out of control, much to the amusement of their enemies.

Psalms 25:3
No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others.

Psalms 31:17
Don't let me be disgraced, O Lord , for I call out to you for help. Let the wicked be disgraced; let them lie silent in the grave.

Isaiah 44:9
How foolish are those who manufacture idols. These prized objects are really worthless. The people who worship idols don't know this, so they are all put to shame.

Isaiah 47:3
You will be naked and burdened with shame. I will take vengeance against you without pity."

Isaiah 54:4
"Fear not; you will no longer live in shame. Don't be afraid; there is no more disgrace for you. You will no longer remember the shame of your youth and the sorrows of widowhood.

Jeremiah 6:15
Are they ashamed of their disgusting actions? Not at all—they don't even know how to blush! Therefore, they will lie among the slaughtered. They will be brought down when I punish them," 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.