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Ecclesiastes 2 · a question people ask

"that he may give to him who pleases God" (2:26). Is it a promise that what the sinner gathers will go to those who please God?

In the text

It is the Preacher's saying, and it says what it says: "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" (2:26). It doesn't say when, or how, or how much. Travail is the Hebrew word of "his travail is grief" (2:23). And the verse ends as the Preacher ends so many of this chapter's thoughts: "This also is vanity and a chasing after wind" (2:26) (tap chasing). The verse doesn't say what this is, and these notes don't either. They don't make 2:26 a guarantee about anyone's money or work, and they apply it to no one.

The verses

“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.”
Ecclesiastes 2:23 · World English Bible
“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.”
Ecclesiastes 2:26 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Ecclesiastes 2

Ecclesiastes 2: From the hand of God

The Preacher's "no profit under the sun" (2:11) answers the book's first question in its own Hebrew words (1:3). Two verses later the same word, yitron, says wisdom excels folly (2:13). And the chapter doesn't name God until its turn: "This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God" (2:24).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions