Ecclesiastes 9 · a question people ask

"for God has already accepted your works" (9:7). Is that a promise that God accepts whatever anyone does?

In the text

The verse gives it as the reason for its commands, after for: "Go your way—eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works" (9:7) (tap accepted). It speaks to you, the one told to eat and drink, and doesn't say which works it means, or why they are accepted. It doesn't say that God accepts whatever anyone does, and these notes don't make it a promise. The same book says, "but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment" (11:9), and it closes, "For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil" (12:14). In Hebrew works in 9:7 and work in 12:14 are the same word, ma'aseh. The book sets these verses side by side, and these notes don't smooth them out.

The verses

“Go your way—eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.”
Ecclesiastes 9:7 · World English Bible
“Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.”
Ecclesiastes 11:9 · World English Bible
“For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.”
Ecclesiastes 12:14 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Ecclesiastes 9

Ecclesiastes 9: In the hand of God

The chapter opens with the righteous and the wise "in the hand of God" (9:1) and turns to "Whatever your hand finds to do" (9:10): in Hebrew one word, yad. And the poor wise man who delivered the city is one "no man remembered" (9:15), with the verb behind 9:5's memory: of the dead, "their memory is forgotten" (9:5).

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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