Ecclesiastes 1:3
What advantage [is] to man by all his labor that he labors at under the sun?
Literal Standard Version
In The King James Version
What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
In Context
2Vanity of vanities, said the Preacher, vanity of vanities: the whole [is] vanity.
4A generation is going, and a generation is coming, and the earth is standing for all time.
Cross References
Ecclesiastes 2:11and I have looked on all my works that my hands have done, and on the labor that I have labored to do, and behold, the whole [is] vanity and distress of spirit, and there is no advantage under the sun!
Ecclesiastes 2:22For what has been to a man by all his labor, and by the thought of his heart that he labored at under the sun?
Ecclesiastes 4:3And better than both of them [is] he who has not yet been, in that he has not seen the evil work that has been done under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 5:16And this also [is] a painful evil, just as he came, so he goes, and what advantage [is] to him who labors for wind?
Ecclesiastes 6:12For who knows what [is] good for a man in life, the number of the days of the life of his vanity, and he makes them as a shadow? For who declares to man what is after him under the sun?
Ecclesiastes 8:15And I have praised mirth because there is no good to man under the sun except to eat and to drink, and to rejoice, and it remains with him of his labor the days of his life that God has given to him under the sun.
Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 1:2-4
Ecclesiastes We are still among Solomon's happy men, his happy servants, that stood continually before him to hear his wisdom; and they are the choicest of all the dictates of his wisdom, such as were more immediately given by divine inspiration, that are here transmitted to us, not to be heard, as by them, but once, and then liable to be mistaken or forgotten, and by repetition to lose their beauty, but to be read, reviewed, revolved, and had in everlasting remembrance. The account we have of Solomon's apostasy… Read the whole commentary →