TEXT [Commentary]

black diamond   4.   Searching for meaning in work (2:18-23)

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.

NOTES

2:18 hard work. See note on 1:3.

on earth. A variant English rendering of Qoheleth’s idiom “under the sun” (cf. note on 1:3). Its basic theological meaning is “apart from the revelation of God.”

2:19 And who can tell whether? Lit., “And who knows?” As Crenshaw (1987:274-288) points out, this is a rhetorical question with the implicit answer, “No one knows!”

2:21 Some people work wisely. Lit., “There was a person who worked wisely”; the phrase introduces an anecdote that illustrates the Teacher’s point about the futility of work. The NLT appropriately gives a dynamic equivalent rendition of the phrase that communicates its message well.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The Teacher now explores work to see if he might find life’s meaning in that area. We can see why he might be attracted to this possibility. Through work, we get something done. A contractor builds a house; a plumber repairs a leaky faucet. A writer completes an essay; a minister delivers a sermon and hopes that the world will be changed for the better. Through work, we get what we need to survive and even thrive. In our modern world our work earns money, which we can use to obtain homes, clothes, cars. Yes, for reasons similar to these, work must have attracted the Teacher’s attention as a possible avenue to significance.

Surprisingly, though, the Teacher reaches the same stark conclusion as he did with pleasure and wisdom: work is meaningless. He reaches his negative verdict for a reason similar to that of the previous section. Death renders one’s work worthless. In the light of death, there is no ultimate meaning to one’s work. He envisions himself working hard all his life with good results; his labor will indeed bear fruit. But it comes at great cost (anxiety, pain, grief; 2:22-23), and what will happen when he dies? He cannot be sure. He cannot control his wealth beyond the grave. It may be inherited by a fool (2:19)! It will certainly go to someone who has not worked for it (2:21). This realization led the Teacher to despair and to hate his work. Why bother, if the results are so temporary?

As a wisdom figure, the Teacher would have been amazed with the results of his inquiry. After all, the book of Proverbs is very optimistic about the rewards of hard work and the suffering of lazy people (see Prov 6:6-11). The Teacher’s reflection on the topic of work again calls the value of wisdom into question (cf. 2:12-17).