Ecclesiastes 1:3

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?] This is a general proof of the vanity of all things, since there is no profit arises to a man of all his labour; for, though

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? What proof hath a man of all his labour - i:e., "What profit" as to the chief good?

What profit? or, as others render it, What remainder? What real and abiding benefit hath a man by it? None at all. All is unprofitable, as to the attainment of that happiness which Solomon here is, and all men in the world are, inquiring after. His labour, Heb. his toilsome labour, both of body and mind, in the pursuit of riches, or pleasures, or other earthly things. Which he taketh under the sun; in all sublunary or worldly matters, which are usually transacted in the day time, or by the light of the sun. By this restriction he implies that that profit and happiness which in vain is sought for in this lower world, is really and only to be found in heavenly places and things.

Ecclesiastes 1:3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?Ver. 3. What profit hath a man?] What durable profit? Quid residui? what excess? what more than will serve to satisfy back and belly? Our life is called, "the life of our hands," because it is maintained by the labour of our hands. Si ventri bene, si lateri, as he in Horace saith, If the belly may be filled, the back fitted, that’ s all that can here be had, and that most men care to have; which if they have (some have but prisoners’ pittance, so much as will keep life and soul together), yet quid amplius? as the Vulgate renders this text, what have they more to pay them for their pains? Surely, when all the account is subducted, such a labouring man’ s happiness resolved into its final issue and conclusion, there resteth nothing but ciphers. This should make us more moderate in our desires and endeavours after earthly things, since we do but "labour in the very fire, and weary ourselves for very vanity." They that seek after the philosopher’ s stone, they must use so much gold, and spend so much gold, and then they can turn as much into gold by it as they have spent in making of it; and so they have their labour for their pains. Quid emolumenti? What profit hath a man? Do we not see many take a great deal of pains to go to hell? whereinto at length they are turned as a sumpter horse is at night, after all his hard travail, with his back full of galls and bruises.

(3-11) Man is perpetually toiling, yet of all his toil there remains no abiding result. The natural world exhibits a spectacle of unceasing activity, with no real progress. The sun, the winds, the waters, are all in motion, yet they do but run a round, and nothing comes of it.

Verse 3. What profit hath a man] What is the sum of the real good he has gained by all his toils in life? They, in themselves, have neither made him contented nor happy.

3. What profit hath a man] The question is, it is obvious, as in the analogous question of Mat 16:26, the most emphatic form of a negation. For “all his labour which he taketh” read all his toil which he toileth, the Hebrew giving the emphasis of the combination of the verb with its cognate substantive. The Debater sums up his experience of life in this, “There is toil, and the toil is profitless.” The word for “profit,” not meeting us elsewhere in the Hebrew of the O. T., occurs ten times in Ecclesiastes. Its strict meaning is “that which remains,”—the surplus, if any, of the balance-sheet of life. It was, probably, one of the words which the commerce of the Jews, after the Captivity, had brought into common use. The question is in substance, almost in form, identical with that of our times “Is life worth living?” under the sun] The phrase thus used, occurring 29 times in Ecclesiastes, has nothing like it in the language of other books of the Old Testament. It is essentially Greek in character. Thus we have in Euripides, Hippol. 1220, ὅσατεγᾶτρέφειτὰνἍλιοςαἰθομένανδέρκεταιἄνδραςτε.“All creatures that the wide earth nourishethWhich the sun looks on radiant, and mankind.”And Theognis, 168, τὸδʼ ? ἀτρεκές, ὄλβιοςαὐδεὶςἀνθρώπων, ὁπόσουςἤελιοςκαθορᾷ.“One thing is certain, none of all mankind,On whom the sun looks down, gains happiness.”Our English “sublunary” may be noted as conveying an analogous idea.

What profit ... - The question often repeated is the great practical inquiry of the book; it receives its final answer in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. When this question was asked, the Lord had not yet spoken Matthew 11:28.

3. What profit hath a man — The matter to be investigated is now plainly stated.