Ecclesiastes 1:8

8 All things toil continuously;^[a] no one can ever finish describing this.^[b] The eye is never^[c] satisfied with seeing, and the ear is never^[d] filled with hearing.

Ecclesiastes 1:8 Meaning and Commentary

Ecclesiastes 1:8

All things [are] full of labour
Or "are laborious" ^F7; gotten by labour, and attended with fatigue and weariness; riches are got by labour, and those who load themselves with thick clay, as gold and silver be, weary themselves with it; honour and glory, crowns and kingdoms, are weighty cares, and very fatiguing to those that have them; much study to acquire knowledge is a weariness to the flesh; and as men even weary themselves to commit iniquity, it is no wonder that religious exercises should be a weariness to a natural man, and a carnal professor; man cannot utter [it];
or declare all the things that are laborious and fatiguing, nor all the labour they are full of; time would fail, and words be wanting to express the whole; all the vanity, unprofitableness, and unsatisfying nature of all things below the sun; particularly the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing;
both one and the other require new objects continually; the pleasure of these senses is blunted by the same objects constantly presented; men are always seeking new ones, and when they have got them they want others; whatever curious thing is to be seen the eye craves it; and, after it has dwelt on it a while, it grows tired of it, and wants something else to divert it; and so the ear is delighted with musical sounds, but in time loses the taste of them, and seeks for others; and in discourse and conversation never easy, unless, like the Athenians, it hears some new things, and which quickly grow stale, and then wants fresh ones still: and indeed the spiritual eye and ear will never be satisfied in this life, until the soul comes into the perfect state of blessedness, and beholds the face of God, and sees him as he is; and sees and hears what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard below. The Targum is,

``all the words that shall be in the world, the ancient prophets were weary in them, and they could not find out the ends of them; yea, a man has no power to say what shall be after him; and the eye cannot see all that shall be in the world, and the ear cannot be filled with hearing all the words of all the inhabitants of the world.''

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 (Myegy) "laboriosae", Pagninus, Vatablus, Mercerus, Gejerus, Schmidt.

Ecclesiastes 1:8 In-Context

6 The wind goes to the south and goes around to the north; around and around it goes, and on its circuit the wind returns.

7 All the streams flow to the sea, but the sea is never full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow.

8 All things toil continuously; no one can ever finish describing this. The eye is never satisfied with seeing, and the ear is never filled with hearing.

9 What has been--it is what will be; what has been done--it is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.

10 There is a thing [of] which it is said, "Look at this! This is new!" [But] it already existed in ages past before us.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "are wearisome"
• [b]. The MT reads "no one is able to speak." The BHS editors suggest "no one can finish speaking." On the basis of internal evidence, the latter is adopted in the translation, since it makes better sense in the light of the immediate context
• [c]. Or "not"
• [d]. Or "not"