Ecclesiastes 5:11

11 As more and more goods are made, more and more people use them up. So how can those goods benefit their owner? All he can do is look at them with longing.

Ecclesiastes 5:11 Meaning and Commentary

Ecclesiastes 5:11

When goods increase, they are increased that eat them
When a man's substance increases by trade, or otherwise, very often so it is that his family increases, and he has more mouths to feed, and backs to clothe; or his estate growing larger, if he lives suitably to it, he must keep more servants; and these, as they have but little work to do, are described by their eating, rather than by their working; and besides, such a growing man in the world has more friends and visitors that come about him, and eat with him, as well as the poor, which wait upon him to receive his alms: and if his farms, and his fields, and his flocks, are enlarged, he must have more husbandmen, and labourers, and shepherds to look after them, who all must be maintained. So Pheraulas in Xenophon ^F8 observes,

``that now he was possessed of much, that he neither ate, nor drank, nor slept the sweeter for it; what he got by his plenty was, that he had more committed to his keeping, and more to distribute to others; he had more care and more business, with trouble; for now, says he, many servants require food of me, many drink, many clothing, some need physicians it must needs be, adds he, that they that possess much must spend much on the gods, on friends, and on guests;''

and what good [is there] to the owners thereof, saving the beholding
[of them] with their eyes?
he can go into his grounds, his fields, and his meadows to behold his flocks and his herds, and can say, all these are mine; he can go into his chambers and open his treasures, and feed his eyes with looking upon his bags of gold and silver, his jewels, and other riches; he can behold a multitude of people at his table, eating at his expense, and more maintained at his cost: and, if a liberal man, it may be a pleasure to him; if otherwise, it will give him pain: and, excepting these, he enjoys no more than food and raiment; and often so it is, that even his very servants have in some things the advantage of him, as follows. The Targum is,

``what profit is there to the owner thereof who gathers it, unless he does good with it, that he may see the gift of the reward with his eyes in the world to come?''

Jarchi interprets it after this manner,

``when men bring many freewill offerings, the priests are increased that eat them; and what good is to the owner of them, the Lord, but the sight of his eyes, who says, and his will is done?''

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 Cyropaedia, l. 8. c. 26.

Ecclesiastes 5:11 In-Context

9 All of them take what the land produces. And the king himself takes his share from the fields.

10 Anyone who loves money never has enough. Anyone who loves wealth is never satisfied with what he gets. That doesn't have any meaning either.

11 As more and more goods are made, more and more people use them up. So how can those goods benefit their owner? All he can do is look at them with longing.

12 The sleep of a worker is sweet. It doesn't matter whether he eats a little or a lot. But the wealth of a rich man keeps him awake at night.

13 I've seen something very evil on earth. It's when wealth is stored up and then brings harm to its owner.