"10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. 11 When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes? 12 Sweet is the sleep of a labourer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.
13 There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, 14 and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand. 15 As he came from his mother's womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. 16 This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind? 17 Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger.
18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. 19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. 20 For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart."
Ecclesiastes 5:10-20
In these verses the Preacher comes once again to the subject already broached in 4:1-3, the injustice and oppression he has found in human relationships. It is the consideration of the oppression of officialdom, mentioned in 8, that leads him to speak of the emptiness and vanity of riches and their essentially illusory nature, instancing particularly the misery of the miser. What we need to recognise about 'loving
silver' (10), is that you do not need to have it to love it. What is said here is just as true of the 'have-nots' as the 'haves'. The reason why there is no satisfaction in this is, as we have already seen in 3:11, that God has set eternity in our hearts, and it takes something infinitely more than silver to satisfy that deep. Furthermore, to love it means that it insensibly gets a grip on you, awakening an insatiable lust within. But a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses, although the assumption here is that it does. The problem can sometimes be translated into practical terms as follows: it is one thing to be in a trade or profession that you like and enjoy, and you find it well-paid and lucrative, with good prospects; but it is quite another to choose a particular profession simply because it has good prospects financially. This breeds a race of opportunists, with an eye on the main chance; and it is fundamentally immoral, and morally destructive of the best things in human personality. Well might the Psalmist say, 'If riches increase, set not your heart upon them' (Psalm 62:10). Paul's warning words in 1 Timothy 6:9, 10, 17 are also very much to the point.