Ecclesiastes 6:7

All of man’s labor is for nothing more than ¹  to fill his stomach ²  – yet his appetite ³  is never satisfied!

Ge 3:17-19; Pr 16:26; Ec 5:10; Ec 6:3; Mt 6:25; Lu 12:19; Joh 6:27; 1Ti 6:6-8

¹ tn The phrase “for nothing more than” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “All man’s work is for his mouth.” The term “mouth” functions as a synecdoche of part (i.e., mouth) for the whole (i.e., person), substituting the organ of consumption for the person’s action of consumption (see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 641-43), as suggested by the parallelism with נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “his appetite”).

³ tn The term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “desire; appetite”) is used as a metonymy of association, that is, the soul is associated with man’s desires and appetites (BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 5.c; 6.a).