Background

The five “nothing better” passages

Four times the Preacher stops and says there is nothing better, and a fifth time he tells you plainly what to do. These are the five, in full, in the order they come, with the gifts each one carries.

“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”
Ecclesiastes 2:24–25
Feast with Friends and Do Some Good: eating, drinking and enjoying your work, received from the hand of God.
“I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.”
Ecclesiastes 3:12–13
Opt for Joy and Do Some Good: be joyful, do good, and take pleasure in your work. He calls it God’s gift.
“So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?”
Ecclesiastes 3:22
Do Some Good: rejoice in your work, because it is your lot, and you cannot see what comes after.
“And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 8:15
Opt for Joy: the plain command, “I commend joy.”
“Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.”
Ecclesiastes 9:7–10
Four gifts in four verses: Feast with Friends, Opt for Joy, Enjoy Your Partner and Do Some Good.

Share Your Stuff is the one gift these five do not carry. It comes from “power to enjoy” what you have (5:19) and from “Cast your bread upon the waters” (11:1–2).

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