Ecclesiastes5:17

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Translation

All his days

he ate

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in darkness,

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and much sorrow and sickness and anger.

Paraphrase

Throughout his whole adult life, when he should have been enjoying the fruit of his labor, he was distressed, in fear, very sorrowful, angry and making himself sick.

Footnotes

1

To eat is to enjoy the fruit of your labor. One of the main points being made throughout this book is that such enjoyment may be one of the few blessings we do have in this life. This man did not even enjoy this basic blessing because of his attitude toward life and material things.

2

This word means darkness in the sense of “obscurity, dread, distress, confusion, ignorance or mourning.” More than one of those would apply here.