Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Ecclesiastes 5:16 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 16. 16And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse calls equal arrival and departure a severe evil and returns to the profit question through labor for wind.
Read It With
- Ecclesiastes 5:13-17
Read Ecclesiastes 5:16 with 5:13-17. This verse calls equal arrival and departure a severe evil and returns to the profit question through labor for wind. The full unit establishes this movement: Wealth can be kept to an owner's harm, vanish through a bad venture, leave an heir empty, and accompany no one through death, while the life spent guarding it becomes darkness and grief.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The case intensifies dissatisfaction into loss and mortality, preparing enjoyment as a present capacity rather than possession itself. Within that movement, this verse calls equal arrival and departure a severe evil and returns to the profit question through labor for wind.
Follow the Context
- Hoarded riches harm their owner.
- A bad venture destroys the wealth and leaves a child nothing.
- The owner departs naked as at birth.
- No labor can be carried away in the hand.
- Wind-labor, darkness, sorrow, sickness, and anger describe the wasted life.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“laboured for the wind”
In plain language: Toil whose possessed surplus cannot be grasped at death.
calls equal arrival and departure a severe evil and returns to the profit question through labor for wind. Accumulation cannot produce a material surplus that crosses death.
Why it matters: The wording carries interpretive or ethical risk requiring the complete unit and stated limits.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The verse does not make all saving or durable community investment pointless.
It does not deny that work can benefit others after the worker dies.
What Remains True
Accumulation cannot produce a material surplus that crosses death.
How It Can Shape Life
- Do not sacrifice the present good of people to a fantasy of personally carrying wealth beyond life.
Teach It Back
Explain Ecclesiastes 5:16's precise role in Ecclesiastes 5:13-17. Include the complete movement, one material uncertainty, and one conclusion the verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Ecclesiastes 5:13-17 — Hoarded Wealth, Sudden Loss, and Naked DeathSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The 'in all points' comparison concerns possession and mortality, not every aspect of birth and death.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Ecclesiastes 5:13-17, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Ecclesiastes
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used for lexical, grammatical, repeated-word, and translation questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Eccl.xml, 5:13-17
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Ecclesiastes with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level textual, grammatical, lexical, literary, and translation alternatives.
Exact location: NET Bible Ecclesiastes PDF, printed pp. 1204, translation and notes on 5:13-17
Open source ↗