Ecclesiastes 6:9

Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 6:7-10

The preacher here further shows the vanity and folly of heaping up worldly wealth and expecting happiness in it. I. How much soever we toil about the world, and get out of it, we can have for ourselves no more than a maintenance (Ecc 6:7): All the labour of man is for his mouth, which craves it of him (Pro 16:26); it is but food and raiment; what is more others have, not we; it is all for the mouth. Meats are but for the belly and the belly for meats; there is nothing for the head and heart, nothing to nourish or enrich the soul. A little will serve to sustain us comfortably and a great deal can do no more. II. Those that have ever so much are still craving; let a man labour ever so much for…

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ecclesiastes 6:9

Answer to the question in Ecc 6:8. This is the advantage: Better is the sight of the eyes--the wise man's godly enjoyment of present seen blessings than the (fool's) wandering--literally, walking (Psa 73:9), of the desire, that is, vague, insatiable desires for what he has not (Ecc 6:7; Heb 13:5). this--restless wandering of desire, and not enjoying contentedly the present (Ti1 6:6, Ti1 6:8).

John Gill on Ecclesiastes 6:9

Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire,.... By "the sight of the eyes" is not meant the bare beholding outward riches, as in Ecclesiastes 5:11; but the enjoyment of present mercies; such things as a man is in the possession of, and with which he should be content, Hebrews 13:5; and by "the wandering of the desire", the craving appetite and insatiable lust of the covetous mind, which enlarges its desire as hell, after a thousand things, and everything it can think of; such a mind roves through the whole creation, and covets everything under the sun: now it is better to enjoy contentedly things in sight and in possession, than to let the mind loose in vague desires, a…

Keil & Delitzsch on Ecclesiastes 6:9