Qoheleth’s description of a person’s labor continues into this verse, but his meaning here is not as obvious as we might wish it to be. It is possible that the Hebrew text as we have it is not the original wording.

And spent all his days in darkness and grief: in Hebrew this is literally “also all his days in darkness he eats.” Some versions translate this literally; for example, New International Version has “all his days he eats in darkness,” and New Revised Standard Version “… all their days they eat in darkness.” Though there is no object marker on “all his days,” it is possible that this phrase is actually the object of “he eats”: “he eats [that is, consumes] all his days in darkness and grief.” This literal interpretation is favored by some French versions. Many other languages are quite familiar with such a figurative expression, which simply means “He spends all the days of his life….” The verb “eat” in this context has a negative sense: “He eats away [or, wastes away] his life….” Thus in some languages a literal translation will be well understood. If not, “spend his life” or “pass his days” may be appropriate.

See 2.23 for a discussion of all his days. Here the sense is similar to “throughout his life.”

In darkness and grief: a number of early scholars accepted the Septuagint text “in darkness and in mourning” in place of the Hebrew “in darkness he eats.” This is what Revised Standard Version has chosen to do, and most English translations do the same. New English Bible has “gnawing anxiety.” Darkness clearly has negative overtones, and we notice that in 6.4 and 11.8 it is a figure for death. If we accept the Septuagint text as reflecting the original text, then “death” and “mourning” make a good pair. We recommend this understanding of the text, in which case the preposition in which introduces the phrase can be rendered as “surrounded by” or “in the company of.”

This verse should not be translated in such a way as to give the impression that every day this person faced darkness and grief. The phrase is figurative, perhaps even an exaggeration, making the point that throughout life tragedies occur.

For translation we suggest the following models:

• His whole life is spent surrounded by death and mourning.

• All his life he is in the midst of people dying and grieving.

• Throughout his life he had to deal with death and grief.

In much vexation and sickness and resentment lists three other features of life in the world. They may not necessarily be the person’s own individual feelings—“death” refers not to his own death but to that of others in his circle. Vexation is anger, though we cannot tell from this brief saying who is angry or what he is angry about. Here Jerusalem Bible uses “worry” and New International Version “great frustration.” Sickness is literally “his sickness.” The pronoun suffix “his” creates some problems for interpreters, however, since the sickness may not be the person’s own sickness. Some explain it as an error in the copying of Hebrew manuscripts. A literal meaning may be appropriate, as also is a figurative sense similar to the use of the adjectival form to describe a “sickening” situation in verses 13 and 16. Our preference here will be to consider sickness as figurative to match the other figures in this context. Resentment accompanies anger and has the sense of indignation and displeasure.

Translators can consider the following model:

• Throughout his life he is surrounded by death and mourning, by anger, sickness, and resentment.

The three nouns used in this phrase can also be rendered as verbs. As we have noted, some of these feelings may be the person’s own responses to what he saw, so we can also consider these other examples:

• He spends his days surrounded by people dying, mourning, being angry, resentful, and sick.

• He spends his life surrounded by darkness and mourning—angry, sick, and resentful.

Thus Qoheleth portrays an individual within a community, reacting strongly to the many hardships of human experience. In particular there is strong reaction against the fact that material gains from a life of toil seem to be of no ultimate value because they have to be left behind at death.

Qoheleth began his discussion of materialism’s failure to satisfy us in verse 10. Verses 13-16 speak to this theme also, though they have a different perspective, namely, that material things can be lost or taken away. Loss in some unfortunate circumstance, or by death itself, means that the “lasting benefit” Qoheleth is seeking cannot be found in material things. The “lasting benefit” he seeks must be beyond the limits of life and death.

This segment of the book, 4.1–5.17, puts before us many examples from human experience, pointing us to wise conduct as the ideal. In the key question repeated in verse 16b, we see again Qoheleth’s view that “lasting benefit” cannot be found entirely here on earth. So what does Qoheleth suggest should be our response to this situation? Once again he calls his readers to enjoyment, and we find this call in verses 18-20.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .