Bible Strands
Ecclesiastes 3:10
I have seen the burden that God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Preacher addresses a general audience of readers, reflecting on human experience immediately after asking what workers gain from their toil (Ecclesiastes 3:9). He speaks from observed reality about the condition of humanity under heaven.
The words — The Hebrew עִנְיָן (in.Yan) translates literally to "task" or "burden," denoting the heavy occupation God assigns to humanity. This term anchors the verse's focus on divinely imposed labor rather than voluntary human effort.
The thread — This motif appears in Ecclesiastes 1:13, which labels the same activity a "miserable task," and Ecclesiastes 2:26, which notes God assigns tasks to the sinner. It parallels Genesis 3:19, where sustained toil becomes the fixed condition of human life.
Why it lands — The text states that God actively places a heavy occupation upon all people to keep them busy. It requires the reader to recognize that human labor is a divinely appointed weight with no ultimate gain apart from God's sovereign distribution.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 1:13 And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a miserable task God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!
- Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
- Ecclesiastes 2:26 To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over to one who pleases God. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- 1 Thessalonians 2:9 Surely you recall, brothers, our labor and toil. We worked night and day so that we would not be a burden to anyone while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. Instead, in labor and toil, we worked night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you.