The Preacher asks rather than declares to force readers into self-examination about their own wealth-accumulation. The question form creates cognitive dissonance, compelling readers to admit that increased possessions bring no real advantage beyond visual observation, thus dismantling the assumption that more wealth equals more benefit.

The Preacher provides the answer within the question itself: the owner’s only advantage is ‘to see them with his eyes,’ meaning visual observation without substantial benefit.

The Preacher’s question dismantles the economic assumption that wealth accumulation equals personal benefit. The Hebrew construction emphasizes simultaneity: ‘when goods increase, increased are those eating them,’ creating a zero-sum irony. The word for ‘advantage’ (yitron) appears throughout Ecclesiastes asking what profit remains after labor, and here the answer is devastating, merely re’ot enayhem, ‘the seeing of his eyes.’ Why ask rather than state? Because the question forces wealthy readers to calculate their own ledgers and discover the deficit themselves. The rhetorical structure mirrors the transaction itself: just as possessions slip through the owner’s hands into consumers’ mouths, so the question slips its conclusion into the reader’s mind through inescapable logic. Theologically, this exposes wealth as a stewardship rather than possession, a truth Israel learned when manna hoarded beyond daily need bred worms (Exodus 16:20).