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Somebody lifts a cup at a birthday. Or at the end of a long week. “Eat, drink and be merry!” Everyone laughs. Sometimes a person adds the rest: “…for tomorrow we die.”
Most people know the line is “from the Bible somewhere.” That is true. But the eat, drink and be merry meaning depends on who is saying it. The Bible puts those words in three very different mouths. One is giving good advice. One has given up. And one is a man God calls a fool that same night.
Here is a second surprise. The full saying, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” is not a verse at all. No single verse in the Bible says it.
Is “Eat, Drink and Be Merry” in the Bible?
Yes. The words are in the Bible, but they are spread across four places. Here is each one in the King James Version:
- Ecclesiastes 8:15 says a person has no better thing “than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry.” This is advice.
- Isaiah 22:13 says “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.” This is a city giving up.
- Luke 12:19 says “take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” This is a rich man talking to himself in a story Jesus told.
- 1 Corinthians 15:32 says “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.” This is Paul, quoting Isaiah.
Look closely and you will see something. “Be merry” and “tomorrow we die” never appear in the same verse. Somewhere along the way, people joined the two halves into one saying.
And the short form, “eat, drink, and be merry,” appears word for word only once in the King James Bible. It is in Luke 12:19, and the man who says it is not someone to copy.
So the same few words mean three different things. Let’s take them one at a time.
Ecclesiastes 8:15: Eat, Drink and Be Merry as Honest Advice
The writer of Ecclesiastes calls himself “the Preacher.” By tradition, he is King Solomon. He is not a cheerful man. He looks hard at life and keeps saying how much of it makes no sense.
In the verse just before our line, he complains that good people sometimes get what bad people deserve, and bad people sometimes get what good people deserve (Ecclesiastes 8:14). He calls it “vanity.” It bothers him.
And then, right there, he says this:
“Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.”
— Ecclesiastes 8:15 (KJV)
This is not a man who thinks life is fair. He just told us it isn’t. He praises joy anyway.
And he does not say it only once. He comes back to it again and again:
- Ecclesiastes 2:24 says that eating, drinking and enjoying your work is “from the hand of God.”
- Ecclesiastes 3:13 calls it “the gift of God.”
- Ecclesiastes 5:18 says it is good “to eat and to drink” all the days of a person’s life, “which God giveth him.”
- Ecclesiastes 9:7 says, “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart.”
Do you see what he keeps adding? Almost every time he talks about the meal, he says where it came from. The hand of God. The gift of God. The days God gives.
So in Ecclesiastes, “eat, drink and be merry” is not a way to forget God. It is a way to say thank you. The food in front of you today is a gift. Enjoy it like one.
Notice also what kind of meal it is. Ecclesiastes 9:7 says “eat thy bread with joy.” Bread. Not a feast. The plain food you already have.
Isaiah 22:13: The Same Table, for the Opposite Reason
Now go to Isaiah, a prophet who lived in the 700s BC. In chapter 22 he is speaking to Jerusalem, and an enemy army is at the gate.
The people get busy. Isaiah lists what they did. They checked their weapons. They stored up water. They even tore down houses to make the city wall stronger. All sensible things. But Isaiah adds one sad line: “ye have not looked unto the maker thereof” (Isaiah 22:8-11). They looked at everything except God.
Then God called the city to weep and to mourn (Isaiah 22:12). The city threw a party instead:
“And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.”
— Isaiah 22:13 (KJV)
From the outside, this looks just like the table in Ecclesiastes. Meat, wine, “joy and gladness.” But listen to the reason. For tomorrow we shall die. Nothing matters now, so we may as well eat.
That is not joy. That is giving up with a cup in your hand.
Paul says the slogan makes sense, on one condition
Hundreds of years later, the apostle Paul quotes this exact line. What he does with it is a surprise. He does not call it silly:
“If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:32 (KJV)
Paul is being very honest here. If nothing comes after the grave, he says, then eating and drinking until the end is a reasonable plan.
The whole chapter is his answer to that “if.” His answer is one short sentence: “But now is Christ risen from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20). And because of that, he ends the chapter by telling his readers that “your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
So the Bible does not laugh at the party slogan. It takes it seriously. Then it names the one thing that changes everything.
Luke 12:19: The Rich Man Who Said It to Himself
The third voice is in a story Jesus told. A farmer has a huge harvest, so big that his barns cannot hold it. He makes a plan. Tear down the barns, build bigger ones, store it all. (We looked at those barns, and the worry behind them, in Why Bigger Barns Never Actually Make Financial Anxiety Go Away.)
Here we only want his one famous sentence, and the answer it gets:
“And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”
— Luke 12:19-20 (KJV)
Look at the words “I will say”
Read the verse again, slowly. The rich man does not say, “Soul, eat, drink, and be merry.” He says, “I will say.” It is still in the future.
His plan has an order. First the old barns come down. Then the new barns go up. Then everything gets stored. And then, when all of that is done, he will finally tell his soul to relax and enjoy.
But God speaks “this night.” The barns are not built yet. So in the story as Jesus tells it, the man most famous for saying “eat, drink, and be merry” never gets to say it. He never sits down to the meal.
He had the best harvest of his life, and he put off enjoying it.
“The rich man planned the feast. He never sat down to it.”
What he swapped out
Now put his words next to Ecclesiastes 8:15. The three actions are the same: eat, drink, be merry. But look at what each man ties the meal to.
Ecclesiastes ties it to “the days of his life, which God giveth him.” The days are given. Someone else is counting them.
The rich man ties it to “much goods laid up for many years.” The years are his. He is counting them himself.
He kept the meal and dropped the Giver. That is the difference between the wise man and the fool. It was never the food.
What Eat, Drink and Be Merry Really Means
Put the three tables side by side. The food is the same on all of them. What changes is what each person believes about tomorrow.
- Isaiah’s crowd believes there is no tomorrow. So nothing matters, and the meal is a way to forget.
- The rich man believes he owns many tomorrows. So the meal can wait until everything is safe.
- Ecclesiastes believes tomorrow is not ours to count. So today’s bread is a gift, and the time to enjoy it is today.
Here is the part that is easy to miss. Most of us are not like Isaiah’s crowd. We are like the rich man. We are not wild. We are careful. We say, “I will enjoy life when the debt is paid. When the exams are over. When the children are grown. When work calms down.”
We do not refuse joy. We just keep putting it off until one more barn is built.
The Bible’s answer is not “stop enjoying things.” Ecclesiastes says the opposite. The answer is “stop putting it off, and remember who gave it.”
Jesus lived this way, and people held it against Him. “The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34). He sat at so many tables that His critics called Him names for it.
And three chapters after the rich man, Luke gives us one more table. A father sees his lost son coming home and says, “let us eat, and be merry” (Luke 15:23). In the Greek that Luke wrote in, “be merry” is the same word the rich man used.
Same word. One big difference. The rich man says it to “my soul.” The father says “let us.” (That shared kind of joy runs all through Scripture. We traced it in Bible Verses About Joy: It Was Never Meant to Be Felt Alone.)
So “eat, drink and be merry” turns out to be good advice after all. Just say it the way Ecclesiastes and the father say it. Today. With thanks. And with someone else at the table if you can.
A good place to start: The Beginner’s Guide to Feeling God’s Presence Every Day. It shows you a simple 3-step rhythm for noticing God in ordinary moments, like the meal in front of you. Get the free guide. Free.
Actions to Take
- Say one sentence before your next bite. Whatever you eat next, even if it is plain bread or rice, stop for five seconds and say, “God, this was given to me. Thank you.” That is Ecclesiastes in one breath.
- Find your “I will say.” On paper or on your phone, finish this sentence: “I will enjoy life when ____.” Then choose one small good thing that is already in today, like a cup of tea, a walk, or a song, and enjoy it on purpose before you sleep tonight.
- Turn “my soul” into “let us.” This week, share one thing you eat or drink with another person. Half a piece of fruit counts. Sit down with them while you do it.
If you want to see your days the way Ecclesiastes does, as days that were given to you, our free How Many Days Have I Been Alive? calculator will count them for you.
Journaling Prompts
- What good thing in your life right now are you saving for “later,” and what exactly are you waiting for?
- When you picture tomorrow, do you sound more like Isaiah’s crowd (nothing matters), the rich man (I must store up more first), or Ecclesiastes (today is a gift)? What makes you say that?
A Prayer for Today’s Table
God, I keep telling myself I will enjoy my life later, when things are safer and the work is done. I have walked right past good things you put in front of me today. Thank you for this day and for the food in it, even when it is simple. Help me to stop counting years that are not mine, and to receive this one day as a gift from your hand. And show me someone I can share it with. Amen.
Discussion Question
Which do you think is harder: enjoying a good thing when you have very little, or enjoying it when you have a lot and are afraid of losing it? Tell us what you think in the comments.
Share This
- “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” is not a Bible verse. It is two verses joined together. And the two halves mean opposite things.
- In Luke 12 the rich man says “I WILL say to my soul… eat, drink, and be merry.” Future. He was waiting for the bigger barns first, and that same night his time was up. He planned the feast and never sat down to it. I don’t want to keep saving joy for later.
- Ecclesiastes says to eat your bread with joy. Bread. Not a feast. The plain thing already in front of you, received as a gift. (Ecclesiastes 9:7)
Questions and Answers
Where is “eat, drink and be merry” in the Bible?
The phrase “eat, drink and be merry” is found in two places in the King James Bible. Ecclesiastes 8:15 says a man has no better thing “than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry.” Luke 12:19 has the exact short form, “eat, drink, and be merry,” spoken by the rich man in a parable Jesus told. A related line, “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die,” is in Isaiah 22:13 and is quoted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:32.
Is “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” a Bible verse?
No. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” is not a single Bible verse. It is a blend of two. “Eat, drink, and be merry” comes from Luke 12:19 and Ecclesiastes 8:15, and “for to morrow we shall die” comes from Isaiah 22:13, which Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15:32. In the King James Version, “be merry” and “to morrow we die” never appear in the same verse.
What does “eat, drink and be merry” mean in the Bible?
“Eat, drink and be merry” means different things in the Bible depending on who says it. In Ecclesiastes 8:15 it is sincere advice to enjoy food, drink and work as gifts from God during the days God gives. In Isaiah 22:13 a similar line is said by people in Jerusalem who have given up hope. In Luke 12:19 it is said by a rich man who trusts his stored goods and plans to enjoy life later, and God calls him a fool.
Who said “eat, drink and be merry” in the Bible?
The exact words “eat, drink, and be merry” are said by the rich man in the parable of the rich fool, told by Jesus in Luke 12:16-21. The rich man plans to say them to his own soul after building bigger barns, but God tells him his soul is required that very night. The writer of Ecclesiastes, traditionally King Solomon, gives the same three actions as advice in Ecclesiastes 8:15.
Is it a sin to eat, drink and be merry?
The Bible does not call enjoying food and drink a sin. Ecclesiastes 3:13 calls eating, drinking and enjoying the good of your work “the gift of God,” and 1 Timothy 6:17 says God “giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” The Bible does warn against excess, as in Ephesians 5:18, “be not drunk with wine,” and against the rich man’s mistake in Luke 12:19-21 of trusting stored goods while being “not rich toward God.”
