Ecclesiasteschapter 1
18 verses · Solomon, by tradition · 10th century BC · Wisdom and poetry
These are the words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem:
Introduction
Solomon, by tradition, Wisdom and poetry, Ecclesiastes Overview.
This chapter opens a book of Israel's wisdom, and tradition gives it to Solomon near the end of his life. The speaker takes a title rather than a name, the Teacher, the one who gathers a congregation and speaks to it. He writes for a settled and prosperous people who assumed that wealth and learning would satisfy. The chapter sets out the question the whole book tests and the vantage point it tests it from. Listen for the one Hebrew word that recurs through every chapter, hevel, breath or vapor. Read it as the statement of a problem the rest of the book works through.
Context
- Who
- A settled, prosperous generation in Israel that had never been told wealth might not satisfy
- What
- The title of the book, a poem on the endless rounds of nature, and the Teacher's account of how he set out to test life by wisdom.
- Where
- Jerusalem, from the court of a king who had already gained every advantage his world could offer.
- When
- Late in the reign of Solomon, about 940 BC, on the traditional reading; many date the book's Hebrew to the Persian period, so the date is held with less certainty than the setting.
- Why
- To put in front of the reader the question of what a person gains from all his work, before any answer is offered.
Historical context
The speaker calls himself Qoheleth, a word built from the root for "assembly," so something like the Convener or the Preacher: the man who calls the congregation together and addresses it. He identifies himself in the first verse as the son of David, king in Jerusalem, and the traditional and house position takes that at face value: this is Solomon, near the end, giving his account.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The critical case for a much later date rests on language. The book uses a handful of words scholars associate with the Persian period, including the word for a park or orchard that shows up in chapter two, and its Hebrew style differs from other tenth-century writing, so many date it to the fourth or third century BC. The traditional answer is that Solomon's court was the most internationally connected in Israel's history, with trade running to Phoenicia, Egypt, Arabia, and beyond, and that loanwords and an unusual register are exactly what a cosmopolitan royal writer would produce. The dispute is real and worth naming; the book itself claims Solomon.
The word translated "vanity" is hevel, vapour, breath, mist. Not "worthless," but what you cannot grab: it is there, you can see it on a cold morning, and it is gone before you close your hand. That word runs through every chapter of the book.
The observations of nature are the ordinary sights of that country. The sun crossing the same sky, the wind turning about from north to south (the region's winds genuinely do swing seasonally), and the rivers running to the sea without filling it. That last one is an accurate description of the Jordan pouring into the Dead Sea, which has no outlet and never rises, because the heat takes back what the river brings.
Significance
The first hearers lived in the richest, most secure generation Israel had ever seen. The king who built the temple and the fleets stands up and tells them that he has been to the end of that road and there is nothing at the end of it.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
"There is no new thing under the sun" was not despair for them so much as a warning against thinking their moment was special. Every generation before them had also felt it was the first.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter opens the one public reading the book receives in the year. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts records that Ecclesiastes is read at Sukkot, on the Sabbath that falls in the festival week. It gives Tractate Soferim 14:3 on the five scrolls and their occasions as its source, and it records that each of the five scrolls is read whole at its own point in the year. Probed for this lane, the same table printed parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0 for this book. No weekly portion and no Haftarah is drawn from it, so a congregation hears this chapter once a year, in the week of the booths.
One daily practice is tied to the chapter in the corpus. The Metsudah edition's text at the fifteenth verse applies the crooked thing that cannot be made straight to one practice. It is the case of a person who failed to recite the Shema or the Tefillah in its required time, and the text names Berakhot 26a for it (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:15:1). The corpus carries the same page of the tractate, Berakhot 26a:19, among its locators on that verse.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The translation is modern, so every quotation is held to fifty words or fewer. The edition sets numbered notes of its own inside Rashi's text, and only Rashi's own words are quoted as his.
Rashi reads the opening words as a rebuke. He sets the phrase beside the openings of Deuteronomy, Amos, Jeremiah and the last words of David, and in each case a reproof follows. He reports that Sifre reads the sun, the moon and the sea of the next verses as the wicked, "which earn no reward" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:1:1). The name Koheles he explains as the one who gathered much wisdom, and he adds that some say the king spoke all his words in public assembly (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:1:2).
The second verse he counts. Its vanities come to seven, one for each day of creation, and Koheles "complains about the entire seven days of creation" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:2:1 and 1:2:2). The phrase under the sun he reads as instead of the sun, the sun being the Torah, which is called light. "All the labor which he does instead of engaging in Torah study, what reward does it yield?" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:3:2). The same key opens the ninth verse. Nothing is new in what a man learns in exchange for the Torah. "But one who engages in the study of Torah constantly finds new insights therein" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:9:1).
The cycles of nature he reads as the fate of the wicked. A generation passes and the next takes from the oppressor's sons what he gathered (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:4:1). The rivers run back to their source through tunnels under the mountains, and "the wicked man, wherever he came from, so he will go" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:7:1). At the eleventh verse he gives the plain sense first, that later generations will not be remembered. He then reports that the Midrash Aggadah reads the verse of the blotting out of Amalek's memory, and he leaves both standing (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:11:1).
The king's own words he reads as a history of loss. Koheles reigned over the whole world, then over Israel, then over Jerusalem alone, "and finally, over my staff". So the verse says he was king, "but now, I am no longer king" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:12:1). The edition points to Sanhedrin 20b for the account. At the sixteenth verse the king speaks to himself, "Now that I have sunk from my greatness" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:16:1). The crooked thing of the fifteenth verse is what a man leaves unmended in his lifetime. "Whoever toiled on the eve of Shabbos will eat on Shabbos" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:15:1). The Sages, he adds, applied the verse to one who fathered a mamzer and to a Torah scholar who abandoned the Torah.
The corpus carries two further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Ecclesiastes 1:5:1 and 1:18:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 39:4, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 2:6:7 and Kohelet Rabbah 1:1:1, the first entry of the Midrash whose numbering follows this book. On the second, the vanity of vanities, it holds Bava Batra 100b:5, Devarim Rabbah 1:5 and Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 6:10. On the third it holds Aggadat Bereshit 62:1 and 62:2 with Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shabbat 2:11.
The turning of the world draws the next run. On the fourth verse the corpus holds Bamidbar Rabbah 23:6, Chagigah 5a:2 and Kohelet Rabbah 1:4:1. On the fifth, the rising of the sun, it holds Bereshit Rabbah 58:2 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Chayei Sarah 1. On the sixth it holds Bava Batra 25b:2 with Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 2:5, and on the seventh, the rivers and the sea, Bereshit Rabbah 13:8 and 13:9. On the eighth it holds Berakhot 10a:26 and Kohelet Rabbah 1:8:1. On the ninth, nothing new under the sun, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 18:20 and Berakhot 59a:3. On the tenth it holds Jerusalem Talmud Chagigah 1:8:11 and Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 4:1:5.
The king's search carries the rest. On the eleventh verse the corpus holds Kohelet Rabbah 1:11:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 1:11:1. On the twelfth, the king in Jerusalem, it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition) at Gittin 7:5 and Sanhedrin 2:8. On the thirteenth and the fourteenth it holds Kohelet Rabbah 1:13:1 and 1:14:1 with Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 1:13:1 and 1:14:1. On the fifteenth it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 9:6 and Berakhot 26a:19. On the sixteenth it holds Gittin 58a:13 and Kohelet Rabbah 1:16:1, and on the seventeenth Jerusalem Talmud Maaser Sheni 4:6:14 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 1:17:1. On the eighteenth, the grief that comes with wisdom, it holds Bereshit Rabbah 19:1 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Nedarim 3:5. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:1:1 to 1:17:1, The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Ecclesiastes 1:5:1 and 1:18:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ecclesiastes/1.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this book and printing parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, and the festival reading at Sukkot on the Sabbath that falls in the festival week, sourced there to Tractate Soferim 14:3.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Vanity of Vanities: the Sun Rises, the Rivers Run
These are the words of the Teacher: The book opens with a title, the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, rather than a name. The Hebrew is Qoheleth, one who assembles or addresses a congregation. The book never names Solomon, though the portrait that follows, wisdom beyond all before him and unmatched works, points there.
Ecclesiastes 1:1
“The preacher - Who was not only a king, but also a teacher of God's people: who having sinned grievously in the eyes of all the world, thought himself obliged to publish his repentance, and to give publick warning to all, to avoid those rocks upon which he had split.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ecclesiastes 1:1
“Solomon is here given the Greek name Ecclesiastes [Heb Qōhelet], for he gathers the assembly [qāhāl], that is, the church. But we can call him the Preacher because he speaks to the people and his word is directed not only to one person but to everyone.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastes 1:1patristic
Ecclesiastes 1:1
“Preacher - literally, Convener. No one English word represents the Hebrew קהלת qôheleth adequately. Though capable, according to Hebrew usage, of being applied to men in office, it is strictly a feminine participle, and describes a person in the act of calling together an assembly of people as if with the intention of addressing them. The word thus understood refers us to the action of Wisdom personified Pro 1:20; Pro 8:8. In Proverbs and here, Solomon seems to support two characters, speaking sometimes in the third person as Wisdom instructing the assembled people, at other times in the first person.”
Ecclesiastes 1:1
“The words of the preacher,.... Or the preacher's sermon. The whole book is one continued discourse, and an excellent one it is; consisting not of mere words, but of solid matter; of things of the greatest importance, clothed with words apt and acceptable, which the preacher sought out, Ecc 12:10. The Targum is, "the words of the prophecy, which the preacher, who is Solomon, prophesied.'' According to which this book is prophetic; and so it interprets it, and owns it to be Solomon's.”
The cry Futility of futilities stands here and again at 12:8, framing the book so that everything argued between sits inside it. The Hebrew hebel is breath or vapor, a thing that cannot be seized. Paul's word for futility in Romans 8:20 is the term the Septuagint uses for hebel.
Ecclesiastes 1:2
“Vanity of vanities - As the words are an exclamation, it would be better to translate, O vanity of vanities! Emptiness of emptinesses. True, substantial good is not to be found in any thing liable to change and corruption. The author referred to in the introduction begins his paraphrase thus: - “O vain deluding world! whose largest gifts Thine emptiness betray, like painted clouds, Or watery bubbles: as the vapor flies, Dispersed by lightest blast, so fleet thy joys, And leave no trace behind.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:2
“And, as some think, one main thing he designed was to show that the everlasting throne and kingdom which God had by Nathan promised to David and his seed must be of another world; for all things in this world are subject to vanity, and therefore have not in them sufficient to answer the extent of that promise.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ecclesiastes 1:2
“The repetition increases the force. all--Hebrew, "the all"; all without exception, namely, earthly things. vanity--not in themselves, for God maketh nothing in vain (1Ti 4:4, 5), but vain when put in the place of God and made the end, instead of the means (Ps 39:5, 6; Mt 6:33); vain, also, because of the "vanity" to which they are "subjected" by the fall (Ro 8:20).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
ConnectionsEcclesiastes 12:8
What does a man gain from all his labor: states the book's question in the language of the ledger, gain applied to a whole life. The phrase under the sun recurs through the book and names the vantage of the search, life as it appears from ground level.
Ecclesiastes 1:3
"What profit is there for a man in exchange for all his toil, which he toils under the sun?" After the general opinion that all things are vain Solomon begins to explain with regard to mankind: because men exert themselves in vain in the toil of the world, amassing wealth, teaching children, working their way towards glory, constructing buildings, and then are taken away in the midst of their work by sudden death, they hear the words: "Thou fool, this night your soul shall be required of you, then whose will be those things that you have amassed?" [Luc.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:3
“It is labour under the sun; that is a phrase peculiar to this book, where we meet with it twenty-eight times. There is a world above the sun, a world which needs not the sun, for the glory of God is its light, where there is work without labour and with great profit, the work of angels; but he speaks of the work under the sun, the pains of which are great and the gains little.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ecclesiastes 1:4-7
Generations come and generations go: , but the earth remains forever opens a short poem built from things that move without arriving. The sun hurries back to where it rises, the wind turns round, and the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.
Ecclesiastes 1:4
"A generation goes, a generation comes, but the earth remains forever." While some men die, others are born, and those you had seen, are not seen anymore, and you then see those who have not been before. What is more vain than this vanity, than that the earth remains, which was made on account of mankind? And that man himself, the master of the earth, should be suddenly returned to the dust?
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:4
“One generation passeth away - Men succeed each other in unceasing generations: but the earth is still the same; it undergoes no change that leads to melioration, or greater perfection. And it will continue the same לעולם leolam, during the whole course of time; till the end of all things arrives.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ecclesiastes 1:4
“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh,.... This shows that a man can have no profit of all his labour under the sun, because of his short continuance; as soon almost as he has got anything by his labour, he must leave it: not only particular persons, but families, nations, and kingdoms; even all the inhabitants of the world, that are contemporaries, live together in the same age, in a certain period of time; these gradually go off by death, till the whole generation is consumed, as the generation of the Israelites in the wilderness were.”
it hurries back: The word for hurries means panting, like a runner who labors for breath. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set it beside the strong man in Psalm 19:5, and Barnes gives the sense: at its place, panting, it rises there. Bonaventure sees in the sun a thing that never rests.
Ecclesiastes 1:5
"Panting" as the Hebrew for "hasteth"; metaphor, from a runner (Ps 19:5, "a strong man") in a "race." It applies rather to the rising sun, which seems laboriously to mount up to the meridian, than to the setting sun; the accents too favor MAURER, "And (that too, returning) to his place, where panting he riseth."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The wind blows southward: Gill observes that the word wind stands only in the second half of the verse, so the first words may speak of the sun. Barnes keeps the wind in view from the start, round and round on its course. Either reading ends in the same round.
Ecclesiastes 1:6
“The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north,.... The word "wind" is not in this clause in the original text, but is taken from the next, and so may be rendered, "it goeth towards the south", &c. that is, the sun (x) before mentioned, which as to its diurnal and nocturnal course in the daytime goes towards the south, and in the night towards the north; and as to its annual course before the winter solstice it goes to the south, and before the summer solstice to the north, as interpreters observe.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:6
“The wind is continually whirling about, and the wind returneth upon its whirlings.” It is plain, from the clause which I have restored to the fifth verse, that the author refers to the approximations of the sun to the northern and southern tropics, viz., of Cancer and Capricorn. All the versions agree in applying the first clause of the sixth verse to the sun, and not to the wind. Our version alone has mistaken the meaning. My old MS.
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
yet the sea is never full: Barnes takes the place the streams come from as the spring, and adds the Hebrews saw the clouds as the source of the springs. Gregory of Nyssa sees in the sea that is never full the endless labor of men. Wesley applies it to the mind, never satisfied amid plenty.
Ecclesiastes 1:7
“The place - i. e., The spring or river-head. It would seem that the ancient Hebrews regarded the clouds as the immediate feeders of the springs (Pro 8:28, and Psa 104:10, Psa 104:13). Gen 2:6 indicates some acquaintance with the process and result of evaporation.”
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:7
“Is not full - So as to overflow the earth. Whereby also he intimates the emptiness of mens minds, notwithstanding all the abundance of creature comforts.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ecclesiastes 1:7
“The connection is: Individual men are continually changing, while the succession of the race continues; just as the sun, wind, and rivers are ever shifting about, while the cycle in which they move is invariable; they return to the point whence they set out.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
All things are wearisome: , more than one can describe draws the poem's conclusion. Inside the senses, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear content with hearing. The verse gives the chapter two witnesses, the world's own cycles and the human hunger that watches them.
Ecclesiastes 1:8
Therefore incline to him of whom the psalmist says, "He has not taken his soul in vain." To speak now of the troubles of this life, the person has taken his soul in vain who is constructing the things of the world and building the things of the body. We arise each day to eat and drink; yet no one is filled so that he does not hunger and thirst after a short time. Daily we seek profit, and to greed there is set no limit. "The eye will not be satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing."
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Death as a Good 7:28patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:8
“We must therefore look above the sun for satisfaction, and for a new world. That this world is, at the best, a weary land: All is vanity, for all is full of labour. The whole creation is made subject to this vanity ever since man was sentenced to eat bread in the sweat of his brows.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ecclesiastes 1:9-11
What has been will be again: rules out novelty as an answer to the question of gain, since there is nothing new under the sun. Verse 10 imagines someone saying Look, this is new and replies that it existed in the ages before. Verse 11 carries the point into memory.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
“The thing that hath been - Every thing in the whole economy of nature has its revolutions; summer and winter, heat and cold, rain and drought, seedtime and autumn, with the whole system of corruption and generation, alternately succeed each other, so that whatever has been shall be again. There is really, physically, and philosophically, nothing absolutely new under the sun, in the course of sublunary things. The same is the case in all the revolutions of the heavens.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:9
“Rather, "no new thing at all"; as in Nu 11:6. This is not meant in a general sense; but there is no new source of happiness (the subject in question) which can be devised; the same round of petty pleasures, cares, business, study, wars, &c., being repeated over and over again [HOLDEN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Clarke hears the thing itself speak, as if anything under the sun could say, Look, this is new. Jerome cites Symmachus, who pictures a man who says he has found something new and learns it was done before him. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown observe that ages is plural.
Ecclesiastes 1:10
"Is there anything whereof it may be said, see this is new? It has already been for ages, which were before us. "Symmachus translated this more clearly: "Do you think there is a man who is able to say: look this is new, it has already been done before because it was before us." But he agrees with his predecessors that there is nothing new in the world, and that there is none that is able to live and say: 'look this is new', since everything that he thought he had shown to be new, already existed in former times.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
There is no remembrance: Clarke and Wesley take the words as a fact: most of what men have done was never written, and much that was written is lost. Gregory of Nyssa looks to the end. When all things are made new in Christ, he says, the remembrance of evil will be gone.
Ecclesiastes 1:11
“There is no remembrance - I believe the general meaning to be this: Multitudes of ancient transactions have been lost, because they were not recorded; and of many that have been recorded, the records are lost. And this will be the case with many others which are yet to occur. How many persons, not much acquainted with books, have supposed that certain things were their own discoveries, which have been written or printed even long before they were born! Dutens, in his Origin of the Discoveries attributed to the Moderns, has made a very clear case.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I Gave My Heart to Seek Out Wisdom: and Found Grief
Ecclesiastes 1:12-15
I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem: Verse 13 states his method, to seek and explore by wisdom, and calls the task a burden God has laid upon the sons of men. Verse 15 gives the first finding as a proverb: What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
Ecclesiastes 1:12
"I, Ecclesiastes, was King over Israel in Jerusalem. "Until now the preface has spoken only generally about all arguments; but here he returns to the subject of himself, and reveals who he was, and how he knew and experienced all things. The Hebrews say that Solomon, who was doing repentance, wrote this book, and who, having put his trust in wisdom and riches, failed God because of his wives.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:12
“I the Preacher was king - This is a strange verse, and does not admit of an easy solution. It is literally, “I, Choheleth, have been king over Israel, in Jerusalem.” This book, as we have already seen, has been conjectured by some to have been written about the time that Ptolemy Philadelphus formed his great library at Alexandria, about two hundred and eighty-five years before our Lard; and from the multitude of Jews that dwelt there, and resorted to that city for the sake of commerce, it was said there was an Israel in Alexandria. See the introduction.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ecclesiastes 1:12
“Therefore, "the Preacher" (Koheleth) is repeated. was king--instead of "am," because he is about to give the results of his past experience during his long reign. in Jerusalem--specified, as opposed to David, who reigned both in Hebron and Jerusalem; whereas Solomon reigned only in Jerusalem.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
What a heavy burden: Jerome reports that Aquila, the Septuagint and Theodotion gave the word for this burden as distraction, and Symmachus as business. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set it beside Genesis 3:19. Men gain knowledge, like bread, by the sweat of the brow, and God lays the burden on them to humble them.
Ecclesiastes 1:13
"I applied my mind to seek and probe by wisdom all that happens beneath the sky - it is a sorry task that God has given to the sons of man with which to be concerned." Aquila, the Septuagint, and Theodotion have all translated the Hebrew word "anian "similarly as "peristasmon", which the interpreter expressed as "occupied" in Latin [Hier.. "in distentionem".], because the mind of man is torn asunder when occupied by several anxieties. But Symmachus uses the Greek word "ascholian", which means business [Hier.. "occupationem".].
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:13
“Wisdom - As including both the powers of observation and judgment, and the knowledge acquired thereby (1Ki 3:28; 1Ki 4:29; 1Ki 10:8, ...). It increases by exercise. Here is noted its application to people and their actions. Travail - In the sense of toil; the word is here applied to all human occupations.”
Ecclesiastes 1:13
As man is doomed to get his bread, so his knowledge, by the sweat of his brow (Ge 3:19) [GILL]. exercised--that is, disciplined; literally, "that they may thereby chastise, or humble themselves."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
a pursuit of the wind: Jerome found the Teacher's word for pursuit hard to carry over, and the old Greek versions gave it as feeding or grazing on the wind. Augustine took a pursuit of the wind as pride. The proud, he says, are full of wind.
Ecclesiastes 1:14
"I have seen all the deeds done underneath the sun, and behold all is futile and a vexation of the spirit." We are compelled here by necessity to examine the Hebrew words more closely than we wish. It is also not possible to know the real meaning of the text, unless we learn it through studying the original Hebrew words. Aquila and Theodotion translate "routh "as the Greek "nomen", Symmachus has "boskesin". The Septuagint does not express the Hebrew meaning, but the Syriac, as shown in the Greek word "proairesin".
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:14
“Behold, all is vanity - After all these discussions and experiments, when even the results have been the most successful, I have found only rational satisfaction; but not that supreme good by which alone the soul can be made happy. O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane! “How anxious are our cares, and yet how vain The bent of our desires!” Pers. Sat. i., 5: 1.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
What is crooked cannot be straightened: Barnes sees here what the Teacher has seen under the sun: the ways of men are crooked, and men lack power to mend them. Henry applies it to Solomon, who set his mind to make his kingdom straight and failed. Clarke holds that deeper study finds nature ordered and whole.
Ecclesiastes 1:15
“Or, rather, man's state is utterly wanting; and that which is wholly defective cannot be numbered or calculated. The investigator thinks he can draw up, in accurate numbers, statistics of man's wants; but these, including the defects in the investigator's labor, are not partial, but total.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:15
“The paths of learning are as much a labyrinth as ever they were. The minds and manners of men are crooked and perverse. Solomon thought, with his wisdom and power together, thoroughly to reform his kingdom, and make that straight which he found crooked; but he was disappointed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ecclesiastes 1:16-18
I said to myself: opens the book's first trial, wisdom tested by a man who has grown and increased in wisdom. Verse 17 widens the trial to wisdom and madness and folly. The last line states the cost: with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases.
Ecclesiastes 1:16
"I said to myself: here I have acquired great wisdom, more than any of my predecessors over Jerusalem, and my mind has had much experience with wisdom and knowledge." Solomon was not greater than Abraham and Moses, and other saints, but than those who were before him in Jerusalem. We read in the book of Kings that Solomon was very wise, and he claimed this wisdom to have been given by God before all others. [Cfr III Reg.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:16
“I communed with mine own heart - Literally, “I spoke, I, with my heart, saying.” When successful in my researches, but not happy in my soul, though easy in my circumstances, I entered into my own heart, and there inquired the cause of my discontent. He found that, though - 1. He had gotten wisdom beyond all men; 2. Wealth and honors more than any other; 3. Practical wisdom more than all his predecessors; 4. Had tried pleasure and animal gratification, even to their extremes; yet after all this he had nothing but vexation of spirit.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ecclesiastes 1:16
“His wisdom exceeded that of all before Jesus Christ, the antitypical Koheleth, or "Gatherer of men," (Lu 13:34), and "Wisdom" incarnate (Mt 11:19; 12:42). had . . . experience--literally, "had seen" (Jer 2:31). Contrast with this glorying in worldly wisdom (Jer 9:23, 24).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
wisdom and madness and folly: Jerome says that one thing is learned by its opposite, and no man is free of folly who has never known it. Barnes adds that knowing folly helps the wise avoid it. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown give madness the sense of boasting excess.
Ecclesiastes 1:17
"I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this, too, is a vexation of the spirit." Contrary abstract ideas are understood by looking at contrary facts; and " wisdom is the first to be lacking in foolishness" [Horat. Epist.I, 1,41-42.], but it is not possible to be lacking in foolishness, unless one has understood it. Many dangerous things are also created from foolishness, so that while we try to avoid them, we are actually instructed in wisdom.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:17
"Madness," literally, "vaunting extravagance"; 7:25, &c., support English Version rather than DATHE, "splendid matters." "Folly" is read by English Version with some manuscripts, instead of the present Hebrew text, "prudence." If Hebrew be retained, understand "prudence," falsely so called (1Ti 6:20), "craft" (Da 8:25).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ecclesiastes 1:17
“It vexed him to see many that had wisdom not use it, and many that had folly not strive against it. It vexed him when he knew wisdom to see how far off it stood from the children of men, and, when he saw folly, to see how fast it was bound in their hearts.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
much wisdom comes much sorrow: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown apply the sorrow to the study of the ways of men, which grieves the more it finds them crooked and lacking. Augustine applies it to the law. Knowledge of sin without the Spirit only increases guilt.
Ecclesiastes 1:18
"For with much wisdom comes much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases pain." The more a man seeks wisdom, the more he finds himself in vice and far from those virtues, which he is seeking. For those who are powerful suffer torments more gravely [Cfr Sap. 6, 7.], and more is demanded of the man, to whom more is entrusted. Because of this he increases his pain who increases his knowledge, and is saddened by grief according to God, and suffers beyond his offences.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 1:18
“For in much wisdom is much grief - The more we know of ourselves the less satisfied shall we be with our own hearts; and the more we know of mankind the less willing shall we be to trust them, and the less shall we admire them. Be that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow - And why so? Because, independently of God, the principal objects of knowledge are natural and moral evils.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo; Bonaventure, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1; Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Ecclesiastes; Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes; Gregory of Nyssa, HOMILIES ON ECCLESIASTES 1; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.