Ecclesiastes 1
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
[I am Solomon], the son of [King] David. [I rule] in Jerusalem [and people call me] ‘The (Preacher/Religious Teacher)’.
2 All is to no purpose, said the Preacher, all the ways of man are to no purpose.
I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
3 What is a man profited by all his work which he does under the sun?
(What do people gain from all the work that they do here on the earth?/It seems that people gain no lasting benefit from all the work that they do here on the earth.) [RHQ]
4 One generation goes and another comes; but the earth is for ever.
[Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
5 The sun comes up and the sun goes down, and goes quickly back to the place where he came up.
[Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
6 The wind goes to the south, turning back again to the north; circling round for ever.
The wind blows south, and then it [turns around to start blowing towards] the north. It goes around and around in circles.
7 All the rivers go down to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the rivers go, there they go again.
All the streams flow into the sea, but the sea is never full. The water returns [to the sky], and [when it rains], the water returns to the rivers, and it flows again to the sea.
8 All things are full of weariness; man may not give their story: the eye has never enough of its seeing, or the ear of its hearing.
Everything is boring, [with the result that] we do not even want to talk about it. We [SYN] see things, but we always want to see more. We [SYN] hear things, but we always want to hear more.
9 That which has been, is that which is to be, and that which has been done, is that which will be done, and there is no new thing under the sun.
[Everything continues to be the same as it has always been]; things that happen have happened previously, and they will happen again. What has been done before will be done again. There is nothing [really] new in this world [MTY].
10 Is there anything of which men say, See, this is new? It has been in the old time which was before us.
Sometimes people say, “Look at this! This is something new [RHQ]!” But it has existed previously; it existed before we were born.
11 There is no memory of those who have gone before, and of those who come after there will be no memory for those who are still to come after them.
[People] do not remember the things [that happened] long ago, and in the future, people will not remember what we are doing now.
12 I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
13 And I gave my heart to searching out in wisdom all things which are done under heaven: it is a hard thing which God has put on the sons of men to do.
By being wise, I concentrated on understanding everything that was being done on the earth [MTY]. [But I found out that] God causes [all of] us to experience things that cause us to be unhappy/miserable.
14 I have seen all the works which are done under the sun; all is to no purpose, and desire for wind.
It seems that nothing that happens on the earth really enables us to do anything useful. It is [like] [MET] chasing the wind.
15 That which is bent may not be made straight, and that which is not there may not be numbered.
[Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
16 I said to my heart, See, I have become great and am increased in wisdom more than any who were before me in Jerusalem — yes, my heart has seen much wisdom and knowledge.
I said to myself, “[Hey], I am wiser than any of the kings that ruled in Jerusalem before I [became the king]. I am wiser and I know more than any of them!”
17 And I gave my heart to getting knowledge of wisdom, and of the ways of the foolish. And I saw that this again was desire for wind.
[So] I determined to learn [more] about being wise and to learn about knowing about many things, and [also] to learn about [doing things that are] very foolish [DOU]. [But] I found out that trying to understand those things was also [useless, like] chasing the wind.
18 Because in much wisdom is much grief, and increase of knowledge is increase of sorrow.
The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
