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 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities! all is vanity.
I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
3 What profit hath man of all his labour wherewith he laboureth 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 passeth away, and [another] generation cometh, but the earth standeth for ever.
[Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
5 The sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to its place where it ariseth.
[Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
6 The wind goeth towards the south, and turneth about towards the north: it turneth about continually, and the wind returneth again to its circuits.
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 run into the sea, yet the sea is not full: unto the place whither the rivers go, thither 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 toil; none can express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with 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 hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which will be done: and there is nothing new 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 a thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already in the ages which were 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 remembrance of former things; neither shall there be remembrance of things that are to come with those who shall live afterwards.
[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 applied my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: this grievous occupation hath God given to the children of men to weary themselves therewith.
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 that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and pursuit of the 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 crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
[Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I have become great and have acquired wisdom more than all they that have been before me over Jerusalem; and my heart hath seen much of 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 applied my heart to the knowledge of wisdom, and to the knowledge of madness and folly: I perceived that this also is a striving after the 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 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
