Ecclesiastes 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The Teacher describes a man whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, yet who is not allowed to enjoy them, so that a stranger enjoys them instead. He says a stillborn child, who never sees the sun, has more rest than a man who lives many years without enjoying his goods and receives no proper burial. He observes that all human labor goes to feed an appetite that is never satisfied, and asks what advantage the wise or the poor really have. The chapter ends with questions: no one can contend with one stronger than himself, no one knows what is good for a man in his brief life, and no one can say what will come after him.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • There is an evil the speaker has seen under the sun.
   • That evil is heavy and widespread upon mankind.
2. 6:2
   • There is a man to whom God gives riches, possessions, and honor.
   • That man lacks nothing of all that he desires.
   • God does not give him power to eat of what he has.
   • A stranger eats it instead.
   • This is vapor.
   • This is an evil sickness.
3. 6:3
   • A man may father a hundred children.
   • A man may live many years, so that the days of his years are many.
   • The man's soul may not be satisfied with good.
   • The man may also have no burial.
   • The speaker says a stillborn child is better than that man.
4. 6:4
   • The stillborn comes in vapor.
   • The stillborn goes away in darkness.
   • The stillborn's name is covered in darkness.
5. 6:5
   • The stillborn has not seen the sun.
   • The stillborn has not known anything.
   • The stillborn has more rest than the man.
6. 6:6
   • Even if a man lives a thousand years twice over, he may see no good.
   • The speaker asks whether all do not go to one place.
7. 6:7
   • All a man's labor is for his mouth.
   • The appetite is not filled.
8. 6:8
   • The speaker asks what advantage the wise man has over the fool.
   • The speaker asks what the poor man has who knows how to walk before the living.
9. 6:9
   • What the eyes see is better than the wandering of desire.
   • This too is vapor.
   • This too is a striving after wind.
10. 6:10
    • Whatever has been has already been named.
    • It is known that he is man.
    • He cannot contend with one who is stronger than he.
11. 6:11
    • There are many things that increase vapor.
    • The speaker asks what advantage this gives to man.
12. 6:12
    • The speaker asks who knows what is good for man in life.
    • Man's life lasts the number of the days of his vain life.
    • He passes those days like a shadow.
    • The speaker asks who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

"Under the sun" is this book's signature phrase, used about thirty times: it means life as it is actually lived and observed in this world, as opposed to anything beyond it. KJV's "it is common among men" renders a Hebrew phrase closer to "it is heavy upon mankind", the evil is both widespread and a weight people carry.

6:2

Three things to unpack in the older wording. "He wanteth nothing for his soul" means he lacks nothing he desires ("want" here is lack, not wish, and "soul" translates *nephesh*, a word covering appetite, desire and life rather than a spirit inside a body. "To eat thereof" is a standard Hebrew idiom for enjoying what you own, not just eating food. And the "stranger" is someone outside the man's household), not a son or heir, so what he built passes to a person with no family claim on it. "Vanity" (Hebrew *hebel*) is the book's central word: it means vapor or breath, something real but weightless and impossible to hold onto.

6:3

Both halves of this picture would have registered strongly with the first hearers. A hundred children is deliberate exaggeration: a large family and a long life were the two clearest signs of a life that had gone well. To be left unburied, by contrast, was the deepest disgrace an Israelite could picture, the fate of executed criminals and defeated enemies. A "proper burial" meant being laid in the family tomb alongside one's ancestors.

6:4

In Hebrew usage a person's "name" is their continuing presence in other people's memory, not merely what they were called. A stillborn child received no name and left no trace, so darkness covering the name means the child is remembered by no one.

6:5

"He hath not seen the sun" is an idiom for never having been alive at all. The word behind "rest" means relief or repose, the same quiet the Hebrew scriptures attribute to the dead.

6:6

"One place" is the grave, Sheol in Hebrew, the shadowy common destination of everyone who dies in the older Israelite picture of death. The point of the question is that the destination is the same for all, whatever their lifespan.

6:7

The word rendered "appetite" is *nephesh*, the same word KJV translates "soul" in verses 2 and 3. It means throat, hunger, craving, life. The line turns on that double sense: work goes down the throat, and the craving behind the throat is never filled.

6:8

The second question is one of the most obscure sentences in the book. Literally it reads something like "what has the poor man who knows how to walk before the living?", knowing how to conduct himself, make his way, or hold his own among other people. Translators differ on the sense, and the plain rendering picks one plausible reading among several.

6:9

A proverb built on a contrast: "the sight of the eyes" is what is actually in front of you, "the wandering of the desire" is literally the roaming of the *nephesh*, appetite going out after what it does not have. Closest English equivalent in shape: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. KJV's "vexation of spirit" renders a Hebrew phrase most scholars now read as chasing or herding wind, the same word can be heard as "striving after" or "longing for."

6:10

To name something, in Hebrew usage, is to fix what it is; "named already" means settled long ago, before the person came on the scene. The middle clause is compressed and disputed (literally "it is known what man is") and it plays on the resemblance between *adam* (man) and *adamah* (ground). The one "mightier than he" is left unnamed in the Hebrew; readers have almost always understood God, but the text does not say so.

6:11

The Hebrew word here, *devarim*, means both "words" and "things." KJV took it as things; many modern translations take it as words, giving "the more words, the more emptiness." The line supports either reading.

6:12

A shadow is the stock Hebrew image for what is fleeting and has no substance of its own. The closing question is genuinely ambiguous: "what shall be after him" can mean what will happen to the man after his death, or what will happen in the world once he is gone. The Hebrew allows both, and the writer may intend both.