Ecclesiastes 6
What Happens in This Chapter
The Preacher describes a man God gives riches, wealth, and honor, who never gets to enjoy them; a stranger enjoys them instead. He says a baby born dead is better off than a man who lives long, has many children, is never satisfied, and gets no burial. He asks what the wise gain over fools, and what people gain from always wanting more. He ends with two questions no one can answer: what is good in this short life, and what comes after a person is gone.
Plain reading written for kids. Short sentences, everyday words, one idea at a time.
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men:
1I saw something sad here on earth. It happens to many, many people.
"Under the sun" is the writer's way of saying "here on earth, in this life." He uses it many times in this book.
2A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
2God gives a man money, riches, and respect. The man has everything he wants. But God does not let him enjoy any of it. Someone else enjoys it instead. That is empty. It is a very sad sickness.
The old word "wanteth" means "lacks." The man is not missing anything. "Vanity" means empty, like a breath you cannot hold.
3If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
3A man might have a hundred children and live many years. But he is never happy with all his good things. And when he dies, no one even buries him. I say a baby born dead is better off than he is.
"An untimely birth" means a baby who died before it could be born or live.
4For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.
4That baby comes into the world with nothing. It goes away into the dark. No one ever knows its name.
5Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other.
5The baby never saw the sun. It never knew anything at all. Still, it has more rest than that man has.
6Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?
6The man might live a thousand years, and then a thousand more. But if he never enjoys anything, what good is that? Don't all people go to the same place in the end?
7All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
7People work hard just to fill their stomachs. But they still keep wanting more.
8For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?
8So is a wise person really better off than a fool? Is a poor person better off, even if he knows how to act around others?
9Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit.
9It is better to enjoy what you can see. It is worse to keep wishing for more. This too is empty, like chasing the wind.
10That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.
10Everything that is here was named long ago. People already know what a person is. And no one can argue with the One who is stronger.
11Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better?
11Many words and many things only add more emptiness. So how does that help a person at all?
12For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?
12Who knows what is good for a person while he lives? His short life passes by fast, like a shadow. And who can tell him what will happen after he is gone?
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