Ecclesiastes 1
1 These are the words of the Teacher, the descendant of David and king in Jerusalem.
[I am Solomon], the son of [King] David. [I rule] in Jerusalem [and people call me] ‘The (Preacher/Religious Teacher)’.
2 The Teacher says this. “Like a vapor of mist, like a breeze in the wind, everything vanishes, leaving many questions.
I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
3 What profit does mankind gain from all the work that they labor at 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 generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
[Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
5 The sun rises, and it goes down and hurries back to the place where it rises again.
[Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
6 The wind blows south and circles around to the north, always going around along its pathway and coming back again.
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 flow into the sea, but the sea is never 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 Everything becomes wearisome, and no one can explain it. The eye is not satisfied by what it sees, nor is the ear fulfilled by what it hears.
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 Whatever has been is what will be, and whatever has been done is what will be done. 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 anything about which it may be said, 'Look, this is new'? Whatever exists has already existed for a long time, during ages which came long 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 No one seems to remember the things that happened in ancient times, and the things that happened much later and that will happen in the future will not likely be remembered either.”
[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 am the Teacher, and I have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.
I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
13 I applied my mind to study and to search out by wisdom everything that is done under heaven. That search is a burdensome task that God has given to the children of mankind to be busy with.
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 deeds that are done under the sun, and look, they all amount to vapor and chasing 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 The twisted cannot be straightened! The missing cannot be counted!
[Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
16 I have spoken to my heart saying, “Look, I have acquired greater wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My mind has seen great 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 So I applied my heart to know wisdom and also madness and folly. I came to understand that this also was an attempt to shepherd 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 the abundance of wisdom there is much frustration, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
