Ecclesiastes 1
1 The words of the preacher, the son of David, king of 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 a man of all his labor, which he taketh 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 abideth 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 his place where he arose.
[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 to the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according 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; to the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return 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 labor; man cannot utter [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 The thing that hath been, it [is that] which shall be; and that which is done [is] that which shall 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 [any] thing of which it may be said, See, this [is] new? it hath been already of 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 remembrance of former [things]; neither shall there be [any] remembrance of [things] that are to come with [those] that shall come after.
[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 seek and search out by wisdom concerning all [things] that are done under heaven: this grievous labor hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised with it.
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 vexation of spirit.
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 my own heart, saying, Lo, I have come to great estate, and have gained more wisdom than all [they] that have been before me in Jerusalem: and my heart had great experience 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 gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
[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 grief: 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.
