Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new.
Parallel translations
- WEB Is there a thing of which it may be said, “Behold, this is new?” It has been long ago, in the ages which were before us.
- KJV Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
- BSB Is there a case where one can say, “Look, this is new”? It has already existed in the ages before us.
- NKJV Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us.
- NASB Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new”? It has already existed for ages Which were before us.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Whatever seems new has actually existed long before. It reinforces that nothing in this world is ultimately original or able to break the cycle.
Overview
Qoheleth challenges the claim that anything is genuinely new, insisting it has appeared in ages past. This deflates the human tendency to chase novelty as a cure for emptiness. The verse humbles our pride and prepares us to look beyond this repetitive order to the unprecedented redemption God accomplishes in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Acts 7:51“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.
- Matt 23:30–32and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
- Luke 17:26–30As it was in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man.
- Matt 5:12Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
- 2 Tim 3:8Even as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so do these also oppose the truth; men corrupted in mind, who concerning the faith, are rejected.
- 1 Th 2:14–16For you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews;
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.
How Ecclesiastes 1:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.