Fools are so exhausted by a little work that they can’t even find their way home.
Parallel translations
- WEB The labor of fools wearies every one of them; for he doesn’t know how to go to the city.
- KJV The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city.
- BSB The toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city.
- NKJV The labor of fools wearies them, For they do not even know how to go to the city!
- NASB The labor of a fool makes him so weary that he does not even know how to go to a city.
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
The fool's labor wearies him, for he does not even know the way to the city. Folly makes simple tasks exhausting and ineffective.
Overview
Qoheleth pictures the fool worn out by toil yet unable to manage even basic matters like finding his way. Folly squanders effort through lack of understanding. The verse highlights how wisdom, by contrast, brings clarity and direction to life, a wisdom found fully in the One who is the way (Proverbs 14:8; John 14:6).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Jer 50:4–5“In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God.
- Isa 57:1The righteous perish, and no one lays it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil.
- Eccl 10:3Yes also, when the fool walks by the way, his understanding fails him, and he says to everyone that he is a fool.
- Ps 107:4They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way. They found no city to live in.
- Isa 35:8–10A highway will be there, a road, and it will be called The Holy Way. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it will be for those who walk in the Way. Wicked fools will not go there.
- Ps 107:7he led them also by a straight way, that they might go to a city to live in.
- Isa 44:12–17The blacksmith takes an ax, works in the coals, fashions it with hammers, and works it with his strong arm. He is hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water, and is faint.
- Eccl 10:10If the ax is blunt, and one doesn’t sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but skill brings success.
- Hab 2:6Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’
- Matt 11:28–30“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.
- Isa 47:12–13“Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth; as if you might profit; as if you might prevail.
- Isa 55:2Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 10:15 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.