“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile!”
Parallel translations
- WEB “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher. “All is vanity!”
- KJV Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
- NKJV “Vanityof vanities,” says the Preacher, “All is vanity.”
- NASB “Futility of futilities,” says the Preacher, “all is futility!”
- NLT “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless.”
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 Preacher repeats his refrain that all earthly things are fleeting and breath-like. It frames the whole book's quest as ultimately empty apart from God.
Overview
This verse forms an inclusio with 1:2, bracketing the entire book with the same cry: everything "under the sun" is hevel, vapor, fleeting and unable to satisfy in itself. The Preacher is not denying that life has good gifts, but insisting that nothing in a fallen world bears the weight of ultimate meaning. This honest verdict drives the reader toward the book's conclusion and ultimately toward Christ, in whom alone the vanity of life finds purpose and the curse begins to be undone.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Eccl 1:2“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”
- Eccl 6:12For who knows what is good for a man during the few days in which he passes through his fleeting life like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will come after him under the sun?
- Eccl 8:8As no man has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has authority over his day of death. As no one can be discharged in wartime, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.
- Eccl 1:14I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.
- Eccl 4:4I saw that all labor and success spring from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- Ps 62:9Lowborn men are but a vapor, the exalted but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.
- Eccl 2:17So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
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 12:8 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.