I made myself gardens and parks, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit.
Parallel translations
- KJV I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits:
- BSB I made gardens and parks for myself, where I planted all kinds of fruit trees.
- NKJV I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.
- NASB I made gardens and parks for myself, and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees;
- NLT I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees.
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
He made gardens, parks, and orchards of every kind of fruit tree. His pursuit of fulfillment extended to creating beauty and abundance.
Overview
Qoheleth continues cataloging his vast achievements, cultivating elaborate gardens and groves. The language faintly recalls Eden, yet these man-made paradises cannot restore what was lost. This subtly underscores that human effort cannot recover the garden we forfeited; only God, through Christ, opens the way back to the tree of life.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Gen 2:8–9Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
- Jer 39:4When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah.
- Luke 17:27–29They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
- Song 4:12A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.
- Song 6:2My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
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 2:5 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
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