I said in my heart, “Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals.”
Parallel translations
- WEB I said in my heart, “As for the sons of men, God tests them, so that they may see that they themselves are like animals.
- KJV I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
- BSB I said to myself, “As for the sons of men, God tests them so that they may see for themselves that they are but beasts.”
- NASB I said to myself regarding the sons of mankind, “God is testing them in order for them to see that they are as animals, they to themselves.”
- NLT I also thought about the human condition—how God proves to people that they are like animals.
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
God tests people so they may see they are, in their mortality, like the animals. This humbling realization confronts human pride.
Overview
Qoheleth states that God's testing reveals humanity's creaturely frailty, sharing mortality with the beasts. This is meant to humble human pride and expose our dependence on God. The verse does not deny humanity's unique creation in God's image, but stresses that, apart from God, we face the same death as the animals, a frailty Christ overcomes through resurrection.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Ps 73:22I was so senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you.
- Ps 49:12But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish.
- Gen 3:17–19To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life.
- Heb 9:27Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment,
- 2 Pet 2:12But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed,
- Rom 9:23and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,
- 1 Pet 1:24For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;
- Ps 51:4Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight; that you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge.
- Rom 3:4May it never be! Yes, let God be found true, but every man a liar. As it is written, “That you might be justified in your words, and might prevail when you come into judgment.”
- Job 14:1–4“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
- Ps 73:18–19Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction.
- Ps 49:14They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion.
- Job 15:16how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!
- Ps 90:5–12You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass.
- Job 40:8Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?
- Ps 49:19–20he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light.
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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 3:18 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.