Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead, More than the living who are still alive.
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive.
- KJV Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive.
- BSB So I admired the dead, who had already died, above the living, who are still alive.
- NASB So I congratulated the dead who are already dead, more than the living who are still living.
- NLT So I concluded that the dead are better off than the living.
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 praised the dead as better off than the living because of life's oppression. The weight of suffering can make death seem preferable to continued misery.
Overview
Confronted by pervasive injustice, the Preacher voices the stark thought that the dead are spared the evils the living endure. This is an honest expression of despair over a world full of oppression 'under the sun,' not a settled teaching that death is good. It exposes how unbearable life feels apart from hope, a hope Scripture grounds in the God who redeems and the resurrection won by Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Job 3:11–26“Why didn’t I die from the womb? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?
- Eccl 2:17So I hated life, because the work that is worked under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
- Eccl 9:4–6For to him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
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 4:2 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.