Ecclesiastes 6:12

Who knows what is truly good for the brief, shadow-like life of man, or what will come after him? It matters because human knowledge cannot grasp life's meaning or the future on its own.

Cross-references · 23

• Jas 4:14Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
• Job 14:2He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.
• Eccl 3:22Therefore I saw that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who can bring him to see what will be after him?
• Ps 144:4Man is like a breath. His days are like a shadow that passes away.
• Lam 3:24–27“Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.”
• Ps 39:5–6Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.” Selah.
• Eccl 8:7For he doesn’t know that which will be; for who can tell him how it will be?
• Eccl 8:13But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he lengthen days like a shadow; because he doesn’t fear God.
• 1 Chr 29:15For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.
• Job 8:9(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.)
• Ps 109:23I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.
• Ps 17:15As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
• Job 14:21His sons come to honor, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them.
• Ps 4:6Many say, “Who will show us any good?” Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us.
• Ps 90:10–12The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for it passes quickly, and we fly away.
• Eccl 2:3I searched in my heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, my heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly, until I might see what it was good for the sons of men that they should do under heaven all the days of their lives.
• Ps 102:11My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.
• Eccl 9:6Also their love, their hatred, and their envy has perished long ago; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.
• Eccl 12:13This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
• Ps 47:4He chooses our inheritance for us, the glory of Jacob whom he loved. Selah.
• Mic 6:8He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
• Ps 89:47Remember how short my time is! For what vanity have you created all the children of men!
• Ps 16:5Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup. You made my lot secure.

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.