for it comes in vanity and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness.
Parallel translations
- WEB for it comes in vanity, and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness.
- KJV For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.
- BSB For a stillborn child enters in futility and departs in darkness, and his name is shrouded in obscurity.
- NASB for a miscarriage comes in futility and goes into darkness; and its name is covered in darkness.
- NLT His birth would have been meaningless, and he would have ended in darkness. He wouldn’t even have had a name,
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 stillborn child comes in emptiness, departs in darkness, and is forgotten. It matters as part of the comparison showing how fleeting and obscure such a life is, yet still less burdened than the joyless rich man.
Overview
The Preacher describes the stillborn's brief, nameless existence to sharpen the comparison begun in the prior verse. The vivid language of vanity and darkness conveys life's transience. Though bleak, the passage exposes the limits of an 'under the sun' perspective, where even existence itself can seem futile apart from the hope of God, who knows and names His own (Isaiah 49:16).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 1
- Ps 109:13Let his posterity be cut off. In the generation following let their name be blotted out.
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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 6:4 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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