What advantage, then, has the wise man over the fool? What gain comes to the poor man who knows how to conduct himself before others?
Parallel translations
- WEB For what advantage has the wise more than the fool? What has the poor man, that knows how to walk before the living?
- KJV For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?
- NKJV For what more has the wise man than the fool? What does the poor man have, Who knows how to walk before the living?
- NASB For what advantage does the wise person have over the fool? What does the poor person have, knowing how to walk before the living?
- NLT So are wise people really better off than fools? Do poor people gain anything by being wise and knowing how to act in front of others?
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
What real advantage has the wise over the fool, or the poor who knows how to conduct himself? It matters because even wisdom and skill cannot exempt anyone from death and life's limits.
Overview
The Preacher asks pointed questions exposing that wisdom, while genuinely good, offers no escape from mortality or final futility 'under the sun.' Even the prudent poor man faces the same end. This humbling realism keeps wisdom in its place and directs hope beyond earthly advantage to God, whose wisdom in Christ secures what human wisdom cannot (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Prov 19:1Better a poor man who walks with integrity than a fool whose lips are perverse.
- Eccl 2:14–16The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I also came to realize that one fate overcomes them both.
- Ps 101:2I will ponder the way that is blameless—when will You come to me? I will walk in my house with integrity of heart.
- 1 Tim 6:17Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy.
- Luke 1:6Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and decrees of the Lord.
- Eccl 5:11When good things increase, so do those who consume them; what then is the profit to the owner, except to behold them with his eyes?
- Ps 116:9I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.
- Gen 17:1When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless.
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 6:8 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.