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Ecclesiastes 6

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📖 Ecclesiastes introduction

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1There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is widespread among mankind: ✦ 2a person to whom God has given riches, wealth, and honor, so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God has not given him the opportunity to enjoy these things, but a foreigner enjoys them. This is futility and a severe affliction. ✦ 3If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they may be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things and he does not even have a proper burial, then I say, “Better the miscarriage than he, ✦ 4for a miscarriage comes in futility and goes into darkness; and its name is covered in darkness. ✦ 5It has not even seen the sun nor does it know it; yet it is better off than that man. ✦ 6Even if the man lives a thousand years twice, but does not see good things—do not all go to one and the same place?” ✦ 7All a person’s labor is for his mouth, and yet his appetite is not satisfied. ✦ 8For what advantage does the wise person have over the fool? What does the poor person have, knowing how to walk before the living? ✦ 9What the eyes see is better than what the soul desires. This too is futility and striving after wind. ✦ 10Whatever exists has already been named, and it is known what man is; for he cannot dispute with the one who is mightier than he is. ✦ 11For there are many words which increase futility. What then is the advantage to a person? ✦ 12For who knows what is good for a person during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a person what will happen after him under the sun? ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

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

Where this chapter connects

Eccl 5 ·8Eccl 4 ·7Eccl 2 ·6Eccl 3 ·5Eccl 1 ·5Job 14 ·41 Chr 29 ·3Ps 39 ·3

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 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.

Resources, by level

Lay

  • ★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical

    A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

  • SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical

    Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

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