Then too, I saw the burial of the wicked who used to go in and out of the holy place, and they were praised in the city where they had done so. This too is futile.
Parallel translations
- WEB So I saw the wicked buried. Indeed they came also from holiness. They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is vanity.
- KJV And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.
- NKJV Then I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of holiness, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done. This also is vanity.
- NASB So then, I have seen the wicked buried, those who used to go in and out of the holy place, and they are soon forgotten in the city where they did such things. This too is futility.
- NLT I have seen wicked people buried with honor. Yet they were the very ones who frequented the Temple and are now praised in the same city where they committed their crimes! This, too, is meaningless.
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 Preacher saw the wicked honored in burial and soon forgotten, calling this too a vanity. The seeming success of evildoers is fleeting and ultimately empty.
Overview
This verse is textually difficult, but its thrust is that the wicked sometimes receive honorable funerals and praise in the very place they did evil, while their memory quickly fades. The injustice of it strikes Qoheleth as vanity. It sets up the assurance, despite appearances, that God's final judgment will set things right (Psalm 73:17-20).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Eccl 2:16For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, just as with the fool, seeing that both will be forgotten in the days to come. Alas, the wise man will die just like the fool!
- Eccl 9:5For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, because the memory of them is forgotten.
- Prov 10:7The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.
- Eccl 1:11There is no remembrance of those who came before, and those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow after.
- Acts 6:13where they presented false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law.
- Jer 17:13O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame. All who turn away will be written in the dust, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water.
- Job 21:18Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
- Ps 31:12I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind. I am like a broken vessel.
- Job 21:32–33He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.
- Luke 16:22One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried.
- Heb 10:38But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he shrinks back, I will take no pleasure in him.”
- 2 Kgs 9:34–35Then Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of this cursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was the daughter of a king.”
- Ps 122:1–5A song of ascents. Of David. I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.”
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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 8:10 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.