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.
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.
- BSB 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.
- 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 remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.
- Eccl 9:5For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
- Prov 10:7The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.
- Eccl 1:11There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
- Acts 6:13And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
- Jer 17:13O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
- Job 21:18They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away.
- Ps 31:12I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.
- Job 21:32–33Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb.
- Luke 16:22And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
- Heb 10:38Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
- 2 Kgs 9:34–35And when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king’s daughter.
- Ps 122:1–5I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into 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
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