And this is not all that is meaningless in our world. In this life, good people are often treated as though they were wicked, and wicked people are often treated as though they were good. This is so meaningless!
Parallel translations
- WEB There is a vanity which is done on the earth, that there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked. Again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.
- KJV There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.
- BSB There is a futility that is done on the earth: There are righteous men who get what the actions of the wicked deserve, and there are wicked men who get what the actions of the righteous deserve. I say that this too is futile.
- NKJV There is a vanity which occurs on earth, that there are just men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.
- NASB There is futility which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say that this too is futility.
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 names a painful vanity: the righteous sometimes suffer what the wicked deserve, and the wicked sometimes receive what the righteous deserve. Life under the sun is full of unresolved injustice.
Overview
Qoheleth honestly faces the problem of inverted outcomes, where reward and punishment seem misplaced. He does not explain it away but calls it vanity, a frustration of the present order. This very tension awaits its resolution in the cross, where the Righteous One bore what sinners deserved so that sinners might receive what they did not (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Eccl 7:15All this I have seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who lives long in his evildoing.
- Mal 3:15Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt God, and escape.’
- Eccl 2:14The wise man’s eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness — and yet I perceived that one event happens to them all.
- Eccl 9:1–3For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hatred, man doesn’t know it; all is before them.
- Ps 73:12–14Behold, these are the wicked. Being always at ease, they increase in riches.
- Ps 73:3For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
- Job 21:7“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
- Jer 12:1You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I would reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously?
- Eccl 4:4Then I saw all the labor and achievement that is the envy of a man’s neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
- Job 9:22–24“It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.
- Eccl 4:8There is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all of his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. “For whom then, do I labor, and deprive my soul of enjoyment?” This also is vanity. Yes, it is a miserable business.
- Job 21:17–34“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?
- Eccl 10:5There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, the sort of error which proceeds from the ruler.
- Job 24:21–25He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 8:14 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.