People can never predict when hard times might come. Like fish in a net or birds in a trap, people are caught by sudden tragedy.
Parallel translations
- WEB For man also doesn’t know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.
- KJV For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
- BSB For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.
- NKJV For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, Like birds caught in a snare, So the sons of men are snared in an evil time, When it falls suddenly upon them.
- NASB For indeed, a person does not know his time: like fish that are caught in a treacherous net and birds caught in a snare, so the sons of mankind are ensnared at an evil time when it suddenly falls on them.
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
People do not know their time, but are suddenly snared like fish in a net or birds in a trap. Calamity and death can fall unexpectedly, so we cannot presume on tomorrow.
Overview
Qoheleth likens human vulnerability to creatures suddenly caught, stressing that the hour of trouble or death is hidden from us. This uncertainty reinforces the call to live wisely and gratefully now. It echoes Jesus' teaching to be ready, since no one knows the day or the hour (Matthew 24:42-44; Luke 12:20).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 20
- 1 Th 5:3For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman; and they will in no way escape.
- Luke 21:34–36“So be careful, or your hearts will be loaded down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day will come on you suddenly.
- Eccl 8:5–7Whoever keeps the commandment shall not come to harm, and his wise heart will know the time and procedure.
- Prov 6:15Therefore his calamity will come suddenly. He will be broken suddenly, and that without remedy.
- Prov 29:6An evil man is snared by his sin, but the righteous can sing and be glad.
- Luke 12:20“But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared — whose will they be?’
- Ps 73:18–20Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction.
- 2 Cor 6:2for he says, “At an acceptable time I listened to you, in a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
- 2 Tim 2:26and they may recover themselves out of the devil’s snare, having been taken captive by him to his will.
- Prov 7:22–23He followed her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a fool stepping into a noose.
- Job 18:8–10For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh.
- Isa 30:13therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant.
- Ps 11:6On the wicked he will rain blazing coals; fire, sulfur, and scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
- 2 Pet 2:12But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed,
- Luke 17:26–31As it was in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man.
- Luke 12:39But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not allowed his house to be broken into.
- Luke 19:42–44saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.
- Hab 1:14–17and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
- 1 Pet 2:12having good behavior among the nations, so in that of which they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they see, glorify God in the day of visitation.
- Eccl 8:11Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
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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 9:12 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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