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Summary

Ecclesiastes 1:1–11 – Nothing New Under the Sun

What happens: The Teacher speaks and says everything is vanity, a breath that slips away. Generations come and go while the earth stays. The sun rises and sets, the wind turns, and rivers run to the sea but never fill it. People are never satisfied and nothing is truly new.

What it means: Life under the sun feels repetitive and fleeting, showing the limits of human effort. God’s creation is steady, but human life is short, which humbles our pride. The human heart longs for more than the cycles it sees, revealing our need for meaning beyond ourselves.

Ecclesiastes 1:12–18 – The Burden of Wisdom

What happens: The Teacher, king in Jerusalem, searches by wisdom to understand all that happens. He finds the task heavy and full of trouble. What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted. More wisdom brings more grief and more knowledge increases sorrow.

What it means: Human wisdom sees the real pain of a broken world but cannot fix it. This teaches humility and the truth that God alone can set things right. Knowing more without God’s purpose adds weight, not peace.

Application

  • Acknowledge the limits of your insight and ask God for perspective.
  • Hold your work and plans with humility, knowing life is brief.
  • Look for meaning in God rather than in novelty or endless information.

Bible

1The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

3What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

4One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

5The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

6The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

7All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

8All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

9The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

10Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

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.

12I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

13And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

14I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

15That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

16I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

17And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

18For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

← Proverbs 31Ecclesiastes 2 →

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