What Does Ecclesiastes 1:13 Mean?
I have set my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. This is a harmful task God has given to the sons of humankind, to be bowed beneath it.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And 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.THE KEY
The same root describes setting the heart to search and giving humanity its grievous task, joining the pursuit and its burden.
THE MEANING
Your heart reaches toward everything done under heaven by seeking and searching with wisdom, yet the work itself is a grievous occupation given to human beings. The pursuit of understanding carries weight because you remain within the world you seek to comprehend. The verse holds that tension now: the desire to know and the burden of inquiry arise together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that enough wisdom lets a person master everything that happens under heaven.
THE ROOT
נָתַתִּי
natatti
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, place.
“set my heart” in this verse is natatti. The verse uses this root first for giving the heart to the search and again for God giving humanity its grievous task. The search and its burden belong to one frame: both are given.
ALSO GROWS
mattan: Gift, present.
מַתָּן
This noun from the same root gives the act of giving a concrete shape, echoing how the verse presents the task as given.
mattanah: Gift, present.
מַתָּנָה
This branch reinforces the root’s sense of what is placed into someone’s hands; here, what is given is a weighty human occupation.
לִדְרוֹשׁ
lidrosh
GROWS FROM
דרש
Seek, inquire, investigate; also seek or require.
“to seek” in this verse is lidrosh. The search-word reaches beyond casual looking: its family includes inquiry and demand. The heart presses into what is done under heaven, while the verse names that investigation itself as a grievous task.
ALSO GROWS
midrash: Inquiry, exposition.
מִדְרָשׁ
This branch shows how seeking can become sustained interpretation, like the heart’s search by wisdom.
derishah: Inquiry, request, demand.
דְּרִישָׁה
The branch’s sense of demand highlights the pressure carried by a search that wants to account for everything.
בְּנֵי הָאָדָם
benei ha-adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
Human; in the name-nature reading, the ground-being, linked with adamah (ground, soil).
“sons of man” in this verse is benei ha-adam. The phrase names humanity as the sons of the human, the ground-being, echoing adamah (ground, soil). The task belongs to earth-bound human life: the investigator remains inside the world being investigated, not above it.
ALSO GROWS
adam: Human, ground-being.
אָדָם
This is the human named in the verse, the one who receives the task of searching.
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
The word’s connection to adamah brings the human search back to its earthly limits.
THE PATTERN
The drive to understand everything is a human task whose weight marks the limits of human wisdom.
I see the task God gives to the children of humankind, to be bowed by it.But from where is wisdom found, and where is the place of understanding?O the depth of the riches of both wisdom and knowledge of God! How beyond searching out are his judgments, and how beyond tracking are his ways!THE THREAD
I see the task God gives to the children of humankind, to be bowed by it.Ecclesiastes 3:10 repeats both עִנְיָן (inyan, task or occupation) and נָתַן (natan, give), naming the same human work again. The search in this verse is one instance of the occupation placed before humanity.
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