What Does Ecclesiastes 1:14 Mean?
I have seen all the works done under the sun, and look, all is vapor and a herding of breath.
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
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.THE KEY
“Vanity” here is vapor: every achievement under the sun is real, yet impossible to hold.
THE MEANING
You see the works made under the sun, and they pass like vapor: visible, real, and impossible to retain. The pursuit feeds on wind and breath, so its frustration is the ache of trying to hold what keeps moving through you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that enough achievement can make life permanently secure dissolves here: what is made under the sun cannot be turned into something lasting to possess.
THE ROOT
הֶבֶל
hebel
GROWS FROM
הבל
hbl
Breath or vapor; by extension, what is insubstantial or fleeting.
“Vanity” carries the concrete image of breath or vapor: visible, but impossible to keep in the hand. The root lets the verse say that work is real and seen, yet its result has no lasting substance.
ALSO GROWS
hebel: Breath, vapor, or something fleeting.
הֶבֶל
This is the image beneath “vanity”: the work appears, but passes like an exhale.
havalim: Vanities or empty things.
הֲבָלִים
The plural in Ecclesiastes 1:2 extends the image across life’s pursuits: many things can appear substantial and still pass like vapor.
רְעוּת
re'ut
GROWS FROM
רעה
ra'ah
To pasture, tend, or feed.
“a herding of breath” in this verse is re'ut. רְעוּת (re’ut, translated “vexation”) is often linked with רעה (ra’ah, to pasture or feed), giving the phrase an image of feeding on or pursuing wind. The frustration is not only a feeling; it is the hunger of a pursuit that cannot nourish.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: A shepherd, one who tends or feeds a flock.
רֹעֶה
This branch brings the idea of feeding into the phrase: the pursuit reaches for something to sustain it.
mir'eh: A pasture or grazing place.
מִרְעֶה
A pasture can feed a flock, but wind cannot; the image exposes the emptiness of trying to draw nourishment from what cannot be grasped.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
r-w-ḥ
Moving air: wind or breath.
“a herding of breath” in this verse is ruach. רוּחַ (ruach, wind and breath) is one Hebrew word where English can separate wind, spirit, and breath. The pursuit reaches for moving air, while the same word keeps breath, the life moving through you, inside the image.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind or breath.
רוּחַ
The word names the wind being pursued and preserves its connection to breath.
ruchi: My breath or my spirit.
רוּחִי
This possessive form keeps the same root in a personal expression of breath, bringing the image close to the life within the reader.
THE PATTERN
What human work and human life seem to make lasting still passes like vapor, beyond permanent possession.
Then I turned my face to all the works my hands had made, and to the toil I had toiled to make. And behold, all is vapor and a herding of breath, and there is no remainder under the sun.Behold, you have set my days as hand-widths, and my passing is as nothing before you. Surely every man standing is altogether vapor. Selah.You do not know what tomorrow holds. For what is your life? You are a mist, showing itself for a little while, and then made unseen.THE THREAD
Behold, you have set my days as hand-widths, and my passing is as nothing before you. Surely every man standing is altogether vapor. Selah.Psalm 39:5 uses the same Hebrew word הֶבֶל (hebel, vapor or breath) rendered “vanity” here. It makes the image measurable: even a person at their best occupies only a handbreadth, while vapor lasts only a moment.
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