What Does Ecclesiastes 3:15 Mean?
What has been is already, and what will be has already been, and God seeks what has been pursued.
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
That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.THE KEY
The Hebrew word behind “past” means “the pursued,” so what seems left behind is precisely what God seeks.
THE MEANING
Your present is not cut off from what has been; what is coming already belongs to a recurring pattern. God seeks what has been pursued or driven away. The past remains within God’s active attention.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What is gone is irretrievable and no longer matters.
THE ROOT
נִרְדָּף
nirdaf
GROWS FROM
רדף
r-d-p
Pursue, chase after.
“what has been pursued” in this verse is nirdaf. The verse ends with nirdaf, “the pursued,” a word that pictures something chased or driven away. The same root describes goodness and faithful love pursuing a person in Psalm 23:6, linking what seems past with what is still being pursued.
ALSO GROWS
radaph: To pursue or chase after.
רָדַף
This is the root’s basic action: the thing called past is presented in the language of pursuit.
rodef: A pursuer; one who chases.
רֹדֵף
The root can describe the one doing the pursuing, as when goodness and faithful love “follow” in Psalm 23:6.
nirdaf: The pursued; one being chased.
נִרְדָּף
This form names what God seeks in the verse: the one or thing that has been pursued.
יְבַקֵּשׁ
yevaqqesh
GROWS FROM
בקש
b-q-sh
Seek, look for, ask.
“seeks” in this verse is yevaqqesh. The verb rendered “requireth” carries the sense of seeking or looking for. Paired with “the pursued,” it gives the line the striking shape of God seeking what has been chased away.
ALSO GROWS
biqqesh: He sought or looked for.
בִּקֵּשׁ
This form makes clear that the root describes searching after something, not merely demanding it.
mevaqqesh: One who seeks; a seeker.
מְבַקֵּשׁ
It brings the verse’s action into focus: God is the seeker of the pursued.
הָיָה
haya
GROWS FROM
היה
h-y-h
Be, become, come to pass.
“hath been / is to be” in this verse is haya. The statements about what has been and what is to be turn on the same root of being and coming to pass. The verse draws past and future into one recurring field of what comes to be.
ALSO GROWS
haya: Was, came to be, happened.
הָיָה
The verse uses this form for what has already been.
yihyeh: Will be, shall come to be.
יִהְיֶה
This form shows the same root reaching into what is yet to be.
lih’yot: To be, to happen.
לִהְיוֹת
The infinitive appears in the verse’s phrase for what is to come, tying the future to the same root.
THE PATTERN
The past keeps recurring, while what is driven away remains within the reach of pursuit.
What has been is what is to be; what is done is what is to be done. Nothing is new under the sun.Surely goodness and faithful love pursue me all the days of my life, and I settle in the house of the LORD for the length of days.What man among you, holding a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after the one that has lost its way until he finds it?THE THREAD
Surely goodness and faithful love pursue me all the days of my life, and I settle in the house of the LORD for the length of days.Psalm 23:6 uses the same רדף (radaph) root in “follow”: goodness and faithful love pursue the speaker through every day. Ecclesiastes turns that pursuit toward what it calls past, so God’s attention reaches what has been driven away.
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