What Does Ecclesiastes 5:3 Mean?
A dream comes with a throng of tasks, and the voice of the thick-headed comes with a throng of words.
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
For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words.THE KEY
Excess gives itself away: crowded activity surfaces in dreams, and a flood of speech makes foolishness audible.
THE MEANING
When your life is crowded with activity, that overflow surfaces in your dreams; when your words keep multiplying, foolishness becomes audible. The verse shows excess revealing what fills you through what rises from you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
More words do not prove wisdom; their abundance can reveal foolishness.
THE ROOT
דְּבָרִים
devarim
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
To speak; word or matter.
“throng of words” in this verse is devarim. The word here, דְּבָרִים (devarim, words), comes from ד־ב־ר, which also gives דָּבָר (davar, word or matter) and דִּבֵּר (dibber, spoke). Hebrew holds speech and matter close: a flood of words is not empty sound but something that reveals what fills the speaker.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: Spoke; said.
דִּבֵּר
This verb shares the root of “words,” tying what is said to the speech that gives it voice.
davar: Word; matter or thing.
דָּבָר
This noun shows that the root can name both speech and a matter, giving words substance beyond their sound.
THE PATTERN
What overflows from a person reveals what fills them.
And the fool multiplies words; no one perceives what will be, and what will be after him, who can tell him?In a multitude of words, rebellion does not stop; but he who holds back his lips is wise.You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.THE THREAD
In a multitude of words, rebellion does not stop; but he who holds back his lips is wise.“Words” in both passages is דְּבָרִים (devarim), from the root ד־ב־ר. Ecclesiastes shows abundance of speech exposing foolishness; Proverbs shows the trouble that gathers in that same abundance.
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