What Does Ecclesiastes 5:7 Mean?
For in a crowd of dreams and many words there are also vapors. But stand in awe of God.
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 in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.THE KEY
Dreams and many words can multiply without becoming substance; the verse sets awe of God as the one steady point.
THE MEANING
Your mind can fill with dreams and your mouth with words, yet abundance alone does not make them substantial. Awe of God remains the verse’s anchor amid that multiplication.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a vivid idea or a long explanation must carry weight simply because it occupies so much of your attention.
THE ROOT
יְרָא
yeraʾ
GROWS FROM
ירא
y-r-ʾ
To fear, revere, or stand in awe.
Here יְרָא (yeraʾ, fear or stand in awe) is directed toward God, giving the word the sense of reverence before what is ultimate. The verse places that stance against multiplying dreams and words, which do not become more substantial through sheer volume.
ALSO GROWS
yirʾah: Fear or awe
יִרְאָה
This noun from the same root names the inward posture the verse calls for toward God.
mora: Dread or reverence
מוֹרָא
This branch carries the root’s sense of being deeply moved before what is greater than oneself.
הֲבָלִים
havalim
GROWS FROM
הבל
h-b-l
Vapor; what is fleeting or insubstantial.
“vapors” in this verse is havalim. The word translated “vanities” carries the image of vapor: present, but unable to hold a fixed shape. In the verse, dreams and many words can gather into a multitude while still yielding what is fleeting.
ALSO GROWS
hevel: Vapor; something fleeting or insubstantial
הֶבֶל
This singular form makes visible the vapor image beneath the translated “vanities.”
haval: To be vain or futile
הָבַל
The verbal form shows vanity as a quality of what comes to nothing, illuminating the verse’s warning about abundance without substance.
דְּבָרִים
devarim
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; the related noun can mean a word, matter, or thing.
דְּבָרִים (devarim, words) belongs to a root whose noun also names matters or things. The verse’s many words are therefore not merely sound: they are matters multiplying, set beside the vaporous vanities they can produce.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word, matter, or thing
דָּבָר
This noun shows how speech and matters belong to the same word family, sharpening the verse’s concern with many words.
dibber: To speak or utter
דִּבֵּר
The verb makes the act behind “many words” visible: speech can multiply without guaranteeing substance.
THE PATTERN
The volume of human speech does not establish substance; wisdom begins with awe of God.
In a multitude of words, rebellion does not stop; but he who holds back his lips is wise.The awe of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the set-apart ones is discernment.For the governance of God is not in word, but in strength.THE THREAD
Let us hear and respond to the end of the whole matter. Stand in awe of God, and guard his commands, for this is the whole of the human.The same Hebrew root ירא (y-r-ʾ, to fear or stand in awe) returns in the book’s closing measure. Awe is not a side note beside life’s multiplying vanities; it is the stance that gives the whole matter its point.
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