What Does Ecclesiastes 6:1 Mean?
There is a harm I see under the sun, and it is abundant among humankind.
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
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men:THE KEY
The word behind “common” also carries the sense of “great” or “abundant”: what is widespread here is named as something great upon humanity.
THE MEANING
The verse gives you language for harm that has become ordinary through repetition. Its prevalence does not make it light; it is great upon the human, pressing across human life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If a harm is common, it is simply part of life and no longer truly evil.
THE ROOT
רַבָּה
rabbah
GROWS FROM
רבה
To become many, grow, or increase.
The Hebrew phrase describes the evil as great or abundant upon the human. “Common” conveys its prevalence; the root also lets you see its scale, as harm that has grown large across human life.
ALSO GROWS
harbeh: Much, many, abundantly.
הַרְבֵּה
This branch makes the sense of abundance in “common” visible: the harm is widespread.
hirbah: To multiply or increase.
הִרְבָּה
This verb shows the root’s movement: what is common has grown in extent.
רָעָה
ra‘ah
GROWS FROM
רעע
To be bad or cause harm.
The word names real harm, not merely something unusual or uncomfortable. Beside rabbah, it describes harm that is both present and extensive.
ALSO GROWS
ra‘: Bad, evil, harmful.
רַע
This related form keeps the verse’s judgment concrete: what is widespread is still harmful.
herea‘: Did evil or caused harm.
הֵרֵעַ
This verbal branch shows the root in action, giving the noun “evil” the force of something that harms.
THE PATTERN
What becomes widespread in human life remains harm even when it feels ordinary.
And the LORD saw that the harm of humankind was great in the earth, and that every shaping of the thoughts of his heart was only harm all the day.All this I see, and I give my heart to every work done under the sun. There is a time when one human has power over another to his harm.For we know that the whole creation groans together and labors together in the pangs of birth until now.THE THREAD
And the LORD saw that the harm of humankind was great in the earth, and that every shaping of the thoughts of his heart was only harm all the day.Genesis names human wickedness as great, while this verse describes an evil as great upon humanity; both use הָאָדָם (ha’adam, the human), rendered “man” or “men” in the KJV. The roots רָעָה (ra‘ah, evil or harm) and רָבָה (rabah, grow or increase) connect the kind of harm with its scale.
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