What Does Ecclesiastes 7:13 Mean?
See the making of God, for who can straighten what he has bent?
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
Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?THE KEY
The sharpest turn is that the condition needing repair is itself named as God’s work.
THE MEANING
You are asked to consider God’s work where a condition stands bent and resists your ability to set it right. The verse leaves the question in the present: who can straighten what God has made crooked?
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that every crooked condition is yours to repair if you work hard enough. The verse names a limit that effort cannot cross.
THE ROOT
לְתַקֵּן
lətaqqēn
GROWS FROM
תקן
תקן (t-q-n): to make straight, set right, arrange, or repair.
“straighten” in this verse is lətaqqēn. The verb translated make straight also carries the sense of setting right or repairing. The verse asks who can repair a condition that God has made crooked, placing human repair beside divine action.
ALSO GROWS
tiqqun: repair, correction, rectification
תִּקּוּן
This same root names the act of restoring or setting something right, drawing out the repair sense within the verse’s question.
metuqqan: corrected, arranged, set in order
מְתֻקָּן
This branch describes the state that follows setting something right, sharpening what the verse asks whether anyone can accomplish.
יוּכַל
yûkhal
GROWS FROM
יכל
יכל (y-k-l): to be able, have capacity, or prevail.
The question turns on capacity: who has the ability to set this right? Its force is not about willingness; it asks whether anyone can reach the limit the verse names.
ALSO GROWS
yākhōl: able, capable; can
יָכוֹל
This is the same root in a form that directly names ability, making the verse’s question one of capacity.
yekhōlet: ability, capacity
יְכֹלֶת
This noun makes explicit the capacity the verse asks about: who possesses enough power to straighten what God has bent?
מַעֲשֵׂה
maʿăśeh
GROWS FROM
עשה
עשה (ʿ-ś-h): to do or make.
“making” in this verse is maʿăśeh. The word for work grows from the ordinary verb do or make. The verse directs attention to God’s doing itself before asking about the condition that doing leaves in view.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāśāh: did, made
עָשָׂה
This verb shares the root and keeps the verse’s work of God tied to an act of making.
ʿōśeh: doing, making; one who does
עֹשֶׂה
This form holds the ongoing act of doing close to the noun work, emphasizing that the verse asks you to consider God’s action.
THE PATTERN
Human ability to repair or reverse a condition has limits before God’s work, while the text keeps divine agency distinct from those limits.
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.For the LORD of hosts has counseled, and who will break it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?But Jesus looked straight at them and said to them, With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.THE THREAD
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.This verse uses the same Hebrew root for setting something right as Ecclesiastes 7:13. It first says crookedness cannot be straightened; the later verse sharpens the question by naming the crooked condition as God’s work.
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