What Does Ecclesiastes 7:20 Mean?
For there is no aligned human upon the earth who does good and does not miss the mark.
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 there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.THE KEY
The verse holds alignment and missing in the same person: doing good does not make anyone incapable of missing.
THE MEANING
You can do genuine good and still miss; no human life is so aligned that it never does. The verse holds both realities in the same person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Goodness means never failing, and one failure proves the good was false.
THE ROOT
יֶחֱטָא
yecheta
GROWS FROM
חטא
chata
To miss or miss the mark.
“does not miss the mark” in this verse is yecheta. Here the root is a verb: missing is something a person does, not a permanent title for who they are. Even the person described as just and doing good remains capable of this human act.
ALSO GROWS
chet: Missing; sin.
חֵטְא
The noun keeps the idea of a miss close to the verse’s verb, adding that concrete shade to “sinneth.”
chatta't: Missing; sin offering.
חַטָּאת
The same word family can name both the miss and an offering for the missing, revealing a wider range than the English word alone carries.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
tsadaq
To be right or aligned.
“aligned human” in this verse is tsaddiq. Calling someone tsaddiq gives them genuine alignment; the verse does not withdraw that description when it names their missing. Alignment and missing can inhabit one human life.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice; alignment.
צֶדֶק
The related noun links the person’s “just” quality to the wider idea of justice and right ordering.
tsedaqah: Righteousness; justice; alignment.
צְדָקָה
This branch extends the same root’s language of rightness into lived conduct and relationship.
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
adam
Human, with a word-family connection to ground.
“aligned human” in this verse is adam. The verse speaks of adam, the human, upon the earth; adam echoes adamah, ground. The claim stays embodied in human life rather than describing an abstract ideal.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground; soil.
אֲדָמָה
Its shared consonants link the human, adam, with the ground from which humanity is formed.
adom: Red.
אָדֹם
This related form keeps the root’s earth-colored word family near the verse’s ground-level picture of humanity.
THE PATTERN
Human life can hold real good and real missing at once; no person does good without ever missing.
If they miss the mark against you, for there is no one who does not miss, and your anger burns against them, and you give them over to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far or near;For all have missed the mark, and fall short of the weight of God.For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, this one is a complete man, able also to bridle the whole body.THE THREAD
Tremble, and do not miss the mark. Say in your heart, upon your bed, and hush. Selah.Both verses use חטא (chata, miss): Ecclesiastes uses it for the miss even a just person commits, while Psalm 4 uses the same root in “sin not.” The shared root lets “sinneth” carry the sense of a human act without turning the person into a fixed identity.
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