What Does Ecclesiastes 7:26 Mean?
And I find the woman more bitter than death, whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands bind. Whoever is good before the face of God slips free of her, but the one missing the mark is caught by her.
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
And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.THE KEY
Here the heart lays the snare and the hands complete it: the trap is already a bond in motion.
THE MEANING
The verse names a woman whose heart is a snare and whose hands bind; the danger is personal and active now. What is good before God escapes her, while the one who misses is caught by her.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that capture begins only when the hands close: here, the trap is already in the heart.
THE ROOT
מְצוֹדִים
metsodim
GROWS FROM
צוד
צוד (ṣûd) means to hunt, pursue, or catch.
מְצוֹדִים (metsodim, snares) grows from צוד (ṣûd, hunt or catch). The word carries the activity of hunting inside the trap: this is pursuit that intends capture, while the nearby bonds show where that pursuit ends.
ALSO GROWS
lāṣûd: to hunt, pursue, catch
לָצוּד
This verb names the action behind the snares: the trap is hunting gear.
məṣûdāh: hunting net, trap; stronghold
מְצוּדָה
The same word family names both what catches and what holds, extending the image from snaring to confinement.
אֲסוּרִים
asurim
GROWS FROM
אסר
אסר (ʾāsar) means to bind or tie up.
“bind” in this verse is asurim. אֲסוּרִים (asurim, bands) carries the root’s action of binding. Its related forms also mean bound or forbidden, so the image reaches from the hands’ touch to restricted freedom.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsûr: bound; forbidden
אָסוּר
The bound state makes explicit what the hands as bands do in the verse.
ʾissûr: binding; prohibition
אִסּוּר
This form links physical restraint with a condition that limits what can be done.
חוֹטֵא
ḥōṭēʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
חטא (ḥṭʾ) means to miss or miss the mark.
“missing the mark” in this verse is ḥōṭēʾ. חוֹטֵא (ḥōṭēʾ, one who misses) identifies the person through the act of missing. The verse sets that missing alongside the capture described by צוד (ṣûd, hunt or catch).
ALSO GROWS
ḥēṭʾ: a missing; an offense
חֵטְא
The noun names the act that the verse associates with being caught.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: missing; an offering for the missing
חַטָּאת
This related form keeps the language of missing visible even where English may use a different word.
THE PATTERN
A snare’s pull can become captivity, while deliverance is pictured as escape from what has caught hold.
Our living soul slips free like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we slip free.His own crookednesses catch the wicked, and he is held by the cords of his falling short.And that they may come back to their senses out of the snare of the Slanderer, who have been caught alive by him into his will.THE THREAD
Our living soul slips free like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we slip free.Both verses use מלט (mālaṭ, escape or deliver): Ecclesiastes has יִמָּלֵט (yimmālēṭ, he escapes), and Psalm 124 has נִמְלְטָה (nimləṭāh, escaped). Psalm 124 makes the same movement visible: the snare breaks, and the bird gets out.
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