What Does Ecclesiastes 1:14 Mean in the King James?
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
“Vanity” here is vapor: every achievement under the sun is real, yet impossible to hold.
THE MEANING
You see the works made under the sun, and they pass like vapor: visible, real, and impossible to retain. The pursuit feeds on wind and breath, so its frustration is the ache of trying to hold what keeps moving through you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that enough achievement can make life permanently secure dissolves here: what is made under the sun cannot be turned into something lasting to possess.
THE ROOT
הֶבֶל
hebel
GROWS FROM
הבל
hbl
Breath or vapor; by extension, what is insubstantial or fleeting.
“Vanity” carries the concrete image of breath or vapor: visible, but impossible to keep in the hand. The root lets the verse say that work is real and seen, yet its result has no lasting substance.
ALSO GROWS
hebel: Breath, vapor, or something fleeting.
הֶבֶל
This is the image beneath “vanity”: the work appears, but passes like an exhale.
havalim: Vanities or empty things.
הֲבָלִים
The plural in Ecclesiastes 1:2 extends the image across life’s pursuits: many things can appear substantial and still pass like vapor.
רְעוּת
re'ut
GROWS FROM
רעה
ra'ah
To pasture, tend, or feed.
רְעוּת (re’ut, translated “vexation”) is often linked with רעה (ra’ah, to pasture or feed), giving the phrase an image of feeding on or pursuing wind. The frustration is not only a feeling; it is the hunger of a pursuit that cannot nourish.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: A shepherd, one who tends or feeds a flock.
רֹעֶה
This branch brings the idea of feeding into the phrase: the pursuit reaches for something to sustain it.
mir'eh: A pasture or grazing place.
מִרְעֶה
A pasture can feed a flock, but wind cannot; the image exposes the emptiness of trying to draw nourishment from what cannot be grasped.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
r-w-ḥ
Moving air: wind or breath.
רוּחַ (ruach, wind and breath) is one Hebrew word where English can separate wind, spirit, and breath. The pursuit reaches for moving air, while the same word keeps breath, the life moving through you, inside the image.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind or breath.
רוּחַ
The word names the wind being pursued and preserves its connection to breath.
ruchi: My breath or my spirit.
רוּחִי
This possessive form keeps the same root in a personal expression of breath, bringing the image close to the life within the reader.
THE PATTERN
What human work and human life seem to make lasting still passes like vapor, beyond permanent possession.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.THE THREAD
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.Psalm 39:5 uses the same Hebrew word הֶבֶל (hebel, vapor or breath) rendered “vanity” here. It makes the image measurable: even a person at their best occupies only a handbreadth, while vapor lasts only a moment.
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