What Does Ecclesiastes 8:6 Mean in the King James?
Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him.
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
What the KJV calls a “purpose” is a matter or desire (ḥēp̄eṣ), and such matters have their time and ordering even while human distress remains heavy.
THE MEANING
Your affairs and desires do not float outside time or judgment; each has its occasion and its ordering. Yet that larger order does not make distress weightless: trouble can press heavily on you now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that an appointed order makes suffering small or easy to explain; it places great human distress beside time and judgment without erasing either.
THE ROOT
חֵפֶץ
ḥēp̄eṣ
GROWS FROM
חפץ
ḥ-p-ṣ
To desire, take pleasure in, or find something pleasing.
“Purpose” can sound like an abstract plan, but חֵפֶץ can name a matter or affair, as well as a desire. The verse places each lived matter within its time and judgment, while still naming the distress pressing on a person.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēp̄eṣ: Desire, delight, matter, or affair.
חֵפֶץ
This is the word translated “purpose” here: the verse speaks of the matters and desires that meet their time and judgment.
ḥāp̄ēṣ: To desire or take pleasure in.
חָפֵץ
The verbal branch shows the longing within a “purpose”: the matter is not merely an item on a schedule but can be something a person desires.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpāṭ
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-ṭ
To judge, decide, or administer justice.
מִשְׁפָּט carries the sense of judgment or justice, giving the verse’s “time” an answering counterpart: a matter has both its occasion and its evaluation. That ordering does not erase the verse’s stark claim that human distress is great.
ALSO GROWS
shāphaṭ: To judge or decide.
שָׁפַט
The verb makes the active force behind judgment visible: a matter is weighed and decided.
shōphēṭ: A judge.
שֹׁפֵט
This branch names the one who judges, showing that מִשְׁפָּט is an act of discernment, not simply a date on a calendar.
רָעַת
rāʿat
GROWS FROM
רעע
r-ʿ-ʿ
To be bad or harmful; to cause harm or trouble.
The Hebrew word translated “misery” is shaped by the language of evil and trouble. The verse does not soften what presses on a person: even with time and judgment in view, human distress can be great.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil, or harmful.
רַע
This adjective shows the word’s basic connection to what is harmful or wrong.
rāʿāh: Evil, trouble, or adversity.
רָעָה
This noun branch brings out the trouble and adversity that weigh on the person in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Every matter and work has its appointed occasion and ordering, while present distress remains real.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.THE THREAD
I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.The verse repeats the same Hebrew matter-or-desire word, חֵפֶץ (ḥēp̄eṣ), and the same judgment root, שפט (sh-p-ṭ), found in Ecclesiastes 8:6. It makes their pairing unmistakable, while Ecclesiastes 8:6 keeps the weight of human distress in view.
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