What Does Ecclesiastes 9:11 Mean in the King James?
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
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
Your gifts can shape what you do, but they cannot own the moment that meets you.
THE MEANING
Your speed, strength, wisdom, understanding, and skill are real, but they do not control what arrives or when. Bread, riches, and favor are not guaranteed wages for competence. Time and encounter reach everyone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a difficult outcome proves you lacked ability, or that ability makes you invulnerable to circumstance.
THE ROOT
פֶּגַע
pegaʿ
GROWS FROM
פגע
To meet or encounter; in causative forms, to cause something to meet or come upon.
The word translated “chance” belongs to a root-family of meeting and encounter: the event is pictured as what meets you. The verse says such encounters reach everyone, without claiming whether each one is random or appointed.
ALSO GROWS
pagaʿ: To meet, encounter, or come upon.
פָּגַע
This is the root’s basic sense: what the verse calls chance is an occurrence that meets a person.
hiphgiaʿ: A causative form meaning to make something meet or come upon someone.
הִפְגִּיעַ
It shows the same root can describe something being made to meet upon a person, opening the verse’s “chance” to a broader image of what comes upon us.
THE PATTERN
What arrives is not reliably allocated according to human ability, foresight, or merit.
For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?THE THREAD
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.Ecclesiastes uses פֶּגַע (pegaʿ) for the occurrence that meets everyone. Isaiah uses a causative form of the same root when it says the LORD “laid” the crookedness upon him, literally, caused it to meet upon him, so the shared root carries the image of what comes upon a person.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us