传道书 2:20

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

於是我轉念，對日光之下我所勞碌的一切，心感絕望；

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
故 此 ， 我 转 想 我 在 日 光 之 下 所 劳 碌 的 一 切 工 作 ， 心 便 绝 望 。

Contextual Overview

¹⁷ So I hated life. It made me sad to think that everything here on earth is useless, like chasing the wind. ¹⁸ I hated all the things I had worked for here on earth, because I must leave them to someone who will live after me. ¹⁹ Someone else will control everything for which I worked so hard here on earth, and I don't know if he will be wise or foolish. This is also useless. ²⁰ So I became sad about all the hard work I had done here on earth. ²¹ People can work hard using all their wisdom, knowledge, and skill, but they will die, and other people will get the things for which they worked. They did not do the work, but they will get everything. This is also unfair and useless. ²² What do people get for all their work and struggling here on earth? ²³ All of their lives their work is full of pain and sorrow, and even at night their minds don't rest. This is also useless. ²⁴ The best that people can do is eat, drink, and enjoy their work. I saw that even this comes from God, ²⁵ because no one can eat or enjoy life without him. ²⁶ If people please God, God will give them wisdom, knowledge, and joy. But sinners will get only the work of gathering and storing wealth that they will have to give to the ones who please God. So all their work is useless, like chasing the wind.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Genesis 43:14, Job 17:11-15, Psalms 39:6, Psalms 39:7, 1 Corinthians 15:19, 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, 1 Thessalonians 3:3, 1 Thessalonians 3:4

Reciprocal: Psalms 127:2 - vain Ecclesiastes 3:19 - for Ecclesiastes 7:25 - I applied mine heart

Cross-References

Genesis 2:18
Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is right for him."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair,.... Of ever finding happiness in anything here below. He "turned about" y, as the word signifies dropped his severe studies of wisdom, and his eager pursuits of pleasure; and desisted from those toilsome works, in which he had employed himself; and went from one thing to another, and settled and stuck at nothing, on purpose to relax his mind, as the Syriac version renders it; to divest it of all anxious thought and care, and call it off from its vain and fruitless undertakings; and be no more concerned about or thoughtful

of all the labour which I took under the sun; and what will be the consequence and issue of it; but quietly leave all to an all wise disposing Providence; and not seek for happiness in anything under the sun, but in those things that are above it; not in this world, but in the world to come.

y וסבותי "versus sum", Montanus; "et ego verti me", Vatablus, Mercerus, Gejerus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Solomon having found that wisdom and folly agree in being subject to vanity, now contrasts one with the other Ecclesiastes 2:13. Both are brought under vanity by events Ecclesiastes 2:14 which come on the wise man and the feel alike from without - death and oblivion Ecclesiastes 2:16, uncertainty Ecclesiastes 2:19, disappointment Ecclesiastes 2:21 - all happening by an external law beyond human control. Amidst this vanity, the good (see Ecclesiastes 2:10 note) that accrues to man, is the pleasure felt Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 in receiving God’s gifts, and in working with and for them.

Ecclesiastes 2:12

What can the man do ... - i. e., “What is any man - in this study of wisdom and folly - after one like me, who, from my position, have had such special advantages (see Ecclesiastes 1:16, and compare Ecclesiastes 2:25) for carrying it on? That which man did of old he can but do again: he is not likely to add to the result of my researches, nor even to equal them.” Some hold that the “man” is a reference to Solomon’s successor - not in his inquiries, but in his kingdom, i. e., Jeroboam.

Ecclesiastes 2:14

Event - Or, “hap” Ruth 2:3. The verb from which it is derived seems in this book to refer especially to death. The word does not mean chance (compare Ecclesiastes 9:1-2), independent of the ordering of Divine Providence: the Gentile notion of “mere chance,” or “blind fate,” is never once contemplated by the writer of this book, and it would be inconsistent with his tenets of the unlimited power and activity of God.

Ecclesiastes 2:16

Seeing that ... - Compare Ecclesiastes 1:11. Some render, “as in time past, so in days to come, all will be forgotten;” others, “because in the days to come all will have been long before forgotten.”

Ecclesiastes 2:17

I hated life - Compare this expression, extorted from Solomon by the perception of the vanity of his wisdom and greatness, with Romans 8:22-23. The words of Moses Numbers 11:15, and of Job Job 3:21; Job 6:9, are scarcely less forcible. With some people, this feeling is a powerful motive to conversion Luke 14:26.

Ecclesiastes 2:19

Labour - Compare Ecclesiastes 2:4-8.

Ecclesiastes 2:20

I went about - i. e., I turned from one course of action to another.

Ecclesiastes 2:23

Are sorrows ... grief - Rather, sorrows and grief are his toil. See Ecclesiastes 1:13.

Ecclesiastes 2:24

Nothing better for a man, than that ... - literally, no good in man that etc. The one joy of working or receiving, which, though it be transitory, a man recognizes as a real good, even that is not in the power of man to secure for himself: that good is the gift of God.

Ecclesiastes 2:26

The doctrine of retribution, or, the revealed fact that God is the moral Governor of the world, is here stated for the first time (compare Ecclesiastes 3:15, Ecclesiastes 3:17 ff) in this book.

This also is vanity - Not only the travail of the sinner. Even the best gifts of God, wisdom, knowledge, and joy, so far as they are given in this life, are not permanent, and are not always (see Ecclesiastes 9:11) efficacious for the purpose for which they appear to be given.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 20. I went about to cause my heart to despair — What makes all worse, there is no remedy. It is impossible in the present state of things to prevent these evils.