传道书 2:21

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

因為人用智慧、知識和技能所勞碌得來的，卻必須留給未曾勞碌的人為分。這也是虛空，是極大的憾事。

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
因 为 有 人 用 智 慧 、 知 识 、 灵 巧 所 劳 碌 得 来 的 ， 却 要 留 给 未 曾 劳 碌 的 人 为 分 . 。 这 也 是 虚 空 ， 也 是 大 患 。

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

whose: Ecclesiastes 2:17, Ecclesiastes 2:18, Ecclesiastes 9:18, 2 Chronicles 31:20, 2 Chronicles 31:21, 2 Chronicles 33:2-9, 2 Chronicles 34:2, 2 Chronicles 35:18, 2 Chronicles 36:5-10, Jeremiah 22:15, Jeremiah 22:17

leave: Heb. give

Reciprocal: Genesis 1:20 - life Psalms 39:6 - surely Psalms 49:10 - leave Ecclesiastes 1:2 - General Ecclesiastes 4:4 - This is Ecclesiastes 11:8 - All that Jeremiah 2:13 - broken cisterns

Cross-References

Genesis 15:12
As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, a very terrible darkness came.

1 Samuel 26:12
So David took the spear and water jug that were near Saul's head, and they left. No one saw them or knew about it or woke up, because the Lord had put them sound asleep.

Job 4:13
It was during a nightmare when people are in deep sleep.

Job 33:15
He speaks in a dream or a vision of the night when people are in a deep sleep, lying on their beds.

Proverbs 19:15
Lazy people sleep a lot, and idle people will go hungry.

Daniel 8:18
While Gabriel was speaking, I fell into a deep sleep with my face on the ground. Then he touched me and lifted me to my feet.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For there is a man whose labour [is] in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity,.... Who does all he does, in natural, civil, and religious things, in the state, in his family, and the world, and whatsoever business he is engaged, in the wisest and best manner, with the utmost honesty and integrity, according to all the rules of wisdom and knowledge, and of justice and equity; meaning himself; the Midrash interprets this of God;

yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it [for] his portion; to his son, heir, and successor; who never took any pains, or joined with him, in acquiring the least part of it; and yet all comes into his hands, as his possession and inheritance: the Targum interprets this of a man that dies without children; and so others z understand it of his leaving his substance to strangers, and not to his children.

This also [is] vanity, and a great evil; not anything sinful and criminal, but vexatious and distressing.

z R. Joseph Titatzak in loc.

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 21. For there is a man — Does he not allude to himself? As if he had said, "I have laboured to cultivate my mind in wisdom and in science, in knowledge of men and things, and have endeavoured to establish equity and dispense justice. And now I find I shall leave all the fruits of my labour to a man that hath not laboured therein, and consequently cannot prize what I have wrought." Does he not refer to his son Rehoboam?