Ecclesiastes 3:20

Christian Standard Bible ®

All are going to the same place; all come from dust, and all return to dust.

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.

King James Version
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

English Standard Version
All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.

New American Standard Bible
All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.

New Century Version
Both end up the same way; both came from dust and both will go back to dust.

Amplified Bible
All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.

World English Bible
All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Geneva Bible (1587)
All goe to one place, & all was of the dust, and all shall returne to the dust.

Legacy Standard Bible
All go to the same place. All came from the dust, and all return to the dust.

Berean Standard Bible
All go to one place; all come from dust, and all return to dust.

Contemporary English Version
All living creatures go to the same place. We are made from earth, and we return to the earth.

Complete Jewish Bible
They all go to the same place; they all come from dust, and they all return to dust.

Darby Translation
All go unto one place: all are of the dust, and all return to dust.

Easy-to-Read Version
The bodies of people and animals end the same way. They came from the earth, and, in the end, they will go back to the earth.

George Lamsa Translation
All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Good News Translation
They are both going to the same place—the dust. They both came from it; they will both go back to it.

Lexham English Bible
Both go to one place—both came from dust and both return to dust.

Literal Translation
All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all return to the dust.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
They go all vnto one place, for as they be all of dust, so shal they all turne vnto dust againe.

American Standard Version
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Bible in Basic English
All go to one place, all are of the dust, and all will be turned to dust again.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust.

King James Version (1611)
All goe vnto one place, all are of the dust, and all turne to dust againe.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
They go all vnto one place: for as they be all of dust, so shall they all turne vnto dust agayne.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
All go to one place; all were formed of the dust, and all will return to dust.

English Revised Version
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Alle thingis ben suget to vanyte, and alle thingis goen to o place; tho ben maad of erthe, and tho turnen ayen togidere in to erthe.

Update Bible Version
All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Webster's Bible Translation
All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

New English Translation
Both go to the same place, both come from the dust, and to dust both return.

New King James Version
All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust.

New Living Translation
Both go to the same place—they came from dust and they return to dust.

New Life Bible
All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.

New Revised Standard
All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
all, go unto one place, - all, came from the dust, and all, return to the dust.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And all things go to one place: of earth they were made, and into earth they return together.

Revised Standard Version
All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Young's Literal Translation
The whole are going unto one place, the whole have been from the dust, and the whole are turning back unto the dust.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.

Contextual Overview

¹⁶I also observed under the sun: there is wickedness at the place of judgment and there is wickedness at the place of righteousness. ¹⁷I said to myself, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked, since there is a time for every activity and every work.” ¹⁸I said to myself, “This happens so that God may test the children of Adam and they may see for themselves that they are like animals.” ¹⁹For the fate of the children of Adam and the fate of animals is the same. As one dies, so dies the other; they all have the same breath. People have no advantage over animals since everything is futile. ²⁰All are going to the same place; all come from dust, and all return to dust. ²¹Who knows if the spirits of the children of Adam go upward and the spirits of animals go downward to the earth? ²²I have seen that there is nothing better than for a person to enjoy his activities because that is his reward. For who can enable him to see what will happen after he dies?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

go: Ecclesiastes 3:21, Ecclesiastes 6:6, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Genesis 25:8, Genesis 25:17, Numbers 27:13, Job 7:9, Job 17:13, Job 30:24, Psalms 49:14

all are: Genesis 3:19, Job 10:9, Job 10:10, Job 34:15, Psalms 104:29, Daniel 12:2

Reciprocal: Genesis 2:7 - dust 2 Samuel 14:14 - we must Psalms 89:48 - What Ecclesiastes 12:7 - dust Hebrews 9:27 - as

Cross-References

Genesis 2:20
The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him.

Genesis 2:23
And the man said:

Genesis 5:29
And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will bring us relief from the agonizing labor of our hands, caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”

Genesis 16:11
The angel of the Lord said to her, “You have conceived and will have a son. You will name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction.

Genesis 35:18
With her last breath—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni, but his father called him Benjamin.

Exodus 2:10
When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

1 Samuel 1:20
After some time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, because she said, “I requested him from the Lord.”

Matthew 1:21
She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Matthew 1:23
See, the virgin will become pregnantand give birth to a son,and they will name him Immanuel,

Acts 17:26
From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

All go unto one place,.... The earth w from whence they came;

all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again; Adam's body was made of the dust of the earth, and so all his posterity, all of them; in which they agree with beasts, who are made of the dust also; and, when they die, return to it; see Genesis 2:7.

w "Magna parens terra est", Ovid. Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 7.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

That great anomaly in the moral government of this world, the seemingly unequal distribution of rewards and punishments, will be rectified by God, who has future times and events under His control Ecclesiastes 3:16-17. As for people, they are placed by God, who is their teacher, in a humble condition, even on a level with inferior animals, by death, that great instance of their subjection to vanity Ecclesiastes 3:18-19, which reduces to its original form all that was made of the dust of the ground Ecclesiastes 3:20. And though the destinies of man and beast are different, yet in our present lack of knowledge as to God’s future dealing with our spirits Ecclesiastes 3:21, man finds his portion (see the Ecclesiastes 2:10 note) in such labor and such joy as God assigns to him in his lifetime Ecclesiastes 3:22.

Ecclesiastes 3:16

I saw ... - Rather, I have seen (as in Ecclesiastes 3:10) under the sun the place etc. The place of judgment means the seat of the authorized judge. Compare “the place of the holy” Ecclesiastes 8:10.

Ecclesiastes 3:17

A time there - i. e., a time with God.

Ecclesiastes 3:18

literally, I said in my heart with regard to the sons of men, it is that God may prove them and show them that they are beasts, they themselves. “Showing” is the reading of the Septuagint and Syriac: the present Hebrew text reads “seeing.” The meaning is that the long delay of God’s judgment Ecclesiastes 3:16-17 is calculated to show people that the brevity of their life renders them incapable of following out and understanding His distributive justice.

Ecclesiastes 3:19

That which befalleth the sons of men - literally, the event (happenstance) of the sons of men, i. e., what comes upon them from outside, by virtue of the ordinance of God. See the Ecclesiastes 2:14 note. Death in particular Ecclesiastes 3:2, Ecclesiastes 3:11 is a part of the “work that God doeth.”

Ecclesiastes 3:21

The King James Version of this verse is the only rendering which the Hebrew text, as now pointed, allows. It is in accordance with the best Jewish and many modern interpreters. A slightly different pointing would be requisite to authorize the translation, “Who knows the spirit of the sons of man whether it goes above, and, the spirit of the beast whether it goes down below?” etc., which, though it seems neither necessary nor suitable, is sanctioned by the Septuagint and other versions and by some modern interpreters.

Who knoweth - This expression (used also in Ecclesiastes 2:19; Ecclesiastes 6:12) does not necessarily imply complete and absolute ignorance. In Psalms 90:11, it is applied to what is partially understood: compare similar forms of expression in Proverbs 31:10; Psalms 94:16; Isaiah 53:1. Moreover, it is evident from marginal references that Solomon did not doubt the future existence and destination of the soul. This verse can only be construed as a confession of much ignorance on the subject.

Ecclesiastes 3:22

What shall be after him - i. e., What shall become of the results of his work after he is dead. Compare Ecclesiastes 2:19; Ecclesiastes 6:12.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 20. All go unto one place —

"Man was born

To die, nor aught exceeds in this respect

The vilest brute. Both transient, frail, and vain,

Draw the same breath; alike grow old, decay,

And then expire: both to one grave descend;

There blended lie, to native dust return'd."-C.