Ecclesiastes 6

World English Bible 84 include this book

1 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is heavy on men:

2 a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but an alien eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

3 If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he;

4 for it comes in vanity, and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness.

5 Moreover it has not seen the sun nor known it. This has rest rather than the other.

6 Yes, though he live a thousand years twice told, and yet fails to enjoy good, don’t all go to one place?

7 All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.

8 For what advantage has the wise more than the fool? What has the poor man, that knows how to walk before the living?

9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.

10 Whatever has been, its name was given long ago; and it is known what man is; neither can he contend with him who is mightier than he.

11 For there are many words that create vanity. What does that profit man?

12 For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?

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1 place named in this book — no place is named in this chapter, so the whole book is shown.

Where this was written

Jerusalem traditional Presented as the reflection of a king in Jerusalem.

When this was written

Traditions differ. Each position is shown rather than one asserted as settled.

Traditional: 970 BC–931 BC Solomon
Ascribed to Solomon by the text's own superscription.
Critical: 450 BC–200 BC Anonymous
Language and vocabulary, including Persian and possibly Greek influence, point to a much later composition.

Elsewhere in the world

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (970 BC–200 BC).

1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1200 BC–600 BC Zoroaster teaches in Persia Persia
Founder of Zoroastrianism, whose dating is disputed by as much as six centuries. His teaching on a cosmic struggle between good and evil later touched Jewish and Christian thought.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
1050 BC–800 BC The Phoenician alphabet spreads Levant
A compact consonantal alphabet that became the ancestor of Greek, Latin and Hebrew scripts.
776 BC First recorded Olympiad Greece
The traditional starting point of Greek historical chronology.
753 BC Traditional founding of Rome Rome
The legendary date of Rome's founding, later used as the anchor of the Roman calendar.
745 BC–609 BC Neo-Assyrian empire at its height Mesopotamia
Assyria dominated the Near East, deporting conquered populations as policy, including the northern kingdom of Israel.
620 BC–560 BC Coinage invented in Lydia Anatolia
Stamped electrum coins of guaranteed weight, an idea that spread across the ancient world within a century.

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