Passage Research
Ecclesiastes 1 — Sermon Preparation
Qohelet opens with the declaration that all is vanity, probing the futility of human toil under the sun. Below is a research summary for Ecclesiastes 1, drawn from openly licensed scholarly databases — original-language morphology, classic sermons from the church fathers through the Puritans, and ancient geography data.
- 18
- verses
- 215 / 98
- Hebrew words / lemmas
- 6
- classic sermon excerpts
- 3
- preachers & commentators
Ecclesiastes 1 in the Hebrew
Distinctive vocabulary of this chapter, based on original-language morphology.
| Hebrew | Transliteration | Strong's | Count | Glosses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| הֶבֶל | hebel | H1892 | 6 | emptiness, vanity |
| שֶׁמֶשׁ | shemesh | H8121 | 5 | sun, east |
| חׇכְמָה | chokmâh | H2451 | 5 | wisdom |
| קֹהֶלֶת | qôheleth | H6953 | 3 | assembler, preaching |
| הָלַךְ | hâlak | H1980 | 5 | walk |
| רוּחַ | rûwach | H7307 | 4 | wind, breath |
| לֵב | lêb | H3820 | 4 | heart, feelings |
How preachers through history handled this text
6 public-domain excerpts on Ecclesiastes 1, from the church fathers to the Puritans.
“TWO VIEWS OF LIFE This sore travail hath God given to the sons of man, to be exercised therewith.'--ECCLES. i. 13. He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.'--HEBREWS xii. 10. These two texts set before us human life as it looks to two observers. The former admits that God shapes it; but to him it seems sore travail, the expenditure of much trouble and efforts; the results of which seem to be nothing beyond profitless exercise. There is an immense activity and nothing to show for it at the end but wearied limbs. …”
— Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of the Holy Scriptures: Second Kings from Chap., on Ecclesiastes 1:13–30 (Public Domain)
Places in the text
Based on ancient-geography data
- Jerusalem— Eccl 1:1
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