Passage Research
Ecclesiastes 8 — Sermon Preparation
The chapter examines the wisdom of obeying royal authority and the troubling reality that the wicked are not always punished swiftly. Below is a research summary for Ecclesiastes 8, drawn from openly licensed scholarly databases — original-language morphology, classic sermons from the church fathers through the Puritans, and ancient geography data.
- 17
- verses
- 281 / 106
- Hebrew words / lemmas
- 7
- classic sermon excerpts
- 4
- preachers & commentators
Ecclesiastes 8 in the Hebrew
Distinctive vocabulary of this chapter, based on original-language morphology.
| Hebrew | Transliteration | Strong's | Count | Glosses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| אָדָם | ʼâdâm | H120 | 9 | ruddy, human being |
| מַעֲשֶׂה | maʻăseh | H4639 | 6 | action, transaction |
| רַע | raʻ | H7451 | 7 | bad, evil |
| יָדַע | yâdaʻ | H3045 | 7 | know, seeing |
| שֶׁמֶשׁ | shemesh | H8121 | 4 | sun, east |
| רָשָׁע | râshâʻ | H7563 | 4 | wrong, bad |
| רָאָה | râʼâh | H7200 | 5 | see |
How preachers through history handled this text
7 public-domain excerpts on Ecclesiastes 8, from the church fathers to the Puritans.
“MISUSED RESPITE Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil'--ECCLES. viii. 11. When the Pharaoh of the Exodus saw there was respite, he hardened his heart. Abject in his fear before Moses, he was ready to promise anything; insolent in his pride, he swallows down his promises as soon as fear is eased, his repentance and his retractation of it combined to add new weights about his neck. He was but a conspicuous example of a universal fault. …”
— Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of the Holy Scriptures: Second Kings from Chap., on Ecclesiastes 8:11–30 (Public Domain)
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