Ecclesiastes 1:4

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. (ONE) GENERATION PASSETH AWAY, AND (ANOTHER) GENERATION COMETH: BUT THE EARTH ABIDETH FOREVER. While the earth remains the same, the generations of men are ever changing. What lasting profit, then, can there be from the toils of one whose sojourn on earth, as an individual, is so brief? The "forever" is comparative, not absolute (), a future of unmeasured length, whose limit we know not. The contrast between the permanence of the earth, which, while doomed to the curse, precludes a better state of things, and the non-permanence of man aggravates the sadness of the present state of things (). Like the fabled Sisyphus, man is ever wearily labouring, and then having his labour undone in a mome...

4-8 All things change, and never rest. Man, after all his labour, is no nearer finding rest than the sun, the wind, or the current of the river. His soul will find no rest, if he has it not from God. The senses are soon tired, yet still craving what is untried....

Verse Ecclesiastes 1:4. ONE _GENERATION PASSETH AWAY_] Men succeed each other in unceasing generations: but the earth is still the same; it undergoes no change that leads to melioration, or greater perfection. And it will continue the same לעולם _leolam_, during the whole course of time; till the end of all things arrives....

Vanity is shown in mankind, the elements, and all that moves on earth; the same course is repeated again and again without any permanent result or real progress; and events and people alike are forgotten. ABIDETH - The apparent permanence of the earth increases by contrast the transitory condition of its inhabitants. EVER - The word does not here absolutely signify “eternity” (compare Ecclesiastes 3:11 note), but a certainly short period (compare Exodus 21:6): here it might be paraphrased “as long as this world, this present order of things, lasts.”...

EXPOSITION ECCLESIASTES 1:1 THE TITLE. THE WORDS OF THE PREACHER, THE SON OF DAVID, KING IN JERUSALEM; Septuagint, "King of Israel in Jerusalem" (comp.Ecclesiastes 1:12). The word rendered "Preacher" is _Koheleth_,_ _a feminine noun formed from a verb _kalal_,_ _"to call" (see Introduction, § 1), and perhaps better rendered" Convener" or "Debater." It is found nowhere else but in this book, where it occurs three times in this chapter (Ecclesiastes 1:1, Ecclesiastes 1:2,...

[ONE] GENERATION PASSETH AWAY, AND [ANOTHER] GENERATION COMETH,.... This shows that a man can have no profit of all his labour under the sun, because of his short continuance; as soon almost as he has got anything by his labour, he must leave it: not only particular persons, but families, nations, and kingdoms; even all the inhabitants of the world, that are contemporaries, live together in the same age, in a certain period of time; these gradually go off by death, till the whole generation is consumed, as the generation of the Israelites in the wilderness were. Death is meant by passing away; it is a going out of time into eternity; a departure out of this world to another; a quitting of the earthly house of this tabernacle for the grave, the house appointed for all living; it is man's going to his long home: and this is going the way of all the earth; in a short time a whole race or ge...

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS PART I. Chapter S 1-6 1. The Prologue and the Search Begun CHAPTER 1 _ 1. The introduction and prologue (Ecclesiastes 1:1)_ 2. The seeker; his method and the results (Ecclesiastes 1:12) Ecclesiastes 1:1. In the general introduction we have already referred to the opening verses as giving the information who the author is and what is the object of his treatise. So sure is the critical school that Solomon is not the king mentioned that one says “the fact that Solomon is not the author, but is introduced in a literary figure, has become such an axiom of the present day interpretation of the book, that no extended argument to prove

ECCLESIASTES 1:2 may be called an introduction to the book; it also presents the writer's conclusions. He has surveyed life from many angles and decided that all human effort is fruitless and unavailing, or as he puts it, vanity. This is his key-word (the Hebrew means vapour, breath, and so nothingness): it occurs forty times. VANITY OF VANITIES is the Heb. way of saying utmost vanity. Man toils under the sun, _i.e._ upon the earth, but reaps no gain; like players on a stage the ever-changing generations come and go, while the earth, man's scene of toil, abides. As with man so with nature; sun, winds (north and south, _cf._ Ca. Ecclesiastes 4:16), streams, all pursue a dreary round of endless repetition and accomplish nothing, _e.g._ the sea is never filled. The whole

ABIDETH. standeth still, as in first occurrence (Genesis 18:8; Genesis 18:22; Genesis 19:27; Joshua 18:5.Psalms 119:90; Psalms 119:90). FOR EVER. Hebrew. _olam_. for ages; _'olam_ occurs in Ecc. seven times: Ecclesiastes 1:4; Ecclesiastes 1:10;...

_One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh_ The sentence loses in strength by the words inserted in italics. Better, GENERATION PASSETH AND GENERATION COMETH. This is, as it were, the first note of vanity. Man, in idea the lord of the earth, is but as a stranger tarrying for a day. As in the touching parable of the Saxon chief, he comes from the darkness as into the light of a festive hall, and then passes into the darkness once again (Bede, _Eccl. Hist_. ii. c. 14), but the earth which is in idea subject to him boasts a permanence which he cannot claim. In the Hebrew word which answers to "for ever" we have, as elsewhere, an undefined rather than an absolutely infinite duration. Parallelisms of thought present themselves in Sir 14:19; Job 10:21; Psalms 39:13, and, we may add, in