Week 35 Ecclesiastes 1
Ecclesiastes begins: vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
I checked a few other versions to see if they used a word other than vanity. I was surprised. Six versions used the same phrase: vanity of vanities, all is vanity. But a couple said something different:
Pointless! Utterly meaningless! Nothing matters!
Everything is so meaningless…It is all a waste of time!
Absolute futility. Everything is futile
Smoke, nothing but smoke…There’s nothing to anything—it’s all smoke
Futility of futilities! All is futility
Meaningless! Everything is meaningless.
So the alternate words to Everything-is-Vanity are:
Everything is meaningless
Everything is a waste of time
Everything is futile
Everything is smoke.
[The Amplified Bible added a couple of word pictures:
Everything is a wisp of smoke
Everything is a vapour that vanishes
Everything is merely chasing the wind.]
Ecclesiastes reduces everything to a very low-value level. It doesn’t say that everything is nothing. There’s still something to everything (a very small something). But nothing carries too much weight.
To me Solomon conveys the idea that if I draw a big circle around everything then what I’ll have is a huge collection of all kinds of negligible things. Everything is lightweight.
There are comparative weight differences – some things lighter and some heavier. But even the heavyweight things are lighter than drifting smoke. Vanity.
Note: I compared the New King James. English Standard. New Catholic Bible. RSV. World English. Young’s Literal. The Message. Easy-to-Read. Complete Jewish Bible. Holman Christian Standard. NASB. NIV.