King James Version · The united kingdom
Ecclesiastes 6
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: A man to whom hath given riches, wealth, and , so that he wanteth nothing for his of all that he desireth, yet giveth him not to eat thereof, but a eateth it: this is , and it is an evil disease. If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he. For he cometh in with , and departeth , and his name shall be covered with . Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other. Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place? All the labour of man is for his , and yet the appetite is not filled. For what hath more than the fool? what hath , that knoweth to walk before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the : this is also and vexation of . That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he. Seeing there be many things that increase , what is man the better? For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The united kingdom, 1050 BC to 931 BC ›
Saul, David, and Solomon. A rare window when both Egypt and Mesopotamia are weak, which is how a small kingdom in the corridor between them could briefly become a regional power.
- The power vacuum
- This is the whole political explanation for the united kingdom. Egypt is fragmented, Assyria is recovering but still local, the Hittites are gone, and nobody is in a position to object to a strong state in the corridor. It lasts about a century, and Israel's golden age fits exactly inside it.
- Phoenicia
- Tyre under Hiram is the commercial power of the coast, and supplies the cedar, the craftsmen, and the shipping for Solomon's building programme. The alliance is trade, not charity: Israel had grain and a land route, Tyre had timber and ships.
- Egypt
- Weak enough that a pharaoh gives a daughter in marriage to an Israelite king, which is the opposite of Egyptian practice in stronger centuries. Late in the era it recovers under a new house, and Shishak will invade within five years of Solomon's death.
- Further afield
- Greece is still in its dark age but beginning to recover, and will adopt the Phoenician alphabet within a century or two. Carthage is founded by settlers from Tyre by tradition in 814 BC. In the Americas the Olmec centre shifts to La Venta.