Translations

1. Translations • King James • New King James • New American Standard • New International Version • New Living Bible Word for word Dynamic Equivalence

2. Paraphrase • Living Bible • The Message

3. Ecclesiastes 1:12 • .µl;iv;WryBi laer;c]yIAl[' Jl,m, ytiyyIh; tl,h,qo ynIa}

4. "Bite the wax tadpole."-Coca-Cola as originally translated into Chinese

5. "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave."-"Pepsi Comes Alive" as originally translated into Chinese

6. "To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order."-In a Belgrade Hotel Elevator

7. Ecclesiastes 1:12 I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.

8. Ecclesiastes 1:12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. NIV

9. Concordances Sometimes it is essential to study a word in the passages where it occurs. To determine the meaning of words through usage, we use a concordance.

10. Teacher? • Preacher?

11. Concordance PRAYER 872 PREACHER The words of the P, Ec 1:1 6953 “Vanity of vanities,” says the P Ec 1:2 6953 I the P have been king over Ec.2:1 6953 have discovered this says the P Ec.7:27 6953 Vanity of Vanities, says the P Ec 12:8 6953 The P also taught the people Ec 12:9 6953 The P sought to find delightful Ec 12:10 6953

12. Concordance HEBREW AND CHALDEE DICTIONARY. 6953 tl,h,qoQoheleth, (875a); from the same as 6951; “a collector “(of sentences),” “a preacher,” a son of David:- Preacher(7)

13. Concordance HEBREW AND CHALDEE DICTIONARY. 6951 lh:q: qahal, (874c), from an unused word; assembly, convocation, congregation:- army*(1), assembly(95), companies(1), company(15), congregation(8), crowd(1), Hord(2).

14. Teacher? Maybe • Preacher? Sort of • Qôheleth – the Collector? Assembler?

15. Lexicons A lexicon serves as a kind of dictionary for the original languages. Through using a lexicon we can find definitions of a word as it is used in Hebrew or Greek.

16. Theological Wordbook Of the Old Testament • Strongs TWOT • 6950 …………………..…1991 • 6951 …………………..…1991a • 6952 ………………..……1991b • 6953 ………………..……1991c • 6954 …………………… * • 6955 …………………… *

17. Theological Wordbook Of the Old Testament

18. Theological Wordbook Of the Old Testament qôhelet. Preacher, speaker in assemblies. qôhelet is a Qal feminine participle from qahal, which in the Niphal means "to come together" and in the Hiphil "to bring together." The Qal form is used only here. The word is related to the noun qahal (assembly). The LXX chose ecclesiastes (a member of an assembly) as a translation due to the alleged relation of qahal to ecclesia (assembly, see above). The English rendering "Preacher" follows Jerome's Latin concionatur ("speaker before an assembly"), however the meaning of the Hebrew name is by no means clear.

19. Theological Wordbook Of the Old Testament A second conjecture contends that the Qal form qôhelet is used as though it were a Hiphil and means "one who convenes an assembly." The word has the definite article in Eccl 12:8 which lends credence to the claim that the word is intended to be a description, not a personal name.

20. Theological Wordbook Of the Old Testament  qôhelet occurs seven times in the book of Ecclesiastes (1:1-2, 12; 7:27; 12:8-10) and nowhere else in biblical literature. As a noun designating the speaker, it also gives the Hebrew name Qohelet to the book itself.

21. Qôheleth – the preacher JsAWvA Translation: How’s it going?

22. Commentaries They offer a ton of information about the meaning of words, backgrounds of passages, and the argument of a writer. Consult different commentaries on a passage and weigh what they say against each other in determining the meaning of the biblical author.

23. Commentaries 1:12-15. Solomon began his argument on the futility of human achievement by citing his own personal investigation into its value. Alluding to his wide opportunities for observation because of his position as the King of Israel (v. 12; cf. v. 16; 2:12), he stated that, aided by his surpassing wisdom and knowledge (1:13; cf. v. 16; 1 Kings 4:26-34), he had made a thorough (indicated by the use of the synonyms study and explore in Ecc. 1:13) and comprehensive investigation of all kinds of human activities (i.e., all that is done under heaven; cf. “under the sun,” v. 14).

24. Commentaries He concluded that they are all a heavy burden (v. 13, Ôinyan raµÔ, “a bad or unpleasant task”; trans. “a miserable business” in 4:8 and “some misfortune” in 5:14) and thus futile or meaningless. In fact they are as useless as chasing after the wind, a graphic picture of effort expended with no results gained since no one can catch the wind by running after it. Solomon used this phrase nine times, all in the first half of the book (1:14, 17; 2:11, 17, 26; 4:4, 6, 16; 6:9).

25. Commentaries • Solomon based this verdict on his observations which had shown him that human achievements leave much to be desired. Human effort and action cannot remedy all the irregularities or counteract all the deficiencies observable in the nature of things (1:14-15; cf. 7:13). • Walvoord, John F., and Zuck, Roy B., The Bible Knowledge Commentary

26. Bible Dictionary Unlike most of our English dictionaries, Bible dictionaries offer more than a definition of a word. They give us brief discussions of people, events, and backgrounds of the biblical material. Many of your questions about when or where a book was written, its readers, and its author will be answered by a good Bible dictionary or encyclopedia.

27. Bible Dictionary II. Authorship and date Although the writer says that he was king over Israel (1:12), and speaks as though he were Solomon, he nowhere says that he is Solomon. The style of the Heb. is later than Solomon’s time. If Solomon was the author, the book underwent a later modernization of language.

28. Bible Dictionary • Otherwise a later writer may have taken up a comment on life that had been made by Solomon, ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,‘ and used this as a text to show why even a wise and wealthy king should say such a thing. We cannot tell at what date the book received its present form, since there are no clear historical allusions in it. About 200 bc is commonly suggested. • The New Bible Dictionary

29. Manners and Customs The Bible was written in a culture and land very different from our own – these types of books help us understand the manners and customs of the time in order to more fully understand the scriptures

30. 2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (NIV)