Bible Strands
Ecclesiastes 1:14
I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The speaker, identified as the teacher, addresses a general audience while recounting his deliberate investigation into human labor under heaven. He delivers this assessment immediately after describing his commitment to explore wisdom-driven inquiry into all earthly activity.
The words — The Hebrew verb רָאִ֙יתִי (ra'iti) translates literally to "I have seen," establishing empirical observation as the basis for the conclusion. It is paired with the phrase תַּחַת הַ/שָּׁ֑מֶשׁ (taḥat haššemeš), meaning "under the sun," which geographically and theologically confines the scope to earthly existence.
The thread — This assessment of earthly labor recurs in Ecclesiastes 2:11, Ecclesiastes 2:17, and Ecclesiastes 2:26, where the same speaker evaluates human achievement and finds it equally empty. The repeated evaluation of work done under the sun ties this verse directly to the book's broader investigation of human endeavor.
Why it lands — The text demands that readers confront the limits of human effort when measured solely against earthly standards. It requires an honest acknowledgment that relentless pursuit of worldly outcomes yields no lasting substance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 2:11 Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 2:17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- Ecclesiastes 2:26 To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over to one who pleases God. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- Ecclesiastes 6:9 Better what the eye can see than the wandering of desire. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- Psalms 39:5 You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- Ecclesiastes 1:17 So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.
- Ecclesiastes 4:4 I saw that all labor and success spring from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- 1 Kings 4:30 Solomon’s wisdom was greater than that of all the men of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.