Bible Strands
Ecclesiastes 1:5
The sun rises and the sun sets; it hurries back to where it rises.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The author addresses humanity while contrasting the earth’s permanence with passing generations. He notes the solar cycle as a fixed measure against human transience.
The words — שׁוֹאֵף (sho.'Ef) means panting or hurrying, and זוֹרֵחַ (zo.reach) means rising. The phrasing depicts the sun’s forced, repetitive return to its origin point.
The thread — This mechanical return mirrors the wind’s endless circuit in Ecclesiastes 1:6 and the unceasing testimony of the heavens in Psalms 19:4. The motif of solar movement also surfaces in Habakkuk 3:11 where the sun stands still at divine command.
Why it lands — The verse states the sun’s relentless rise and return before drawing its implicit conclusion. It demands the reader acknowledge a created order that operates independently of human ambition or memory.
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
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
Cross-references
- Psalms 19:4 their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun.
- Psalms 42:1 For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after You, O God.
- Habakkuk 3:11 Sun and moon stood still in their places at the flash of Your flying arrows, at the brightness of Your shining spear.
- Genesis 8:22 As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”
- Joshua 10:13 So the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance upon its enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? “So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.”
- Psalms 89:36 his offspring shall endure forever, and his throne before Me like the sun,
- Psalms 104:19 He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows when to set.
- Jeremiah 33:20 “This is what the LORD says: If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that day and night cease to occupy their appointed time,