Bible Strands
Ecclesiastes 6:8
What advantage, then, has the wise man over the fool? What gain comes to the poor man who knows how to conduct himself before others?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The speaker addresses readers within a meditation on human labor and insatiable appetite in Ecclesiastes 6.
The words — יוֹתֵר (yoter) = advantage, and כְּסִיל (kesil) = fool.
The thread — Ecclesiastes 2:14 contrasts the wise man’s awareness with the fool’s darkness yet notes their identical fate, while Proverbs 19:1 ranks a poor man of integrity above a perverse fool.
Why it lands — The text asks readers to acknowledge that wisdom and careful conduct provide no lasting advantage when human desire remains unsatisfied and all pursuits end in futility.
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
For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?
Cross-references
- Proverbs 19:1 Better a poor man who walks with integrity than a fool whose lips are perverse.
- Ecclesiastes 2:14 The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I also came to realize that one fate overcomes them both.
- Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless.
- Psalms 101:2 I will ponder the way that is blameless—when will You come to me? I will walk in my house with integrity of heart.
- Psalms 116:9 I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.
- Ecclesiastes 5:11 When good things increase, so do those who consume them; what then is the profit to the owner, except to behold them with his eyes?
- Luke 1:6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and decrees of the Lord.
- 1 Timothy 6:17 Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy.