Bible Strands
Ecclesiastes 7:22
For you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The speaker addresses a general audience within a wisdom discourse, placing this statement immediately after a warning about ignoring minor insults and before a confession that human wisdom cannot fully master life.
The words — לִבֶּ֑/ךָ (li.Be./kha) means your heart, and רַבּ֖וֹת (ra.Bot) means many, together framing the internal awareness of repeated fault.
The thread — The motif of internal knowledge of wrongdoing appears in 1 Kings 2:44, while the parallel between blessing God and cursing people recurs in James 3:9, and the heart as the source of slander connects to Matthew 15:19.
Why it lands — The text demands that readers acknowledge their own frequent participation in cursing others, using shared moral failure to curb pride before offering judgment.
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 oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.
Cross-references
- James 3:9 With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.
- 1 Kings 2:44 The king also said, “You know in your heart all the evil that you did to my father David. Therefore the LORD will bring your evil back upon your head.
- Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.
- Matthew 18:32 Then the master summoned him and said, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave all your debt because you begged me.
- John 8:7 When they continued to question Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.”