Those riches perish by misfortune, and if he has fathered a son, there is nothing in his hand.
Parallel Translations
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Those riches perish by misfortune, and if he has fathered a son, there is nothing in his hand.
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But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.
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(5-13) and those riches perish by evil adventure; and if he hath begotten a son, there is nothing in his hand.
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Ecclesiastes 5:14 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ecclesiastes 2:26 For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
- Job 5:5 whose harvest the hungry eats up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance.
- Job 20:15-29 He has swallowed down riches, and he will vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly. He will suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue will kill him. He will not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter. He will restore that for which he labored, and will not swallow it down. He will not rejoice according to the substance that he has gotten. For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up. “Because he knew no quietness within him, he will not save anything of that in which he delights. There was nothing left that he didn’t devour, therefore his prosperity will not endure. In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery will come on him. When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating. He will flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow will strike him through. He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him. All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire will devour him. It will consume that which is left in his tent. The heavens will reveal his iniquity. The earth will rise up against him. The increase of his house will depart. They will rush away in the day of his wrath. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”
- Proverbs 23:5 Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.
- Haggai 1:9 “You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says Yahweh of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house.
- Haggai 2:16-17 Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty. I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you didn’t turn to me,’ says Yahweh.
- Matthew 6:19-20 “Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don’t break through and steal;
- 1 Samuel 2:6-8 “Yahweh kills and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol and brings up. Yahweh makes poor and makes rich. He brings low, he also lifts up. He raises up the poor out of the dust. He lifts up the needy from the dunghill to make them sit with princes and inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are Yahweh’s. He has set the world on them.
- 1 Samuel 2:36 It will happen that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and will say, “Please put me into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread.” ’ ”
- 1 Kings 14:26 and he took away the treasures of Yahweh’s house, and the treasures of the king’s house. He even took away all of it, including all the gold shields which Solomon had made.
- Job 27:16-17 Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare clothing as the clay; he may prepare it, but the just will put it on, and the innocent will divide the silver.
- Psalms 39:6 “Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.
- Psalms 109:9-12 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be wandering beggars. Let them be sought from their ruins. Let the creditor seize all that he has. Let strangers plunder the fruit of his labor. Let there be no one to extend kindness to him, neither let there be anyone to have pity on his fatherless children.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Job 1:21; 1 Tim. 6:7
Job 1:21; 1 Tim. 6:7
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Ecc 5:14 But those riches perish by evil travail:…
Ecc 5:14 But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and [there is] nothing in his hand.
Ver. 14. But those riches perish by evil travail,] i.e., By evil trading, trafficking, or other cross event and accident. They waste and wither either by vanity or violence. They slip out of the hand, as the punting bird or wriggling eel. There is no hold to be taken of them - no trust to be put in them. They were never true to those that trusted in them. {See Trapp on "Pro 23:5"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain But, or for, or or, or moreover; for this…
But, or for, or or, or moreover; for this particle is so rendered by divers others, both here and in other places of Scripture.
Those riches perish: if they be kept, it is to the owner’s hurt; and if not, they are lost to his grief.
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By evil travail; by some wicked practices, either his own, or of other men; or by some secret hand of God cursing all his enterprises.
There is nothing in his hand; either,
1. In the father’s power to leave to his son, for whose sake he underwent all those hard labours; which is a great aggravation of his grief and misery. Or,
2. In the son’s possession after his father’s death.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But those riches perish by evil travail,.... Or, "by…
But those riches perish by evil travail,.... Or, "by an evil business or affair" (n). That is, such riches as are not well got, or are not used as they should be, these waste away and come to nothing; either by the owner's bad management, and misconduct in trade and business; or by fire, tempest, thieves, and robbers, and many other ways and means: these are very certain things; and there are various ways by which they make themselves wings and flee away, under the direction of a divine providence;
and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand; the riches he had hoarded up, he designed for his son; but being stripped of them by one means or another, when he comes to die, has nothing to leave his son: or if his riches do not perish in his own lifetime, yet they are quickly consumed by his son, who, in a short time, has nothing to live upon; and so being brought up a gentleman, and in no business, is in a worse condition than such who have been brought up to work for their living, and in no expectation of an estate after the decease of their friends. The Targum understands it in this latter sense, paraphrasing the words thus,
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"and those riches, which he shall leave his son after his death, shall perish, because he hath gotten them in an evil way; and they shall not remain in the hand of the son whom he hath begotten; neither shall anything remain in his hand.''
(n) "occupatione, negotio, vel casu malo", Gejerus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Perish - By some wicked practices, either his own,…
Perish - By some wicked practices, either his own, or of other men. Nothing - In the son's possession after his father's death.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 14. And he begetteth a son, and there…
Verse 14. And he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.] He has been stripped of his property by unfortunate trade or by plunderers; and he has nothing to leave to his children.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Evil travail - Adverse accident, or unsuccessful employment (compare…
Evil travail - Adverse accident, or unsuccessful employment (compare Ecc 1:13; Ecc 4:8).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Labour. All must die in this manner. But it…
Labour. All must die in this manner. But it is most afflicting that he was formerly rich, and must leave his son indigent. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 14. Those riches perish — It is to be…
14. Those riches perish — It is to be remembered that the heir for whom the keeping is done is now spoken of, and the case is viewed from the standpoint of his fortunes. By the time when he himself becomes a father the wealth hoarded for him is gone, and he — the heir and now the father — has nothing in his hand. By evil travail is meant some ruinous enterprise.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (14) Evil travail.—Unsuccessful business.
(14) Evil travail.—Unsuccessful business.
Nothing in his hand.—The same words occur in a literal sense in Jdg_14:6.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Those riches perish by evil travail; thing or circumstance.…
Those riches perish by evil travail; thing or circumstance. There is no need to confine the cause of the loss to unsuccessful business, as many commentators do. The rich man does not seem to be a tradesman or speculator; he loses his property, like Job, by visitations for which he is in no way answerable by storm or tempest, by robbers, by fire, by exactions, or by lawsuits. And he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand. The verb rendered "begetteth" is in the past tense, and used as it were, hypothetically, equivalent to "hath he begotten a son," supposing he has a son. His misery is doubled by the reflection that he has lost all hope of securing a fortune for his children, or founding a family, or passing on an inheritance to posterity. It is doubtful to whom the pronoun "his" refers. Many consider that the father is meant, and the clause says that when he has begotten a son, he finds he has nothing to give him. But the suffix seems most naturally to refer to the son, who is thus left a pauper. Vulgate, Generavit filium qui in summa egestate erit. Having a thing in the hand moans having power over it, or possessing it.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.