Ecclesiastes 1 Bible study: Vanity of vanities

The book opens with its heading: "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem" (1:1) (tap Preacher). The next verse gives his first words and says whose they are: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (1:2), "says the Preacher" (1:2). At 1:12 he first speaks of himself as I: "I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem" (1:12). From there he tells what he did and saw: "I applied my heart" (1:13), "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun" (1:14), "I said to myself" (1:16). Here is what almost everyone misses: the Preacher keeps saying where all this is done. His first question is about labor "under the sun" (1:3), and he says under the sun again in 1:9 and 1:14 (tap sun). The WEB has under the sun in 27 verses of Ecclesiastes and nowhere else. Once in this chapter he says "under the sky" (1:13). As the book goes on, watch which of his sayings he marks under the sun.

הֶבֶלhevelsay HEH-vel

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "vapour, breath". Strong's: "emptiness or vanity; figuratively, something transitory and unsatisfactory". "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (1:2): in Hebrew 1:2 has hevel five times, more than any other verse in the Hebrew Bible. Ecclesiastes has it 38 times, of its 73 in the Hebrew Bible, and the WEB gives it as vanity (or vanities) all through the book, and once as vain (6:12). Chapter 1 has it again of "all the works that are done under the sun" (1:14). Elsewhere the WEB gives the same word as breath: "Man is like a breath" (Psalm 144:4). The book comes back to 1:2's words near its end: "Vanity of vanities" (Ecclesiastes 12:8), and there the Hebrew has hevel three times.