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Ecclesiastes 8 Bible study: Who is like the wise man?

The king's word is "supreme" (8:4), and no man has "power over the day of death" (8:8): in Hebrew both are shilton, a word found only in these two verses. And the Preacher says "surely I know" (8:12) two verses before "this also is vanity" (8:14), and the chapter keeps both.

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“Who is like the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man’s wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.”
Ecclesiastes 8:1 · World English Bible

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What's really going on

The wise man, and the king's word

In the text

The chapter opens with two questions: "Who is like the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing?" (8:1) (tap interpretation). Then a saying about wisdom and a man's face: "A man’s wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed" (8:1). Then the Preacher speaks of a king. "I say, “Keep the king’s command!” because of the oath to God" (8:2) (tap Keep, oath). "Don’t be hasty to go out of his presence. Don’t persist in an evil thing, for he does whatever pleases him" (8:3), "for the king’s word is supreme" (8:4) (tap supreme), and "Who can say to him" (8:4) what he is doing? Then: "Whoever keeps the commandment shall not come to harm, and his wise heart will know the time and procedure" (8:5). Here is what almost everyone misses: in Hebrew keeps the commandment is the verb shamar with mitsvah, commandment, and Ecclesiastes has mitsvah only twice, here and in the book's close: "Fear God and keep his commandments" (12:13), with the same verb. 8:5 doesn't say whose commandment it means, and these notes don't either. Every saying here is the Preacher's, about a king; these notes apply them to no ruler or government today, and don't make the king God.

Honest questions

Questions people ask about Ecclesiastes 8

That was a taste

The rest of Ecclesiastes 8 is waiting in Favor

  • No man has power
  • Two sayings, side by side
  • Mirth, and a work no one can find out
  • Forgotten
  • The work of God, and finding it out
  • 10 questions as you read
  • 13 more Hebrew words
  • A short check at the end
  • Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it

שִׁלְטוֹןshiltonsay shil-TON

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "mastery". Strong's: "from 7980". The Hebrew Bible has it twice, both in this chapter. First of the king: "for the king’s word is supreme" (8:4). Then of what no man has: "neither does he have power over the day of death" (8:8), where the WEB gives it as power. The verb it comes from is in the next verse: "There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt" (8:9).

For your group

Ecclesiastes 8 Bible study questions

  1. 1"A man’s wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed" (8:1). Have you seen wisdom show on someone's face? What did it look like?
  2. 2"For he doesn’t know that which will be" (8:7). What helps you live well when you can't see what's coming?
  3. 3The Preacher says, "surely I know that it will be better with those who fear God" (8:12), and two verses later calls it vanity that some righteous men get what the work of the wicked brings (8:14). Which of these two sayings do you find harder to hold on to, and why?

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Questions

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home