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Ecclesiastes 9 Bible study: In the hand of God
The chapter opens with the righteous and the wise "in the hand of God" (9:1) and turns to "Whatever your hand finds to do" (9:10): in Hebrew one word, yad. And the poor wise man who delivered the city is one "no man remembered" (9:15), with the verb behind 9:5's memory: of the dead, "their memory is forgotten" (9:5).
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“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.”
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“Ecclesiastes 9 speaks of the hand of God and of your hand.”
Is that in Ecclesiastes 9, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
In the hand of God, and one event
The chapter opens with what the Preacher laid to his heart: "that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God" (9:1) (tap hand). In the same verse: "whether it is love or hatred, man doesn’t know it; all is before them" (9:1). Then: "All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked" (9:2) (tap event). The verse goes on in pairs: "to the good, to the clean, to the unclean, to him who sacrifices, and to him who doesn’t sacrifice" (9:2); "As is the good, so is the sinner; he who takes an oath, as he who fears an oath" (9:2). An oath is shevuah, the word of "because of the oath to God" (8:2), and chapter 8 looks at it. Here is what almost everyone misses: the Preacher doesn't call it fair. He calls it an evil: "This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event to all" (9:3). And in the same verse he says that "the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead" (9:3). In Hebrew madness here is holelot, a word the Hebrew Bible has four times, all of them in Ecclesiastes (1:17, 2:12, 7:25, 9:3); the madness of 10:13 is another word, which Strong's derives from the same verb.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Ecclesiastes 9
- "the dead don’t know anything" (9:5), and "there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol" (9:10). What is the Preacher saying about the dead?
- "for God has already accepted your works" (9:7). Is that a promise that God accepts whatever anyone does?
- "but time and chance happen to them all" (9:11). Is the Preacher saying that life is just chance?
- Who was the poor wise man who delivered the city?
That was a taste
The rest of Ecclesiastes 9 is waiting in Favor
- A living dog, and a dead lion
- Go your way
- Time and chance, and a poor wise man
- Forgotten, and not remembered
- The refrain, spoken to you
- Words that return in the chapter
- 14 questions as you read
- 11 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Ecclesiastes 9 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
יָדyadsay YAD
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "hand", and "Fig. = strength, power". Strong's: "a hand". The chapter opens with it and turns on it: "the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God" (9:1), and "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might" (9:10). In 9:1 the hand is God's, and the righteous and the wise are in it; in 9:10 the hand is yours. The only other hand of God in Ecclesiastes is in the Preacher's refrain: "This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God" (2:24).
For your group
Ecclesiastes 9 Bible study questions
- 1"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might" (9:10). What has your hand found to do in this season, and what would doing it with your might look like?
- 2"the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong" (9:11). When has something turned out differently from what strength or skill led you to expect, and how did you respond?
- 3"yet no man remembered that same poor man" (9:15). Who has done you good that others may have forgotten, and how might you remember them this week?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Ecclesiastes 9 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Questions
What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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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