🌀WEB · Ecclesiastes 2:12
What does Ecclesiastes 2:12 mean?
"I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly: for what can the king’s successor do? Just that which has been done long ago."
— Ecclesiastes 2:12 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
So I was great, and increased more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also remained with me.
Whatever my eyes desired, I didn’t keep from them. I didn’t withhold my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced because of all my labor, and this was my portion from all my labor.
Then I looked at all the works that my hands had worked, and at the labor that I had labored to do; and behold, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.
I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly: for what can the king’s successor do? Just that which has been done long ago.
Then I saw that wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness.
The wise man’s eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness—and yet I perceived that one event happens to them all.
Then I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise?” Then I said in my heart that this also is vanity.
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