properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
away
הֹלֵךְ֙ho.leKh
H1980
to walk (in a great variety of applications · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
generation
וְד֣וֹרve.Dor
H1755
properly · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular absolute
cometh
בָּ֔אBa'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
earth
וְהָאָ֖רֶץve.ha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · conjunction + definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
abideth
עֹמָֽדֶת'o.Ma.det
H5975
to stand · verb, qal active participle, feminine singular absolute
ever
לְעוֹלָ֥םle.'o.Lam
H5769
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 104:5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
Ecclesiastes 6:12 For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what…
Zechariah 1:5 Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?
Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Psalms 119:90-91 Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.
Psalms 89:47-48 Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?
Psalms 102:24-28 I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations.
2 Peter 3:10-13 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements sha…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 1:4-8
To prove the vanity of all things under the sun, and their insufficiency to make us happy, Solomon here shows, 1. That the time of our enjoyment of these things is very short, and only while we accomplish as a hireling his day. We continue in the world but for one generation, which is continually passing away to make room for another, and we are passing with it. Our worldly possessions we very lately had from others, and must very shortly leave to others, and therefore to us they are vanity; they can be no more substantial than that life which is the substratum of them, and that is but a vapour, which appears for a little while and then vanishes away. While the stream of mankind is continual…
earth . . . for ever-- (Psa 104:5). While the earth remains the same, the generations of men are ever changing; what lasting profit, then, can there be from the toils of one whose sojourn on earth, as an individual, is so brief? The "for ever" is comparative, not absolute (Psa 102:26).
John Gill on Ecclesiastes 1:4
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh,.... This shows that a man can have no profit of all his labour under the sun, because of his short continuance; as soon almost as he has got anything by his labour, he must leave it: not only particular persons, but families, nations, and kingdoms; even all the inhabitants of the world, that are contemporaries, live together in the same age, in a certain period of time; these gradually go off by death, till the whole generation is consumed, as the generation of the Israelites in the wilderness were. Death is meant by passing away; it is a going out of time into eternity; a departure out of this world to another; a quitting of the ea…
"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: and the earth remaineth for ev." The meaning is not that the earth remains standing, and thus (Hitz.) approaches no limit (for what limit for it could be had in view?); it is by this very immoveable condition that it fulfils, according to the ancient notion, its destiny, Psa 119:90. The author rather intends to say that in this sphere nothing remains permanent as the fixed point around which all circles; generations pass away, others appear, and the earth is only the firm territory, the standing scene, of this ceaseless change. In reality, both things may be said of the earth: that it stands for ever without losing its place in the…
The Church Fathers
The sun has existed since it was created and will exist and be one and the same as long as God wants it. But if I say … that humankind remains forever, I do not mean one and the same human being but the whole succession of generations. The same is true for other mortal beings and plants.… One generation goes and one generation comes. The generation that goes is destroyed by death; the one that comes is the one that is born.
By the will of God, therefore, the earth remains immovable. "The earth stands forever," according to Ecclesiastes, yet it is moved and nods according to the will of God. It does not therefore continue to exist because based on its own foundations. It does not stay stable because of its own props. The Lord established it by the support of his will, because "in his hand are all the ends of the earth." The simplicity of this faith is worth all the proffered proofs.
What good does the possessor of many acres gain in the end? Except that the foolish man thinks his own that which never belongs to him, ignorant seemingly in his greed that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," for "God is king of all the earth." It is the passion of having which gives men a false title of lordship over that which can never belong to them. "The earth," says the wise Preacher, "abideth for ever," ministering to every generation, first one, then another, that is born upon it; but men, though they are so little even their own masters, that they are brought into life without knowing it by their Maker's will, and before they wish are withdrawn from it, nevertheless in their excessive vanity think that they are her lords; that they, now born, now dying, rule that which remains continually.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Covetousness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Life · BREVITY AND UNCERTAINTY OF — BREVITY AND UNCERTAINTY OF
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Generations come and go, and individual lives seem to pass away without significance.
Rashi on Ecclesiastes 1:4
A generation passes away and [another] generation comes. As much as the wicked man toils and labors to oppress and to rob, he does not outlive his activities, for the generation passes on and another generation comes and takes away everything from his sons, as the matter is stated, “His children must appease the poor.”22Iyov 20:10.
And the earth abides forever. But who are the ones who [cause the earth to] endure? The humble and low, who bring themselves down to the ground, as the matter is stated, “But the humble shall inherit the earth.”23Tehillim 37:11. 24Alternatively, unlike generations, that when one passes by, another one comes, the earth does not change. But Midrash Tanchuma states,…
