Ecclesiastes 7:29

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

King James Version · Read in your translation · Open the Explore console

Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
Lo	רְאֵה re.'eh-	H7200	to see · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
only	לְבַד֙ le.Vad	H905	properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
found	מָצָ֔אתִי ma.Tza.ti	H4672	properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
God	הָאֱלֹהִ֛ים ha.'E.lo.Him	H430	gods in the ordinary sense · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
made	עָשָׂ֧ה 'a.Sah	H6213	to do or make · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
man	הָאָדָ֖ם ha.'a.Dam	H120	ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
upright	יָשָׁ֑ר ya.Shar	H3477	straight (literally or figuratively) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
out	בִקְשׁ֖וּ vik.Shu	H1245	to search out (by any method · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person common plural
many	רַבִּֽים ra.Bim	H7227	abundant (in quantity · adjective, masculine plural absolute
inventions	חִשְּׁבֹנ֥וֹת chi.she.vo.Not	H2810	a contrivance · noun, common feminine plural 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

Jeremiah 4:22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but…
Genesis 6:11-12 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
Mark 7:8-9 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye d…
Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
Titus 3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful,…
Genesis 1:26-27 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of th…
Genesis 3:6-7 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she…
Genesis 6:5-6 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continu…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 7:23–end

Solomon had hitherto been proving the vanity of the world and its utter insufficiency to make men happy; now here he comes to show the vileness of sin, and its certain tendency to make men miserable; and this, as the former, he proves from his own experience, and it was a dear-bought experience. He is here, more than any where in all this book, putting on the habit of a penitent. He reviews what he had been discoursing of already, and tells us that what he had said was what he knew and was well assured of, and what he resolved to stand by: All this have I proved by wisdom, Ecc 7:23. Now here, I. He owns and laments the deficiencies of his wisdom. He had wisdom enough to see the vanity of the…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ecclesiastes 7:29

The "only" way of accounting for the scarcity of even comparatively upright men and women is that, whereas God made man upright, they (men) have, &c. The only account to be "found" of the origin of evil, the great mystery of theology, is that given in Holy Writ (Gen. 2:1-3:24). Among man's "inventions" was the one especially referred to in Ecc 7:26, the bitter fruits of which Solomon experienced, the breaking of God's primeval marriage law, joining one man to "one" woman (Mat 19:4-6). "Man" is singular, namely, Adam; "they," plural, Adam, Eve, and their posterity. Next: Ecclesiastes Chapter 8

John Gill on Ecclesiastes 7:29

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright,.... The first man Adam, as the Targum and Jarchi interpret it; and not Adam only, but Eve also with him; for these were both made by the Lord, and on the same day, and in the same image, and had the same common name of Adam given them, Genesis 1:27; And they were both made "upright"; which is to be understood, not of the erectness of their bodies, but of the disposition of their minds; they were "right and innocent before him,'' or in the sight of God, as the Targum; which is best explained by their being made in the image and likeness of God, Genesis 1:26; and which, according to the apostle, lay in knowledge, righteousness, and…

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The Church Fathers

The Manicheans deny that to a good man the beginning of evil came from free will; the Pelagians say that even a bad man has free will sufficiently to perform the good commandment. The catholic Church condemns both, saying to the former, "God made man upright," and saying to the latter, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."
— Augustine of Hippo, AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF THE PELAGIANS 2:2

Let us be displeased with ourselves when we sin, because sins displease God. And because we are not in fact without sin, let us at least be like God in this respect, that what displeases him displeases us. Now you are displeased with that in yourself which he also hates who made you. He designed and constructed you; but take a look at yourself and eliminate from yourself everything that does not come from his workshop. For God, as it says, "created man upright."
— Augustine of Hippo, SERMON 19:4

There is also a good world consisting of people, but made so out of a bad one. The whole world, you see, if you take the world as meaning people, leaving aside world in the sense of heaven and earth and all things that are in them; if you mean people by world, then the whole world was made bad by the one who first sinned. The whole mass is vitiated in its root. God made man good; that is what Scripture says: "God made man upright, and they themselves have sought out many devices."
— Augustine of Hippo, SERMON 96:6

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

Engines — (1.) Heb. hishalon i.e., “invention” (as in Eccl. 7:29) contrivances indicating ingenuity. In 2 Chr. 26:15 it refers to inventions for the purpose of propelling missiles from the walls of a town,…
Depravity Of Man · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Fall Of Man · 31:33; — 31:33;
Man · CREATED — CREATED
Uprightness · God created man in — God created man in

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).

Ecclesiastes 7:29

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 7:23–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ecclesiastes 7:29

John Gill on Ecclesiastes 7:29

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Ecclesiastes 7:29

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 7:23–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ecclesiastes 7:29

John Gill on Ecclesiastes 7:29

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Keil & Delitzsch on Ecclesiastes 7:29–end

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Ecclesiastes 7:29

Rashi on Ecclesiastes 7:29