Ecclesiastes 4:3

but better than they both is he that hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

JPS TaNaKH 1917

In The King James Version

Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

In Context

2Wherefore I praised the dead that are already dead more than the living that are yet alive;

4Again, I considered all labour and all excelling in work, that it is a man's rivalry with his neighbour. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

Read all of Ecclesiastes 4

Cross References

Job 3:16Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants that never saw light.

Job 10:18Wherefore then hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb? Would that I had perished, and no eye had seen me!

Ecclesiastes 1:14I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

Ecclesiastes 6:3If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul have not enough of good, and moreover he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he;

Jeremiah 9:2(9-1) Oh that I were in the wilderness, in a lodging-place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 4:2-4

The Prevalence of Oppression. 1 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. 2 Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. 3 Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. Solomon had a large soul ( 1 Kings… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Ecclesiastes 4:3