Ecclesiastes 6:3

If a man were to beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years were many, and his soul were not satisfied with what is good, and he have not had even a burial: then do I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

Leeser Tanakh

In The King James Version

If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

In Context

2[There is many] a man to whom God hath given riches, property, and honor, and nothing is wanting for his soul of all that he longeth for: yet God empowereth him not to eat thereof, but a stranger will consume it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

4For in vanity it came, and in darkness it departeth, and with darkness will its name be covered.

Read all of Ecclesiastes 6

Cross References

Genesis 47:9And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years: few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

2 Kings 9:35And they went to bury her: but they found nothing of her but the skull, and the feet, and the palms of the hands.

1 Chronicles 28:5And of all my sons,—for the Lord hath given me many sons,— hath he made choice of Solomon my son, to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel.

Esther 5:11And Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had made him great, and how he had advanced him above the princes and the servants of the king.

Esther 9:14And the king ordered that it should be done so; and the law was given out at Shushan; and the ten sons of Haman were hanged.

Job 3:16Or as an untimely birth, hidden [from view] I should not exist; as infants that never have seen the light;

Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 6:2-7

The Miseries of Covetousness. 1 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: 2 A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease. 3 If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Ecclesiastes 6:3