Ecclesiastes 9:1

So I took all this to heart and concluded that the righteous and the wise, as well as their deeds, are in God’s hands. Man does not know what lies ahead, whether love or hate.

Majority Standard Bible

In The King James Version

For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.

In Context

2It is the same for all: There is a common fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not. As it is for the good, so it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who makes a vow, so it is for the one who refuses to take a vow.

Read all of Ecclesiastes 9

Cross References

Deuteronomy 33:3Surely You love the people; all the holy ones are in Your hand, and they sit down at Your feet; each receives Your words—

2 Samuel 15:25Then the king said to Zadok, “Return the ark of God to the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the LORD, He will bring me back and let me see both it and His dwelling place again.

Job 12:10The life of every living thing is in His hand, as well as the breath of all mankind.

Psalms 10:14But You have regarded trouble and grief; You see to repay it by Your hand. The victim entrusts himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.

Psalms 37:5Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will do it.

Psalms 73:11The wicked say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?”

Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 9:1

Solomon, in this chapter, for a further proof of the vanity of this world, gives us four observations which he had made upon a survey of the state of the children of men in it:—I. He observed that commonly as to outward things, good and bad men fare much alike, ver. 1-3 . II. That death puts a final period to all our employments and enjoyments in this world ( ver. 4-6 ), whence he infers that it is our wisdom to enjoy the comforts of life and mind the business of life, while it lasts, ver. 7-10 . III. That God's… Read the whole commentary →

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