SIL Translator’s Notes on Ecclesiastes 1:17

1:17a So I set my mind to know wisdom

So I decided to devote myself to understanding wisdom ⌊more thoroughly
-or-
Then I became determined to truly know ⌊how⌋ to think wisely ⌊about life

1:17b and madness and folly;

and ⌊also⌋ to understand stupidity and folly.
-or-
and to understand ⌊what kind of thoughts would⌋ be stupid and foolish.

1:17a-b (combined)

So I decided to use my mind to learn everything about wisdom, and madness and foolishness as well. (FBV)
-or-
I wanted to learn all that I could learn about thinking wisely. I also wanted to know how a fool thinks.

1:17c I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.

But I now know that ⌊trying to understand these things⌋ is also just like chasing the wind.
-or-

After some time⌋ I realized that these efforts were also ⌊just as pointless⌋ as trying to herd/control the wind.
-or-
But I found out that trying to understand those things was also useless, like chasing the wind. (Translation for Translators)

© 2006 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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