This first verse presents a number of challenges for the translator from the point of view of both interpretation and translation.
But all this I laid to heart: Revised Standard Version has interpreted the initial ki conjunction to be a contrastive But. 8.17 has stated that no person, not even a wise one, can figure out everything that happens “under the sun.” Here Qoheleth’s observation is that there is one thing we can know: everything is under God’s control. However, if 9.1 begins a new section, it is more appropriate to consider ki as an introductory marker of emphasis or assertion. An introductory particle such as “Now” or “Yes” may be appropriate.
All this is a difficult phrase to interpret. Does it refer back to what has just been said (for example, 8.16-17)? Or does it refer forward to the problem that is about to be presented? Qoheleth uses the demonstrative this in both ways elsewhere, so either is possible. A further complication is that the same phrase occurs again in the next clause examining it all (literally “to examine all this”). Do the two phrases refer to the same thing or to different things? Some versions interpret the first all this as referring more generally to what comes before, and the second as referring to what follows. Jerusalem Bible says, for example, “For I have reflected on all this, and have come to understand that….” Good News Translation, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, and Bible en français courant give similar translations. Studying the context, however, we note that the expression occurs in a chiastic or A-B-B′-A′ structure.
This suggests that both all this phrases refer to the same thing. Here then they refer forward to the observation being made. New Jerusalem Bible seems to take this approach and attempts to preserve the chiastic pattern: “For all this I noted, and I ascertained all this: that the actions of even the righteous and the wise….” In most languages such a sentence is considered too repetitive. If this is the case the two clauses can be combined: “Here is what I decided to examine…” or “I set my mind to study the following problem:….”
I laid to heart is sometimes translated “I applied my mind.” It is a typical phrase used by Qoheleth in 1.13, 17; 7.2; 8.16, and it describes the depth of his personal involvement in his search for truth. See comments for translation on 1.13.
Examining it all features an unusual Hebrew verb. This leads some scholars to make a change in the text at this point, but there is no manuscript evidence to support the change, and it makes good sense as it stands.
For translation we may suggest:
• Now, I set myself to examine the following problem….
How the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God: three items are spoken of as being “in God’s hand,” that is to say, “in his control” (Good News Translation). How renders the Hebrew relative clause marker; here its function is to identify the issue about to be examined. An introductory term like “namely, that” expresses that function clearly in English.
The righteous and the wise are used as terms that have the same or similar meaning in wisdom writing. They both describe one person, though they refer to different aspects of the good person’s character. The righteous describes the law-abiding citizen; see comments on 3.17. The wise person is someone who lives by the instruction of the wisdom tradition; this overlaps with being a person who keeps God’s Law. See comments on “wisdom” in 1.13. Since the terms refer to the same people, it is possible to combine them within the same noun phrase, “righteous and wise people.”
Their deeds represents the only Old Testament example of the Hebrew root “to serve” used as a noun. For the most part Qoheleth prefers a more general term when he describes what both God and human beings do. Here the peculiar term, literally “their service,” almost certainly relates to actions that the wise people perform as well as to the results of those actions. We can render this as deeds, “actions,” or by a phrase “everything they do.”
In the hand of God is an idiomatic phrase for being in God’s power, or for him to use. It expresses a principle noted earlier in chapter 3, namely that every event or every being lies under divine control. Many languages will have an idiom similar to this one; but before using such an idiom, the translator must determine its meaning. In some languages being “in God’s hand” means being protected by him rather than being under his control. An expression should be used that means “under his authority.” Alternatively the sentence may have to be expressed in a different way: “God is in control of the righteous person and the wise, and everything they do” or “God has authority over righteous and wise people and over everything they do.”
For translation:
• … namely, the law-abiding citizen, the wise person as well as the reward they get for what they do, are under God’s control.
• … namely, the righteous and wise person together with every action are all under God’s authority.
The clause whether it is love or hate man does not know, as well as the final part of the verse, is difficult to interpret for two reasons. First, it is difficult to determine how the different words are grouped together in the Hebrew text. Second, the nouns love and hate appear without suffixes, and thus we cannot be sure who is the subject of these actions.
The end of the text reads literally “… are in the hand of God whether love whether hate not knowing man the all before his face.” Some interpreters take “whether love whether hate” to be the object of the following verb, so they understand the clause to mean “Man does not know the difference between love and hate.” This interpretation has guided New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, and Bible en français courant. Others think that “love” and “hate” are to be included in the list of what is in God’s hand. Good News Translation follows this interpretation: “God controls the actions of wise and righteous men, even their love and their hate.” This rendering has the advantage of being strictly parallel with the same words in verse 6, “their love, their hate, their jealousy.” However, because love and hate appear here without pronoun suffixes, a third interpretation is possible, namely, that Qoheleth is talking about God’s love and hate rather than people’s. We must keep in mind that these terms are not used in an absolute sense in wisdom literature but may be pointing to God’s favor, acceptance, or reward (love) on the one hand, and to his rejection or punishment (hatred), on the other. This view is the one we will adopt here.
Besides determining who loves and who hates, we also need to determine the object of the clause man does not know. Is it “love and hate” that a person cannot know? Or is it the following clause, “all before his face”? How we understand the relationship between words will determine the meaning we find in this passage.
The scribes who produced the Hebrew text as we have it saw the pause in the sentence as coming after “hand of God.” In this case “if love, if hate” will be the object of the verb “know,” and consequently “all before his face” will be an independent sentence.
Revised Standard Version renders this last sentence as Everything before them is vanity. This reading depends on a change in the text derived from the Septuagint, changing hakol “the all” to hevel “vanity.” However, the text makes perfectly good sense as it stands, so in the absence of compelling reasons to change it, we should retain the Hebrew text (so also Hebrew Old Testament Text Project). This means that verse 1 ends with an independent noun clause meaning “Everything is before them.” (“Face” in the Hebrew idiom should not be translated literally here, as it refers to the people in question.) The pronoun refers back to the people described in the first part of the verse. “Before” must refer to time rather than place. It is very common for a term that refers to place or space to take on a time reference. Everything or “all” can be a reference to what happens generally in the world (“the future”), or in particular to God’s acceptance (“love”) or rejection (“hate”). We can translate widely: “People cannot predict anything” (Bible en français courant) or “It all lies in the future.” If we take God to be the agent of “love” and “hate,” we can say “both lie in the future” or “either may lie in our future.”
The entire verse can be rendered:
• Now I studied all this and decided that God is in control of righteous and wise people and everything they do. They do not know whether God will accept or reject them. All of that lies in the future.
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .