In 7.15 Qoheleth has already drawn attention to situations in which justice seems to be overturned. It is similar to the issue debated in 3.16; in fact, the apparent absence of justice from so much of human life is one of the profound concerns that Qoheleth struggles with throughout this book.

This verse opens and closes with the statement about vanity (hevel), indicating just how disturbed Qoheleth is by the problem. Despite the firm belief in God’s justice in verses 12b-13, the inescapable fact about our world is that it is full of situations that seem unjust. This is what Qoheleth describes as hevel—situations impossible to understand. In this he is questioning the two fundamental statements about justice found in verses 12 and 13.

Apart from the opening and closing statements about hevel, we note another important structural feature of this verse, namely, a series of three statements beginning with “there are”:
There is hevel ….
There are righteous people ….
There are wicked people ….

The middle two lines of the verse have a chiastic structure—“righteous” and “evil” are repeated in each line in reverse order:
There are righteous ones — it happens to them — as [to] deeds of wicked ones
There are wicked ones — it happens to them — as [to] deeds of righteous ones

Qoheleth is very upset that rewards and punishment have not been justly distributed, and the chiastic structure seems to highlight this terrible reversal. Translators should determine if this structure can be retained in translation, or they should find another way to express this strong emphasis.

There is a vanity: on hevel, the word usually rendered (incorrectly) as vanity, see comments in “Translating Ecclesiastes,” page 2, as well as on 1.2. Qoheleth here describes a real situation, so hevel cannot mean “emptiness” or “meaningless” as is found in many translations. Qoheleth cries again over the fact that justice seems to be completely reversed. We convey its sense best by something like “There is an incomprehensible situation….” New Jerusalem Bible captures the meaning as “Here is a frustration that occurs in the world.” Good News Translation “But this is nonsense” brings with it the understanding that Qoheleth has just presented two statements about justice that he rejects; but this is too strong. Qoheleth does not necessarily reject these explanations, although he certainly points out that they are inadequate. He is about to show that the explanations quoted are not always true in real life.

Which takes place on earth is a verbal phrase in which takes place is an impersonal rendering of the verb “do.” The verb form “are done” can be treated as an active voice, but then we need to identify the subject, whether God or human beings. See comments on verse 9 above. Use of the intransitive “happens” may be a good solution for some. Another possibility is to say “There is an enigma that we find [or, observe] in life…” or “It is impossible to understand some things that happen in society….” On earth is the equivalent of “under the sun” and “under heaven.” We can use a literal rendering, or we can say “in society,” since we are dealing with the human situation.

The description of the troubling circumstance now follows. There are righteous men begins with a Hebrew particle (“there is”) that identifies the subject concerned. This term may not require translation in many languages, in which case we go directly to the subject “righteous people.” However, Good News Translation is correct to add the adverb “sometimes” to the beginning of the phrase because Qoheleth is citing an example of what can happen; he does not mean that every righteous person is always treated in this way. Righteous is an adjective used as a noun, and it includes all people who can be classified as obeying the Law. Jerusalem Bible uses “the good,” but this does not seem sufficient.

To whom it happens is the relative clause modifying those law-abiding citizens. The phrase contains the participle of the verb meaning “to reach,” “extend as far as,” hence “happen to.” Jerusalem Bible “receive the treatment…” is a good model that can be used in each of the parallel phrases. Good News Translation is more precise about what happens, noting that righteous men “get the punishment of” the wicked.

According to the deeds of the wicked: behind this statement, as we have seen elsewhere, is the basic view that God knows a person’s actions and rewards or punishes them accordingly. The deeds of the wicked, or more simply “evil acts,” should be punished either by the legal system or by divine intervention. Thus the phrase according to points to the punishment due to evildoers.

We can translate as:

• Sometimes the law-abiding person is treated as an evil person should be.

• Sometimes the person who keeps God’s Law is punished as the evil person should be.

• Sometimes those who obey God are punished and the wicked are not.

The second half of the verse is simply the reverse of the first. Good News Translation makes explicit that the wicked “get the reward of the righteous.” This is a good model, or we can say:

• … and sometimes the evil person gets the blessing that should go to the one who obeys God.

In this instance, as noted above, the chiastic structure may be quite effective in showing how expectations are reversed.

Although the context almost certainly means that the punishment and blessing are early death and long life respectively, we should not translate the general text as narrowly as that.

The final clause consists of two phrases. The first, I said, means “I concluded” or “I thought.” The second phrase, this also is vanity, occurs often in this book. See comments on 5.10 for translation. We cannot recommend Good News Translation “it is useless,” because this is not what hevel means in this setting.

The entire verse can be rendered as:

• There is something incomprehensible that occurs in this world: there are righteous people who are treated as the wicked should be, and there are wicked people treated as the righteous should be. I [can only] say, all this is incomprehensible!

• There is something in this world that doesn’t make sense. Good people are punished as if they were bad, and bad people are rewarded as if they were good. I’m telling you, this just doesn’t make sense!

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 .