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Ecclesiastes 7:26-28
New English Translation
Ecclesiastes 7:26-28
New English Translation
26 I discovered this:[a]
More bitter than death is the kind of[b] woman[c] who is like a hunter’s snare;[d]
her heart is like a hunter’s net and her hands are like prison chains.
The man who pleases God escapes her,
but the sinner is captured by her.
27 The Teacher says:
I discovered this while trying to discover the scheme of things, item by item.
28 What I have continually sought, I have not found;
I have found only[e] one upright[f] man among a thousand,
but I have not found one upright woman among all of them.
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 7:26 tn The word “this” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.
- Ecclesiastes 7:26 tn The phrase “kind of” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity (see the following note on the word “woman”).
- Ecclesiastes 7:26 tn The article on הָאִשָּׁה (haʾishah) functions in a particularizing sense (“the kind of woman”) rather than in a generic sense (i.e., “women”).
- Ecclesiastes 7:26 tn Heb “is snares.” The plural form מְצוֹדִים (metsodim, from the noun I מָצוֹד, matsod, “snare”) is used to connote either intensity, repeated or habitual action, or moral characteristic. For the function of the Hebrew plural, see IBHS 120-21 §7.4.2. The term II מָצוֹד “snare” is used in a concrete sense in reference to the hunter’s snare or net, but in a figurative sense of being ensnared by someone (Job 19:6; Prov 12:12; Eccl 7:26).
- Ecclesiastes 7:28 tn The word “only” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.
- Ecclesiastes 7:28 tn The word “upright” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation twice, here and in the following line, for clarity.
New English Translation (NET)
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