Ecclesiastes 7:29

NET Bible® (New English Translation)

This alone have I discovered: God made humankind upright, but they have sought many evil schemes.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

לְבַד רְאֵה־זֶה מָצָאתִי אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם יָשָׁר וְהֵמָּה בִקְשׁוּ חִשְּׁבֹנוֹת רַבִּים

Transliteration

Only rəʾēh-this māṣāʾṯî that ʿāśāh the-ʾĕlōhîm ʾeṯ-the-ʾāḏām yāšār and-they ḇiqšû ḥiššəḇōnôṯ rabbîm

Grammar Details

• *rəʾēh*: Qal imperative masculine singular - see
• *māṣāʾṯî*: Qal perfect 1st common singular - I found
• *ʿāśāh*: Qal perfect 3rd masculine singular - he made
• *ʾĕlōhîm*: noun, masculine plural with definite article - the God
• *ʾāḏām*: noun, masculine singular with definite article - the man
• *yāšār*: adjective, masculine singular - upright
• *ḇiqšû*: Piel perfect 3rd common plural - they sought
• *ḥiššəḇōnôṯ*: noun, masculine plural - schemes/devices
• *rabbîm*: adjective, masculine plural - many

Word Meanings

• *ləḇaḏ*: only/alone/merely
• *māṣāʾṯî*: I found/I discovered
• *ʿāśāh*: made/created/formed
• *ʾāḏām*: mankind/humanity/humankind
• *yāšār*: upright/straight/honest
• *ḇiqšû*: they sought/they invented/they devised
• *ḥiššəḇōnôṯ* *rabbîm*: many schemes/many devices/many inventions

Referenced Verses

• Gen 1:26-27 : 26 Then God said,“Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” 27 God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.
• Gen 3:6-7 : 6 When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
• Jer 4:22 : 22 The LORD answered,“This will happen because my people are foolish. They do not know me. They are like children who have no sense. They have no understanding. They are skilled at doing evil. They do not know how to do good.”
• Ezek 22:6-9 : 6 “‘See how each of the princes of Israel living within you has used his authority to shed blood. 7 They have treated father and mother with contempt within you; they have oppressed the resident foreigner among you; they have wronged the orphan and the widow within you. 8 You have despised my holy things and desecrated my Sabbaths! 9 Slanderous men shed blood within you. Those who live within you eat pagan sacrifices on the mountains; they commit obscene acts among you. 10 They have sexual relations with their father’s wife within you; they violate women during their menstrual period within you. 11 One commits an abominable act with his neighbor’s wife; another obscenely defiles his daughter-in-law; another violates his sister– his father’s daughter– within you. 12 They take bribes within you to shed blood. You engage in usury and charge interest; you extort money from your neighbors. You have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign LORD. 13 “‘See, I strike my hands together at the dishonest profit you have made, and at the bloodshed they have done among you.
• Mark 7:8-9 : 8 Having no regard for the command of God, you hold fast to human tradition.” 9 He also said to them,“You neatly reject the commandment of God in order to set up your tradition.
• Acts 7:40-43 : 40 saying to Aaron,‘Make us gods who will go in front of us, for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt– we do not know what has happened to him!’ 41 At that time they made an idol in the form of a calf, brought a sacrifice to the idol, and began rejoicing in the works of their hands. 42 But God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, house of Israel? 43 But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images you made to worship, but I will deport you beyond Babylon.’
• Rom 1:21-32 : 21 For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, 27 and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. 29 They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.
• Rom 3:9-9 : 9 The Condemnation of the World What then? Are we better off? Certainly not, for we have already charged that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin, 10 just as it is written:“There is no one righteous, not even one, 11 there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, not even one.” 13 “Their throats are open graves, they deceive with their tongues, the poison of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood, 16 ruin and misery are in their paths, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
• Eph 2:2-3 : 2 in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the domain of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest…
• Titus 3:3 : 3 For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another.
• Gen 5:1 : 1 From Adam to Noah This is the record of the family line of Adam.When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God.
• Gen 6:5-6 : 5 But the LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made humankind on the earth, and he was highly offended.
• Gen 6:11-12 : 11 The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence. 12 God saw the earth, and indeed it was ruined, for all living creatures on the earth were sinful.
• Gen 11:4-6 : 4 Then they said,“Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth.” 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the people had started building. 6 And the LORD said,“If as one people all sharing a common language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be beyond them.
• Ps 99:8 : 8 O LORD our God, you answered them. They found you to be a forgiving God, but also one who punished their sinful deeds.
• Ps 106:29 : 29 They made the LORD angry by their actions, and a plague broke out among them.
• Ps 106:39 : 39 They were defiled by their deeds, and unfaithful in their actions.
• Jer 2:12-13 : 12 Be amazed at this, O heavens! Be shocked and utterly dumbfounded,” says the LORD. 13 “Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”