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Ecclesiastes 1:3

"What profit hath a man of all his labour?"

The book's governing question uses two key words: yitron (surplus, what is left over) and amal (toil). "Under the sun" occurs here for the first of 29 times. The witnesses agree; the English words chosen shape how the question sounds.

Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains this verse · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. The book as first writtenOften dated 4th–3rd century BC (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The book as first written
Greek
  1. Greek Ecclesiastes (library: Giguet's French)Greek translation c. 1st–2nd century AD (debated); French 1872Translated from the Greek Ecclesiastes
Latin
  1. Latin Vulgate (Clementine)Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592Translated from the Hebrew text Jerome used
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Often dated 4th–3rd century BC (debated)

    The book as first written

    – No copy survives

    No original survives. The oldest Hebrew copies of Ecclesiastes are two Qumran fragments, 4Q109 (4QQoh-a, mid-2nd century BC, reported) and 4Q110 (4QQoh-b, reported).

  2. Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592

    Latin Vulgate (Clementine)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Hebrew text Jerome used

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    Quid habet amplius homo de universo labore suo quo laborat sub sole?

    Latin numbering: Ecclesiastes 1:3. Jerome translated Ecclesiastes from Hebrew (c. AD 398), after writing a commentary on it (c. 388); the Vulgate is an indirect witness to a Hebrew text, with Jerome's interpretation.

  3. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The book as first written

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    מַה־יִּתְר֖וֹן לָֽאָדָ֑ם בְּכָל־עֲמָל֔וֹ שֶֽׁיַּעֲמֹ֖ל תַּ֥חַת הַשָּֽׁמֶשׁ׃

    What surplus (yitron) is there for a human in all his toil (amal) that he toils under the sun?

    Hebrew numbering: Ecclesiastes 1:3.

  4. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

  5. Greek translation c. 1st–2nd century AD (debated); French 1872

    Greek Ecclesiastes (library: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Greek Ecclesiastes

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    Que reste-t-il à l’homme de tout le labeur dont il se consume sous le soleil?

    Greek (digital file) numbering: Ecclesiastes 1:3. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check). A C check needs the Göttingen edition of Greek Ecclesiastes (P. J. Gentry, 2019).

What changed, and why

Yitron is a commercial word: the surplus on a balance sheet. It occurs 10 times in Ecclesiastes and nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible (the related yoter, "more," is common). Amal (35 times in the book, noun and verb) means work with its weariness and trouble (Psalm 90:10, "labour and sorrow").

Greek perisseia ("abundance, advantage"; Giguet "que reste-t-il," what remains), Latin quid habet amplius ("what more does he have") and English "profit" all render yitron accurately. "Under the sun" is unique to Ecclesiastes in the Bible; the phrase also appears in Phoenician royal inscriptions (Tabnit and Eshmunazar of Sidon, 5th century BC), where it means "among the living."

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedYitron occurs 10 times, only in Ecclesiastes.
  • Independently documented"Under the sun" occurs 29 times in Ecclesiastes.
  • Strongly supported"Under the sun" also occurs in Phoenician inscriptions from Sidon. Tabnit and Eshmunazar; wording is a C check.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Ecclesiastes 1: Nothing New Under the Sun →A third-person heading introduces "the words of Qoheleth, the son of David, king in Jerusalem" (1:1). The motto follows: "havel havalim… all is hevel" (1:2), breath of breaths, vapor of vapors, "vanity of vanities" in older English. Then the question that drives the book: "What profit (yitron) hath a man of all his labour (amal) which he taketh under the sun?" (1:3). A poem shows generations passing while sun, wind and rivers go round and round (vv. 4–11). The speaker then introduces himself as a king who set out to examine everything by wisdom and found it "a pursuit of wind" (vv. 12–18).
    • Investigation: What Does Hevel Actually Mean? →Hevel is literally "breath" or "vapor." It occurs 38 times in Ecclesiastes (30 verses), more than in the rest of the Hebrew Bible combined. English Bibles have rendered it "vanity," "meaningless," "futile," "absurd," "fleeting" and "enigma." This investigation groups every occurrence by what it is applied to and shows why no single English word fits them all.