Ecclesiastes 2:8
"Shiddah ve-shiddot": concubines, cupbearers, cups or instruments?
The last two words of 2:8 occur nowhere else in Hebrew. Every library witness translates them differently: the Greek "male and female cupbearers," the Vulgate "cups and pitchers for pouring wine," the KJV "musical instruments, and that of all sorts," and many modern versions "concubines" or "a harem." This is one rare word read in four ways, not four Hebrew texts.
Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently
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 it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Every witness, in order
Often dated 4th–3rd century BC (debated)
The book as first written
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).
Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592
Latin Vulgate (Clementine)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
coacervavi mihi argentum et aurum, et substantias regum ac provinciarum; feci mihi cantores et cantatrices, et delicias filiorum hominum, scyphos, et urceos in ministerio ad vina fundenda;
Latin numbering: Ecclesiastes 2:8. 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.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
כָּנַ֤סְתִּי לִי֙ גַּם־כֶּ֣סֶף וְזָהָ֔ב וּסְגֻלַּ֥ת מְלָכִ֖ים וְהַמְּדִינ֑וֹת עָשִׂ֨יתִי לִ֜י שָׁרִ֣ים וְשָׁר֗וֹת וְתַעֲנוּגֹ֛ת בְּנֵ֥י הָאָדָ֖ם שִׁדָּ֥ה וְשִׁדּֽוֹת׃
I gathered silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces; I got singers, men and women, and the delights of humankind: shiddah and shiddot
Hebrew numbering: Ecclesiastes 2:8.
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.
Greek translation c. 1st–2nd century AD (debated); French 1872
Greek Ecclesiastes (library: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
J’ai amassé aussi de l’argent et de l’or, et les trésors des rois et des empires. J’ai eu des chanteurs et des chanteuses; j’ai eu toutes les délices des fils des hommes; j’ai eu des échansons et des femmes pour remplir ma coupe.
Greek (digital file) numbering: Ecclesiastes 2:8. 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
The phrase follows "the delights of the sons of men" (ta'anugot bene ha-adam), a phrase used of sexual delight in Song 7:6, which supports "concubines" or "many women" (compare 1 Kings 11:3). Others derive shiddah from shadad, "to plunder" (spoils), or from shad, "breast."
The Greek translators guessed from the banquet context (wine-pourers); Jerome took them as vessels for wine; the KJV followed rabbinic and Reformation-era guesses about instruments, linking the verse to the singers just mentioned. Modern lexica list the word as uncertain.
Also in this verse: medinot, "provinces," the term for Persian administrative districts (common in Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel).
What the evidence shows
- Shiddah ve-shiddot occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible.
- All library witnesses translate it differently.
- It means concubines. The most common modern view; not certain.
Sources
Related lessons
- Ecclesiastes 2: The Royal Experiment →The king tests pleasure (2:1–3) and builds on a royal scale: houses, vineyards, gardens and parks, pools to water forests, slaves, herds, silver, gold, singers (vv. 4–8). He denies himself nothing, and his wisdom stays with him (vv. 9–10). Looking back, he finds "no profit under the sun" (v. 11). Wisdom is better than folly as light is better than darkness, yet wise and fool die alike and are forgotten (vv. 12–17). He hates his toil because an unknown heir will take it (vv. 18–23). The chapter ends with the book's first call to enjoy food, drink and work as gifts "from the hand of God" (vv. 24–26).
- Investigation: Who Was Qoheleth? →The book calls its speaker Qoheleth, "son of David, king in Jerusalem," and never names Solomon. Jewish and Christian tradition long read it as Solomon's. Most modern scholars date its Hebrew to the Persian or Hellenistic period (roughly 5th–3rd centuries BC) and read the royal voice as a literary persona. This investigation separates the categories that are often blurred: the title, the persona, the narrator who frames him, the historical author, and the date of the earliest copies.