“For there are many words that create vanity. What does that profit man?”
— WEB
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Translations sourced from the public-domain WEB, KJV, and ASV. See all sources.
“For there are many words that create vanity. What does that profit man?”
— WEB
“Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better?”
— KJV
“Seeing there are many things that increase vanity, what is man the better?”
— ASV
Here, 1. Solomon lays down his conclusion which he had undertaken to prove, as that which was fully confirmed by the foregoing discourse: There be many things that increase vanity; the life of man is vain, at the best, and there are abundance of accidents that concur to make it more so; even that which pretends to increase the vanity and make it more vexatious. 2. He draws some inferences from it, which serve further to evince the truth of it. (1.) That a man is never the nearer to true happiness for the abundance that he has in this world: What is man the better for his wealth and pleasure, his honour and preferment? What remains to man? What residuum has he, what overplus, what real advantage, when he comes to balance his accounts? Nothing that will do him any good or turn to account. (2.
— Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary (public domain)
"Seeing" that man cannot escape from the "vanity," which by God's "mighty" will is inherent in earthly things, and cannot call in question God's wisdom in these dispensations (equivalent to "contend," &c.), what is man the better--of these vain things as regards the chief good? None whatever.
— Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary (public domain)
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