Ecclesiastes 7:26-29

7:26 I discovered this:

More bitter than death is the kind of woman who is like a hunter’s snare;

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.

7:27 The Teacher says:

I discovered this while trying to discover the scheme of things, item by item.

7:28 What I have continually sought, I have not found;

I have found only one upright man among a thousand,

but I have not found one upright woman among all of them.

7:29 This alone have I discovered: God made humankind upright,

but they have sought many evil schemes.


tn The word “this” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

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”).

tn The article on הָאִשָּׁה (haishah) functions in a particularizing sense (“the kind of woman”) rather than in a generic sense (i.e., “women”).

tn Heb “is snares.” The plural form מְצוֹדִים (mÿtsodim, 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).

tn The word “only” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

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.