Ecclesiastes 6:8

So what advantage does a wise man have over a fool? ¹  And what advantage ²  does a pauper gain by knowing how to survive? ³ 

biblegateway Ecc 6:8

What advantage has a wise man over a fool? What does a poor man gain by knowing how to conduct himself before others?

biblegateway Ecc 6:8

For what advantage does the wise man have over the fool? What advantage does the poor man have, knowing how to walk before the living?

biblegateway Ecc 6:8

Considering this, do wise people really have any advantage over fools? Do poor people gain anything by being wise and knowing how to act in front of others?

biblegateway Ecc 6:8

So what advantage has a sage over a fool, or over some poor wretch who barely gets by?

SABDAweb Ecc 6:8

What have the wise more than the foolish? and what has the poor man by walking wisely before the living?

bibleoremus Ecc 6:8

For what advantage have the wise over fools? And what do the poor have who know how to conduct themselves before the living?

biblegateway Ecc 6:8

For what more has the wise man than the fool? What does the poor man have, Who knows how to walk before the living?

biblegateway Ecc 6:8

So what advantage does a wise man have over a fool? ¹  And what advantage ²  does a pauper gain by knowing how to survive? ³ 

¹ sn So what advantage does the wise man have over a fool? The rhetorical question in Hebrew implies a negative answer: the wise man has no absolute advantage over a fool in the sense that both will share the same fate: death. Qoheleth should not be misunderstood here as denying that wisdom has no relative advantage over folly; elsewhere he affirms that wisdom does yield some relative benefits in life (7:1-22). However, wisdom cannot deliver one from death.

² sn As in the preceding parallel line, this rhetorical question implies a negative answer (see the note after the word “fool” in the preceding line).

³ tn Heb “ What to the pauper who knows to walk before the living”; or “how to get along in life.”