Ecclesiastes 1:12-18

English Standard Version Chapter 1

I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight,

and what is lacking cannot be counted.

I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.

And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. (heart isn’t the emotions but the mind and rational being)

(Wisdom technical skill in war, shrewdness)

It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. (It is rotten business)

I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.(bent: the struggles of life’s obstacles under secular world view.)

(Who can strengthen what God bends, no one can.)

English Standard Version Chapter 1

I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

For in much wisdom is much vexation,

and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

I said in my heart, I have acquired great wisdom (more technical skill in war,

Surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me

My heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge

(wisdom: Skill in war, shrewdness)

(knowledge: knowing good and evil, Ethics)

And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly

My total man to know skill in war or shrewdness)

(madness: delusion erratic behavior that mimics madness)

(Folly: Foolishness, lacking prudence, wisdom, insight, a open display of the lacking understanding.)

I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind

For in much wisdom is much vexation,

(The more prudence the more frustrated or grief you will have with those who are wrong.)

and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

( the more skill, wisdom, discernment you have obtained the more mental pain you will have from sin.)

Commentary on the Old Testament (The Unsatisfactoriness of Striving after Wisdom, 1:12–18)

“For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”

The German proverb: “Much wisdom causeth headache,”