Ecclesiastes Chapter 9 verse 5 Holy Bible
For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
read chapter 9 in ASV
The living are conscious that death will come to them, but the dead are not conscious of anything, and they no longer have a reward, because there is no memory of them.
read chapter 9 in BBE
For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.
read chapter 9 in DARBY
For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
read chapter 9 in KJV
read chapter 9 in WBT
For the living know that they will die, but the dead don't know anything, neither do they have any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
read chapter 9 in WEB
For the living know that they die, and the dead know not anything, and there is no more to them a reward, for their remembrance hath been forgotten.
read chapter 9 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 5. - For the living know that they shall die. This is added in confirmation of the statement in ver. 4. The living have at least the consciousness that they will soon have to die, and this leads them to work while it is day, to employ their faculties worthily, to make use of opportunities, to enjoy and profit by the present. They have a certain fixed event to which they must look forward; and they have not to stand idle, lamenting their fate, but their duty and their happiness is to accept the inevitable and make the best of it. But the dead know not anything. They are cut off from the active, bustling world; their work is done; they have nothing to expect, nothing to labor for. What passes upon earth affects them not; the knowledge of it reaches them no longer. Aristotle's idea was that the dead did know something, in a hazy and indistinct way, of what went on in the upper world, and were in some slight degree influenced thereby, but not to such a degree as to change happiness into misery, or vice versa ('Eth. Nicom.,' 1:10 and 11). Neither have they any more a reward; i.e. no fruit for labor done. There is no question here about future retribution in another world. The gloomy view of the writer at this moment precludes all idea of such an adjustment of anomalies after death. For the memory of them is forgotten. They have not even the poor reward of being remembered by loving posterity, which in the mind of an Oriental was an eminent blessing, to be much desired. There is a paronomasia in zeker, "memory," and sakar, "reward," which, as Plumptre suggests, may be approximately represented in English by the words "record" and "reward."
