Utter futility!—said Kohelet—utter futility! All is futile! Ecclesiastes 1:1-2 JPS Utter futility – bavel bavalim. Literally, “vapor of vapors.” “Utter senselessness” translates Michael Fox in the JPS commentary. “Ecclesiastes is a strange and disquieting book. It gives voice to an experience not usually thought of as religious: the pain and frustration engendered by an unblinking…
You renew Your witnesses against me and increase Your anger toward me; Hardship after hardship is with me. Why then did You bring me out of the womb? If only I had died and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been, brought from womb to tomb. Job 10:17-19 …
Better is a little with righteousness than great income with injustice. Proverbs 16:8 Injustice – Some things we can do without. This proverb tells us that one of those things is belo mishpat. We can do without “without justice.” While our translation provides us with the correct English equivalent, the Hebrew thought is made up…
