Ecclesiastes 1:17
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
American King James Version (AKJV)
And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
American Standard Version (ASV)
And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also was a striving after wind.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
And I gave my heart to getting knowledge of wisdom, and of the ways of the foolish. And I saw that this again was desire for wind.
Webster's Revision
And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
World English Bible
I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also was a chasing after wind.
English Revised Version (ERV)
And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also was a striving after wind.
Clarke's Ecclesiastes 1:17 Bible Commentary
To know madness and folly - הוללות ושכלות holloth vesichluth. Παραβολας και επιστημην, "Parables and science." - Septuagint. So the Syriac; nearly so the Arabic.
"What were error and foolishness." - Coverdale. Perhaps gayety and sobriety may be the better meaning for these two difficult words. I can scarcely think they are taken in that bad sense in which our translation exhibits them. "I tried pleasure in all its forms; and sobriety and self-abnegation to their utmost extent." Choheleth paraphrases, "Even fools and madmen taught me rules."
Barnes's Ecclesiastes 1:17 Bible Commentary
To know madness and folly - A knowledge of folly would help him to discern wisdom, and to exercise that chief function of practical wisdom - to avoid folly.
Wesley's Ecclesiastes 1:17 Bible Commentary
1:17 To know - That I might throughly understand the nature and difference of truth and error, of virtue and vice.
