Ecclesiastes 12:14
For God will bring every deed into judgment, along with every hidden thing, whether good or evil.
For God
The phrase "For God" sets the foundation of the verse, emphasizing the sovereignty and omnipotence of God. In Hebrew, the word for God here is "Elohim," which is a plural form often used to denote the majesty and fullness of God's nature. This term underscores the divine authority and the ultimate power of God as the supreme judge. In the context of Ecclesiastes, it reminds us that despite the apparent vanity and fleeting nature of life, there is a divine order and purpose orchestrated by God.

will bring
The phrase "will bring" indicates a future certainty. The Hebrew verb "yāḇō'" suggests an assured action that God will undertake. This conveys the inevitability of divine judgment, reinforcing the belief that God's justice is not only a present reality but also a future promise. It assures believers that nothing escapes God's notice and that He will act in His perfect timing.

every deed
"Every deed" encompasses all actions, both public and private. The Hebrew word "ma'aseh" refers to works or actions, highlighting the comprehensive nature of God's judgment. This phrase serves as a reminder that all human activities, regardless of their perceived significance, are subject to divine scrutiny. It calls believers to live with integrity, knowing that their actions are seen and evaluated by God.

into judgment
The phrase "into judgment" speaks to the process of divine evaluation. The Hebrew word "mishpat" is used here, which means judgment or justice. This term is often associated with legal proceedings, indicating a formal assessment of one's actions. It reassures believers that God's judgment is fair and just, rooted in His perfect wisdom and righteousness.

along with every hidden thing
"Along with every hidden thing" emphasizes that nothing is concealed from God. The Hebrew word "ne'lam" means hidden or concealed, suggesting that even the most secretive actions or thoughts are known to God. This phrase serves as a sobering reminder of God's omniscience, encouraging believers to live transparently and authentically before Him.

whether good or evil
The phrase "whether good or evil" highlights the moral dimension of God's judgment. The Hebrew words "ṭôb" (good) and "ra'" (evil) denote the ethical quality of actions. This duality underscores the comprehensive nature of God's evaluation, where both righteous and wicked deeds are brought to light. It encourages believers to pursue righteousness and shun evil, knowing that their choices have eternal significance.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Solomon
Traditionally considered the author of Ecclesiastes, Solomon was the son of King David and known for his wisdom. Ecclesiastes is often seen as a reflection on the meaning of life and the pursuit of fulfillment.

2. Israel
The nation to whom Solomon was king. The teachings in Ecclesiastes were directed towards the people of Israel, offering wisdom and guidance.

3. Judgment
The event referred to in Ecclesiastes 12:14, where God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil.
Teaching Points
The Certainty of Judgment
Ecclesiastes 12:14 reminds us that God's judgment is certain and all-encompassing. Every action, whether public or private, will be evaluated by God.

The Omniscience of God
The verse underscores God's omniscience. He sees all things, even those hidden from human eyes, and will bring them to account.

Moral Accountability
Believers are called to live with an awareness of their moral accountability before God. This should influence daily decisions and actions.

The Importance of Integrity
Since God will judge every hidden thing, integrity in both public and private life is crucial for believers.

Eternal Perspective
Understanding that God will judge every deed encourages believers to live with an eternal perspective, prioritizing what is pleasing to God over temporary gains.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does the certainty of God's judgment, as described in Ecclesiastes 12:14, influence your daily decisions and actions?

2. In what ways can the understanding of God's omniscience, as highlighted in this verse, impact your personal integrity?

3. How does the message of Ecclesiastes 12:14 connect with the teachings of Romans 14:12 and 2 Corinthians 5:10 regarding personal accountability?

4. What steps can you take to ensure that your hidden actions align with God's standards, knowing that they will be brought to light?

5. How can maintaining an eternal perspective, as encouraged by Ecclesiastes 12:14, help you prioritize your life goals and values?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Romans 14:12
This verse emphasizes personal accountability before God, similar to the theme of judgment in Ecclesiastes 12:14.

2 Corinthians 5:10
Paul speaks about the judgment seat of Christ, where everyone will receive what is due for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad, echoing the message of Ecclesiastes 12:14.

Hebrews 4:13
This verse highlights that nothing is hidden from God's sight, reinforcing the idea that every hidden thing will be brought to light in judgment.
Human ResponsibilityH. Melvill, B. D.Ecclesiastes 12:14
The Great Day of JudgmentW. Barns.Ecclesiastes 12:14
The Reasonableness and Credibility of This Great Principle of ReligionBp. Wilkins.Ecclesiastes 12:14
Divine Requirement and Human ResponseW. Clarkson Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14
Religion, Righteousness, and RetributionD. Thomas Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14
The Last WordJ. Willcock Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14
People
Solomon
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Act, Bad, Bring, Deed, Evil, Hidden, Including, Judge, Judgment, Secret, Whether
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ecclesiastes 12:14

     1020   God, all-knowing
     1310   God, as judge
     5052   responsibility, to God
     5812   concealment
     6163   faults

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

     5853   experience, of life

Library
The Conclusion of the Matter
'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain; 3. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 4. And the doors shall be shut in
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Work of Our Sanctification.
How much more easily sanctity appears when regarded from this point of view. If the work of our sanctification presents, apparently, the most insurmountable difficulties, it is because we do not know how to form a just idea of it. In reality sanctity can be reduced to one single practice, fidelity to the duties appointed by God. Now this fidelity is equally within each one's power whether in its active practice, or passive exercise. The active practice of fidelity consists in accomplishing the duties
Jean-Pierre de Caussade—Abandonment to Divine Providence

Circumstances and Consequences
And fears shall be in the way.' (Ecclesiastes xii. 5.) The man who wrote these words was specially emphasizing the importance of settling one's relationships to the great Creator before the coming of days when infirmities increase, and decay of natural powers sets in. The practical outcome of that thought is, that postponement only adds to one's difficulties when the battle really has to be fought. Amongst those difficulties the sacred writer places that natural foreboding, physical shrinking
T. H. Howard—Standards of Life and Service

The Ancestral Home
John Van Nest Talmage was born at Somerville, New Jersey, August 18, 1819 He was the fourth son in a family of seven brothers and five sisters. The roots of the Talmage genealogical tree may be traced back to the year 1630, when Enos and Thomas Talmage, the progenitors of the Talmage family in North America, landed at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and afterwards settled at East Hampton, Long Island. Dr. Lyman Beecher represents the first settlers of East Hampton as "men resolute, enterprising, acquainted
Rev. John Gerardus Fagg—Forty Years in South China

Letter cxxvi. To Marcellinus and Anapsychia.
Marcellinus, a Roman official of high rank, and Anapsychia his wife had written to Jerome from Africa to ask him his opinion on the vexed question of the origin of the soul. Jerome in his reply briefly enumerates the several views that have been held on the subject. For fuller information he refers his questioners to his treatise against Rufinus and also to their bishop Augustin who will, he says, explain the matter to them by word of mouth. Although it hardly appears in this letter Jerome is a decided
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ.
"When Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."--Mark xii. 34. The answer of the scribe, which our blessed Lord here commends, was occasioned by Christ's setting before him the two great commandments of the Law. When He had declared the love of God and of man to comprehend our whole duty, the scribe said, "Master, Thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, and with
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Abrogation of the Saybrook Platform
That house cannot stand.--Mark iii, 25. The times change and we change with them.--Proverb. The omission of all persecuting acts from the revision of the laws in 1750 was evidence that the worst features of the great schism were passing, that public opinion as a whole had grown averse to any great severity toward the Separatists as dissenters. But the continuance in the revised statutes of the Saybrook Platform as the legalized constitution of the "Presbyterian, Congregational or Consociated Church,"
M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.—The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

A Treatise of the Fear of God;
SHOWING WHAT IT IS, AND HOW DISTINGUISHED FROM THAT WHICH IS NOT SO. ALSO, WHENCE IT COMES; WHO HAS IT; WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS; AND WHAT THE PRIVILEGES OF THOSE THAT HAVE IT IN THEIR HEARTS. London: Printed for N. Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, over against the Stocks market: 1679. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and "a fountain of life"--the foundation on which all wisdom rests, as well as the source from whence it emanates. Upon a principle
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

1 to Pray Does not Imply that Without Prayer God Would not Give us Anything...
1. To pray does not imply that without prayer God would not give us anything or that He would be unaware of our needs, but it has this great advantage, that in the attitude of prayer the soul is best fitted to receive the Giver of blessing as well as those blessings He desires to bestow. Thus it was that the fullness of the Spirit was not poured out upon the Apostles on the first day, but after ten days of special preparation. If a blessing were conferred upon one without a special readiness for
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

The Fifth Commandment
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.' Exod 20: 12. Having done with the first table, I am next to speak of the duties of the second table. The commandments may be likened to Jacob's ladder: the first table respects God, and is the top of the ladder that reaches to heaven; the second respects superiors and inferiors, and is the foot of the ladder that rests on the earth. By the first table, we walk religiously towards God; by
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Appendix v. Rabbinic Theology and Literature
1. The Traditional Law. - The brief account given in vol. i. p. 100, of the character and authority claimed for the traditional law may here be supplemented by a chronological arrangement of the Halakhoth in the order of their supposed introduction or promulgation. In the first class, or Halakhoth of Moses from Sinai,' tradition enumerates fifty-five, [6370] which may be thus designated: religio-agrarian, four; [6371] ritual, including questions about clean and unclean,' twenty-three; [6372] concerning
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

A Prayer when one Begins to be Sick.
O most righteous Judge, yet in Jesus Christ my gracious Father! I, wretched sinner, do here return unto thee, though driven with pain and sickness, like the prodigal child with want and hunger. I acknowledge that this sickness and pain comes not by blind chance or fortune, but by thy divine providence and special appointment. It is the stroke of thy heavy hand, which my sins have justly deserved; and the things that I feared are now fallen upon me (Job iii. 25.) Yet do I well perceive that in wrath
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Christian Man
Scripture references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7; 9:6; Job 33:4; Psalm 100:3; 8:4-9; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Acts 17:26-28; 1 Corinthians 11:7; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10; 1 Corinthians 15:45; Hebrews 2:6,7; Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 Corinthians 2:9. WHAT IS MAN? What Shall We Think of Man?--Who is he? What is his place on the earth and in the universe? What is his destiny? He is of necessity an object of thought. He is the subject of natural laws, instincts and passions. How far is he free; how far bound?
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

The Heavenly Footman; Or, a Description of the Man that Gets to Heaven:
TOGETHER WITH THE WAY HE RUNS IN, THE MARKS HE GOES BY; ALSO, SOME DIRECTIONS HOW TO RUN SO AS TO OBTAIN. 'And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.'--Genesis 19:17. London: Printed for John Marshall, at the Bible in Gracechurch Street, 1698. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. About forty years ago a gentleman, in whose company I had commenced my
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Of the Effects of those Prerogatives.
From these prerogatives there will arise to the elect in heaven, five notable effects:-- 1. They shall know God with a perfect knowledge (1 Cor. i. 10), so far as creatures can possibly comprehend the Creator. For there we shall see the Word, the Creator; and in the Word, all creatures that by the Word were created; so that we shall not need to learn (of the things which were made) the knowledge of him by whom all things were made. The most excellent creatures in this life, are but as a dark veil
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Ecclesiastes
It is not surprising that the book of Ecclesiastes had a struggle to maintain its place in the canon, and it was probably only its reputed Solomonic authorship and the last two verses of the book that permanently secured its position at the synod of Jamnia in 90 A.D. The Jewish scholars of the first century A.D. were struck by the manner in which it contradicted itself: e.g., "I praised the dead more than the living," iv. 2, "A living dog is better than a dead lion," ix. 4; but they were still more
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Christ the King at his Table. Ss 1:2-5,12,13,17.
Christ the King at his table. SS 1:2-5,12,13,17. Let him embrace my soul, and prove Mine interest in his heav'nly love; The voice that tells me, "Thou art mine," Exceeds the blessings of the vine. On thee th' anointing Spirit came, And spreads the savor of thy name; That oil of gladness and of grace Draws virgin souls to meet thy face. Jesus, allure me by thy charms, My soul shall fly into thine arms! Our wand'ring feet thy favors bring To the fair chambers of the King. [Wonder and pleasure tune
Isaac Watts—The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts

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