◄ Ecclesiastes 8:16 ►
Verse  (Click for Chapter)
Good News Translation
Whenever I tried to become wise and learn what goes on in the world, I realized that you could stay awake night and day

New Revised Standard Version
When I applied my mind to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how one’s eyes see sleep neither day nor night,

Contemporary English Version
Day and night I went without sleep, trying to understand what goes on in this world.

New American Bible
I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, though neither by day nor by night do one’s eyes see sleep,

Douay-Rheims Bible
And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night take no sleep with their eyes.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night take no sleep with their eyes.

when I

Ecclesiastes 8:7 Because he is ignorant of things past, and things to come he cannot know by any messenger.

Ecclesiastes 7:25 I have surveyed all things with my mind, to know, and consider, and seek out wisdom and reason: and to know the wickedness of the fool, and the error of the imprudent:

there is that

Ecclesiastes 2:23 All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he doth not rest in mind: and is not this vanity?

Ecclesiastes 4:8 There is but one, and he hath not a second, no child, no brother, and yet he ceaseth not to labour, neither are his eyes satisfied with riches, neither doth he reflect, saying: For whom do I labour, and defraud my soul of good things? in this also is vanity, and a grievous vexation.

Ecclesiastes 5:12 Sleep is sweet to a labouring man, whether he eat little or much: but the fulness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

Genesis 31:40 Day and night was I parched with heat, and with frost, and sleep departed from my eyes.

Psalm 127:2 It is vain for you to rise before light, rise ye after you have sitten, you that eat the bread of sorrow. When he shall give sleep to his beloved,

Context
God's Ways are Mysterious
…15Therefore I commended mirth, because there was no good for a man under the sun, but to eat, and drink, and be merry, and that he should take nothing else with him of his labour in the days of his life, which God hath given him under the sun. 16And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night take no sleep with their eyes.17And I understood that man can find no reason of all those works of God that are done under the sun: and the more he shall labour to seek, so much the less shall he find: yea, though the wise man shall say, that he knoweth it, he shall not be able to find it.…
Cross References
Ecclesiastes 1:13
And I proposed in my mind to seek and search out wisely concerning all things that are done under the sun. This painful occupation hath God given to the children of men, to be exercised therein.

Ecclesiastes 1:14
I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit.

Ecclesiastes 2:23
All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he doth not rest in mind: and is not this vanity?

Ecclesiastes 8:15
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