Ecclesiastes 3:6

3:6 A time to search, and a time to give something up as lost; ¹ 

a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

Ecclesiastes 3:16

The Problem of Injustice and Oppression

3:16 I saw something else on earth: ² 

In the place of justice, there was wickedness,

and in the place of fairness, ³  there was wickedness.

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¹ tn The term לְאַבֵּד (lÿ’abbed, Piel infinitive construct from אָבַד, ’avad, “to destroy”) means “to lose” (e.g., Jer 23:1) as the contrast with בָּקַשׁ (baqash, “to seek to find”) indicates (HALOT 3 s.v. I אבד; BDB 2 s.v. אבד 3). This is the declarative or delocutive-estimative sense of the Piel: “to view something as lost” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 28, §145; IBHS 403 §24.2g).

² tn Heb “under the sun.”

³ tn Or “righteousness.”