¹ tn Grk “vainly says.”

⁵ tn Or “futile”; traditionally, “vain.”

² tn Heb “The refiner refines them in vain.”

¹ tn Heb “Our eyes failed in vain for help.”

³ tn Heb “In vain you multiply [= make use of many] medicines.”

¹ tn Or “worthless” (NASB, NCV, CEV); KJV, ASV “vain.”

² tn Heb “empty things” or “vain things”; NRSV “follows worthless pursuits.”

² tn The text has the noun “vain thing; breath; vapor,” and then a denominative verb from the same root: “to become vain with a vain thing,” or “to do in vain a vain thing.” This is an example of the internal object, or a cognate accusative (see GKC 367 §117.q). The LXX has “you all know that you are adding vanity to vanity.”

² tn “In vain” translates תֹהוּ (tohu), used here as an adverbial accusative: “for nothing.”

¹ tn Heb “the ones who observe vain things of falsehood.” See Jonah 2:9.

¹ tn The Hebrew is דַעַת־רוּחַ (daʿat ruakh). This means knowledge without any content, vain knowledge.

³ sn The birth of the stillborn was in vain—it did it no good to be born.

¹ tn Heb “Truly in vain from the hills the noise/commotion [and from] the mountains.” The syntax of the Hebrew sentence is very elliptical here.

³ sn This individual lives beyond his financial means in a vain show to impress other people and thus cannot afford to put food on the table.

⁵ tn The LXX seems to have gone a different way: “What, is there any reason in vain words, or what will hinder you from answering?”

² tn The expression is literally “men of emptiness” (see Ps 26:4). These are false men, for שָׁוְא (shavʾ) can mean “vain, empty, or false, deceitful.”

¹ tn Heb “those who deal in treachery in vain.” The adverb רֵיקָם (reqam, “in vain”) probably refers to the failure (or futility) of their efforts. Another option is to understand it as meaning “without cause” (cf. NIV “without excuse”; NRSV “wantonly treacherous”).

² tc Heb “Surely [in] vain they strive, he accumulates and does not know who gathers them.” The MT as it stands is syntactically awkward. The verb forms switch from singular (“walks about”) to plural (“they strive”) and then back to singular (“accumulates and does not know”), even though the subject (generic “man”) remains the same. Furthermore there is no object for the verb “accumulates” and no plural antecedent for the plural pronoun (“them”) attached to “gathers.” These problems can be removed if one emends the text from הֶבֶל יֶהֱמָיוּן (hevel yehemayun, “[in] vain they strive”) to הֶבְלֵי הָמוֹן (hevle hamon, “vain things of wealth”). The present translation follows this emendation.

¹ tn Heb “not in vain did I speak to do to them this catastrophe.” The wording of the last half of v. 10 parallels God’s declaration after the sin of the golden calf (Exod 32:14).

² tn Heb “and in robbery do not place vain hope.” Here “robbery” stands by metonymy for the riches that can be gained by theft, as the next line of the verse indicates.