Six ways to encounter God here
A passage is not only to be understood; it is to be lived with. Choose how you want to meet God in Ecclesiastes 8:12, and Living Bread opens it right there.
The passage in its setting
Meeting God in a verse begins with hearing it where it lives, in the flow of Ecclesiastes 8. Read it slowly, and let the focal verse settle into its own context.
10 And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.
11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
12 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:
13 But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.
14 There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.
The web of Scripture around it
Where this passage echoes across the Bible, from the cross-reference graph, 14 connected Scriptures. Each one is a door to meet God there too.
- Psalms 37:11
But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
- 2 Peter 2:9
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
- Luke 1:50
And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
- Ecclesiastes 7:15
All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.
- Ecclesiastes 3:14
I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
- Psalms 37:18
The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever.
- Isaiah 65:20
There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall b…
- Isaiah 3:10
Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.
- Romans 9:22
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
- Proverbs 1:32
For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
- Matthew 25:34
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
- Romans 2:5
But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
- Matthew 25:41
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
- 1 Kings 21:25
But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
More to meet God in Ecclesiastes
How it points to Christ
Every Scripture ultimately leads to Jesus. See how the whole Bible points to Him in Christ in all Scripture, then meet Him for yourself.
