Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Ecclesiastes 3:15 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 15. 15That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse returns to past and future recurrence and says God seeks what is pursued or past.
Read It With
- Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
Read Ecclesiastes 3:15 with 3:9-15. This verse returns to past and future recurrence and says God seeks what is pursued or past. The full unit establishes this movement: Humans receive work and awareness of a larger whole yet cannot discover God's work from beginning to end; their bounded good is joy, doing good, eating, drinking, and receiving labor as gift before God's enduring action.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The reflection interprets the poem: God grants tasks and a sense of the whole while withholding comprehensive mastery, so reverence and received good replace total explanation. Within that movement, this verse returns to past and future recurrence and says God seeks what is pursued or past.
Follow the Context
- The profit question is restated.
- Human occupation is observed as God-given.
- God makes things fitting in time and places olam in the human heart.
- Humans cannot find the whole divine work.
- Joy, doing good, food, drink, and labor are gifts.
- God's enduring work evokes fear while past and future remain beyond control.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“requireth that which is past”
In plain language: An uncertain phrase about God seeking what has passed or been pursued.
returns to past and future recurrence and says God seeks what is pursued or past. Time remains beyond human possession, while no event is lost from divine concern.
Why it matters: The wording carries interpretive or ethical risk requiring the complete unit and stated limits.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The verse does not teach exact eternal recurrence or date-setting.
It does not prove that every past arrangement should be restored.
What Remains True
Time remains beyond human possession, while no event is lost from divine concern.
How It Can Shape Life
- Learn from what returns and pursue accountability for harms others would prefer forgotten.
Teach It Back
Explain Ecclesiastes 3:15's precise role in Ecclesiastes 3:9-15. Include the complete movement, one material uncertainty, and one conclusion the verse does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Ecclesiastes 3:9-15 — God's Fitting Work and the Human LimitSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The final Hebrew phrase is difficult: God may seek what has passed, what is pursued, or the persecuted.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Ecclesiastes 3:9-15, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Ecclesiastes
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used for lexical, grammatical, repeated-word, and translation questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Eccl.xml, 3:9-15
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Ecclesiastes with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level textual, grammatical, lexical, literary, and translation alternatives.
Exact location: NET Bible Ecclesiastes PDF, printed pp. 1197-1198, translation and notes on 3:9-15
Open source ↗