Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Ecclesiastes 7:26 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 26. 26And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse finds a woman portrayed as snares and nets more bitter than death, while escape is associated with pleasing God.
Read It With
- Ecclesiastes 7:23-29
Read Ecclesiastes 7:26 with 7:23-29. This verse finds a woman portrayed as snares and nets more bitter than death, while escape is associated with pleasing God. The full unit establishes this movement: Qoheleth admits wisdom remained far, reports severe gendered sayings from the search, and ends by broadening the indictment: God made humankind upright, but human beings sought many schemes.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The speaker's most ethically dangerous report is enclosed by failed knowledge and a final universal conclusion, requiring readers to preserve the gendered harm without turning it into divine condemnation of women. Within that movement, this verse finds a woman portrayed as snares and nets more bitter than death, while escape is associated with pleasing God.
Follow the Context
- Qoheleth resolves to be wise but finds wisdom distant and deep.
- He investigates wisdom, accounting, wickedness, folly, and madness.
- He reports a woman more bitter than death as snares, nets, and bands.
- He counts one man among a thousand but no woman in the searched group.
- His stated final finding is that God made humanity upright while they sought many schemes.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“whose heart is snares”
In plain language: A disputed female figure characterized by entrapment, not a definition of womanhood.
finds a woman portrayed as snares and nets more bitter than death, while escape is associated with pleasing God. Within the search for seductive folly, the speaker describes a lethal entanglement; the figure must not be generalized to women.
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 that women as a class are dangerous, morally inferior, or responsible for male sin.
It does not justify misogyny, coercive control, sexual blame, celibacy mandates, or violence against women.
What Remains True
Within the search for seductive folly, the speaker describes a lethal entanglement; the figure must not be generalized to women.
How It Can Shape Life
- Identify manipulative entrapment by conduct and power, never by sex, and protect people of every gender from exploitation.
Teach It Back
Explain Ecclesiastes 7:26's precise role in Ecclesiastes 7:23-29. 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 7:23-29 — A Failed Search and the Dangerous-Woman SayingSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The woman may be a particular seducer, an adulterous-woman wisdom type, personified folly, or a rhetorically gendered experience; the text does not settle one referent.
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 7:23-29, 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, 7:23-29
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. 1210-1211, translation and notes on 7:23-29
Open source ↗