So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.
Ecclesiastes is an unusual book of the Old Testament — a relentlessly honest wrestling with suffering, meaning, and the nature of life on earth. The author calls himself 'the Teacher' or 'the Preacher,' a voice traditionally associated with King Solomon, who had experienced everything wealth, wisdom, and power could offer. The phrase 'under the sun' is the book's recurring shorthand for life as we observe it in this world. In this verse, the Teacher looks at systemic oppression without flinching and names what he sees: real tears, real power on the wrong side, and no one coming to help. He repeats 'they have no comforter' twice — not by accident. The repetition is the whole point.
God, forgive me for the times I looked away from suffering because it was easier. Open my eyes to the people around me who are crying with no one to sit with them. Give me the courage to show up even when I have no words — because sometimes presence is the whole thing. Amen.
The Bible doesn't always tell you what to do. Sometimes it just sits down beside you, looks at the same broken world you've been staring at, and says: I see it too. That's what Ecclesiastes does here — no silver lining, no pivot to a lesson, no comfort offered. Just an honest man looking at suffering and refusing to look away or explain it away. That phrase, repeated twice — 'they have no comforter' — is one of the loneliest lines in all of Scripture. And yet here you are, reading it, which means you now know it's there. The Teacher doesn't tell you what to do about it. But it is very hard to sit with those words and stay entirely comfortable in your own life. Someone in your actual orbit — not a news headline, a real person you know — may be sitting in exactly that silence right now. You may already be the answer to a prayer you didn't know was being prayed.
Why do you think the phrase 'they have no comforter' is repeated twice in the same verse — what is the Teacher trying to make the reader feel or do?
When you encounter suffering — in your community, in someone's story, in the news — what is your honest first instinct, and how does it line up with what you say you believe about justice and compassion?
Does it unsettle you that this verse offers no resolution, no comfort, and no call to action? What does it say about the Bible that a passage this bleak was preserved and included?
Think of someone in your life who is being crushed by something — a circumstance, a relationship, a system beyond their control. How present have you actually been to them lately?
What is one concrete thing — not a grand gesture, but something real and within reach — you could do this week to be a comforter to someone who currently has none?
Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
2 Timothy 4:17
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Ecclesiastes 9:11
And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 3:5
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
James 5:4
If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.
Ecclesiastes 5:8
And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.
Revelation 14:13
For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.
Isaiah 5:7
And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
Ecclesiastes 3:16
Then I looked again and considered all the acts of oppression that were being practiced under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them.
AMP
Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.
ESV
Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold [I saw] the tears of the oppressed and [that] they had no one to comfort [them]; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort [them].
NASB
Oppression, Toil, Friendlessness Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.
NIV
Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun: And look! The tears of the oppressed, But they have no comforter— On the side of their oppressors there is power, But they have no comforter.
NKJV
Again, I observed all the oppression that takes place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. The oppressors have great power, and their victims are helpless.
NLT
Next I turned my attention to all the outrageous violence that takes place on this planet—the tears of the victims, no one to comfort them; the iron grip of oppressors, no one to rescue the victims from them.
MSG