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Read the Bible

Brenton's Septuagint

Ecclesiastes 9:4

for who is he that has fellowship with all the living? there is hope of him: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Death;   Hades;   Lion;   Thompson Chain Reference - Animals;   Dogs;   The Topic Concordance - Hope;  

Dictionaries:

- Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Death, Mortality;   Hope;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Ecclesiastes, the Book of;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Ecclesiastes, Book of;   Fellowship;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Hope;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Dog;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Lion;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Canon of the Old Testament;   Dead;   Wisdom;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Death, Views and Customs Concerning;   Menander;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for August 24;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
But there is hope for whoever is joined with all the living, since a live dog is better than a dead lion.
Hebrew Names Version
For to him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
King James Version
For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
English Standard Version
But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
New American Standard Bible
For whoever is joined to all the living, there is hope; for better a live dog, than a dead lion.
New Century Version
But anyone still alive has hope; even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
Amplified Bible
[There is no exemption,] but whoever is joined with all the living, has hope; surely a live dog is better than a dead lion.
World English Bible
For to him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Surely whosoeuer is ioyned to all ye liuing, there is hope: for it is better to a liuing dog, then to a dead lyon.
Legacy Standard Bible
For whoever is joined with all the living, there is confidence; surely a live dog is better than a dead lion.
Berean Standard Bible
There is hope, however, for anyone who is among the living; for even a live dog is better than a dead lion.
Contemporary English Version
As long as we are alive, we still have hope, just as a live dog is better off than a dead lion.
Complete Jewish Bible
For as long as a person is linked with the living, there is hope — better to be a living dog than a dead lion!
Darby Translation
For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Easy-to-Read Version
There is hope for those who are still alive—it does not matter who they are. But this saying is true: A living dog is better than a dead lion.
George Lamsa Translation
For him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Good News Translation
But anyone who is alive in the world of the living has some hope; a live dog is better off than a dead lion.
Lexham English Bible
Whoever is joined to all the living has hope. After all, even a live dog is better than a dead lion!
Literal Translation
For one who is chosen to be among all the living, there is hope. For a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
And why? As longe as a man lyueth, he is careles: for a quyck dogg (saye they) is better the a deed lion:
American Standard Version
For to him that is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Bible in Basic English
For him who is joined to all the living there is hope; a living dog is better than a dead lion.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
King James Version (1611)
For to him that is ioyned to all the liuing, there is hope: for a liuing dogge is better then a dead Lion.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
And why? as long as a man liueth, he hath an hope: for a quicke dogge [say they] is better then a dead lion.
English Revised Version
For to him that is joined with all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
No man is, that lyueth euere, and that hath trist of this thing; betere is a quik dogge than a deed lioun.
Update Bible Version
For to him that is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Webster's Bible Translation
For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
New English Translation
But whoever is among the living has hope; a live dog is better than a dead lion.
New King James Version
But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
New Living Translation
There is hope only for the living. As they say, "It's better to be a live dog than a dead lion!"
New Life Bible
But there is hope for the one who is among the living. For sure a live dog is better off than a dead lion.
New Revised Standard
But whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For, whosoever was united to all the living, for him, there was hope, - -inasmuch as, a living dog, fared better than a dead lion.
Douay-Rheims Bible
There is no man that liveth always, or that hopeth for this: a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Revised Standard Version
But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Young's Literal Translation
But [to] him who is joined unto all the living there is confidence, for to a living dog it [is] better than to the dead lion.
THE MESSAGE
Still, anyone selected out for life has hope, for, as they say, "A living dog is better than a dead lion." The living at least know something, even if it's only that they're going to die. But the dead know nothing and get nothing. They're a minus that no one remembers. Their loves, their hates, yes, even their dreams, are long gone. There's not a trace of them left in the affairs of this earth.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
For whoever is joined with all the living, there is hope; surely a live dog is better than a dead lion.

Contextual Overview

4 for who is he that has fellowship with all the living? there is hope of him: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5 For the living will know that they shall die: but the dead know nothing, and there is no longer any reward to them; for their memory is lost. 6 also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, have now perished; yea, there is no portion for them any more for ever in all that is done under the sun. 7 Go, eat thy bread with mirth, and drink thy wine with a joyful heart; for now God has favourably accepted thy works. 8 Let thy garments be always white; and let not oil be wanting on thine head. 9 And see life with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which are given thee under the sun: for that is thy portion in thy life, and in thy labour wherein thou labourest under the sun. 10 Whatsoever thine hand shall find to do, do with all thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Hades wither thou goest.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Job 14:7-12, Job 27:8, Isaiah 38:18, Lamentations 3:21, Lamentations 3:22, Luke 16:26-29

Reciprocal: Job 24:19 - so doth Ecclesiastes 4:2 - General Isaiah 57:18 - to his

Cross-References

Genesis 9:10
and with every living creature with you, of birds and of beasts, and with all the wild beasts of the earth, as many as are with you, of all that come out of the ark.
Genesis 9:14
And it shall be when I gather clouds upon the earth, that my bow shall be seen in the cloud.
Leviticus 3:17
It is a perpetual statute throughout your generations, in all your habitations; ye shall eat no fat and no blood.
Leviticus 7:26
as the Lord commanded to give to them in the day in which he anointed them of the sons of Israel, a perpetual statute through their generations.
Leviticus 19:26
Eat not on the mountains, nor shall ye employ auguries, nor divine by inspection of birds.
Deuteronomy 12:16
Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it out on the ground as water.
Deuteronomy 12:23
Take diligent heed that thou eat no blood, for blood is the life of it; the life shall not be eaten with the flesh.
Deuteronomy 14:21
Ye shall eat nothing that dies of itself; it shall be given to the sojourner in thy cities and he shall eat it, or thou shalt sell it to a stranger, because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not boil a lamb in his mother’s milk.
Deuteronomy 15:23
Only ye shall not eat the blood; thou shalt pour it out on the earth as water.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope,.... That is, who is among the living, is one of them, and, as long as he is, there is hope, if his circumstances are mean, and he is poor and afflicted, that it may be better with him in time; see Job 14:7; or of his being a good man, though now wicked; of his being called and converted, as some are at the eleventh hour, even on a death bed; and especially there is a hope of men, if they are under the means of grace, seeing persons have been made partakers of the grace of God after long waiting. There is here a "Keri" and a "Cetib", a marginal reading and a textual writing; the former reads, "that is joined", the latter, "that is chosen"; our version follows the marginal reading, as do the Targum, Jarchi, Aben Ezra, the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions: some, following the latter, render the words, "who is to be chosen" y, or preferred, a living, or a dead man? not a dead but a living man: "to all the living there is hope"; of their being better; and, as Jarchi observes, there is hope, while alive, even though he is a wicked man joined to the wicked; yea, there is hope of the wicked, that he may be good before he dies;

for a living dog is better than a dead lion; a proverbial speech, showing that life is to be preferred to death; and that a mean, abject, and contemptible person, living, who for his despicable condition may be compared to a dog, is to be preferred to the most generous man, or to the greatest potentate, dead; since the one may possibly be useful in some respects or another, the other cannot: though a living sinner, who is like to a dog for his uncleanness and vileness, is not better than a dead saint or righteous man, comparable to a lion, who has hope in his death, and dies in the Lord.

y מי אשר יבחר "quisquis eligatur", Montanus, so Gejerus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For to him - Rather: “Yet to him.” Notwithstanding evils, life has its advantage, and especially when compared with death.

Dog - To the Hebrews a type of all that was contemptible 1 Samuel 17:43.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Ecclesiastes 9:4. For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope — While a man lives he hopes to amend, and he hopes to have a better lot; and thus life is spent, hoping to grow better, and hoping to get more. The Vulgate has, "There is none that shall live always, nor has any hope of such a thing." Perhaps the best translation is the following: "What, therefore, is to be chosen? In him that is living there is hope." Then choose that eternal life which thou hopest to possess.

A living dog is better than a dead lion. — I suppose this was a proverb. The smallest measure of animal existence is better than the largest of dead matter. The poorest living peasant is infinitely above Alexander the Great.


 
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