יְבִיאֶ֙נּוּ֙ (yə·ḇî·’en·nū) in Ecclesiastes 3:22: Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
יְבִיאֶ֙נּוּ֙ (yə·ḇî·’en·nū) in Ecclesiastes 3:22
Source Word
Ecclesiastes 3:22 token 14 is יְבִיאֶ֙נּוּ֙, H935, parsed V-Hifil-Imperf-3ms | 3ms and aligned with can bring him.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form imagines an impossible guide into the unseen future, sharpening the contrast between today's portion and tomorrow's inaccessibility.
How To Communicate It
Use the rhetorical causative to teach humility about the future while preserving hope, rest, justice, and the dignity of people whose work is painful, unpaid, unavailable, or exploited.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- The interrogative who leaves the potential agent unidentified, while the suffix marks the human person who would be brought to see.
- The masculine forms participate in a generic human reflection and must not be used to exclude women.
- Enjoying one's portion does not sanctify exploitation, demand overwork, erase grief, or settle the Bible's wider teaching about resurrection and judgment.
What Does The Label Mean?
Hebrew-verb
Verb
Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
Hifil
Imperfect
Third
Masculine
Singular
Third person masculine singular
Inside the rhetorical question who can, the Hifil asks who could cause the human observer to come and see what follows after death. The attached suffix marks the person brought, while the following infinitive states the purpose, to see.
The verb supports the chapter's limit on human access to what comes after a person's earthly work and lot.
What The Form Does In This Verse
The Hifil follows the interrogative who and leads into the infinitive to see, forming a question about access to the future beyond one's life.
The Teacher's reflection on work as a present portion under the conditions of mortality and limited foresight.
It asks who can bring a person to observe what will occur after that person.
It does not identify an actual human agent, exclude women from the reflection, deny resurrection, commend exploitative labor, or command cheerful denial of grief.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The matching 3ms labels, rhetorical interrogative, and purpose infinitive shape a prominent statement about human limits, work, and the future.
Hifil imperfect inside a who-can question. imagines an agent bringing the human object to observe the future. Attached to the interrogative who. Governed by the question about seeing what comes after a person. The question leaves the agent open and expects human limitation rather than identifying a guide.
Where does can come from in can bring him? The imperfect Hifil stands beneath the interrogative who, so English naturally expresses the rhetorical possibility as who can bring him.
Interpretive: Can reflects the interrogative construction, bring reflects Hifil causation, and him reflects the attached object suffix.
The two 3ms labels mark a potential agent and a distinct object, not one participant twice. The masculine singular wording functions in a broad reflection on humanity. The question concerns access to what comes after and does not by itself deny resurrection or divine revelation.
The verb predicts someone will bring him: Read it under who as a rhetorical possibility, not as a forecast of an identified agent. no one sees the future, so there is no resurrection: Respect Ecclesiastes' observational limit and read it alongside the Bible's wider revelation. enjoy work means accept exploitation: Receiving one's portion never removes demands for justice, rest, safety, and truthful lament.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
Ecclesiastes 3:22 token 14 is יְבִיאֶ֙נּוּ֙, H935, parsed V-Hifil-Imperf-3ms | 3ms and aligned with can bring him.
בּוֹא describes coming or entering; the Hifil here imagines someone bringing another person to see what comes afterward.
Who supplies the open agent slot, the suffix retrieves the human whose work is under discussion, and to see expresses the purpose of the imagined bringing.
The Teacher commends receiving the present portion of work while emphasizing that people cannot ordinarily inspect what will happen after them.
Ecclesiastes voices creaturely limits within Scripture, while later biblical texts speak more fully about resurrection and judgment; one rhetorical question should not erase that wider witness.
Name the limit on control and foresight, affirm meaningful present work, and refuse to use enjoyment language to excuse abuse, burnout, unemployment stigma, or unsafe conditions.
Do not claim that the verse denies life after death, makes work the whole meaning of life, excludes women, or requires people to enjoy oppressive labor arrangements.