Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G Message— what my soul kept searching for and could not find: one man in a thousand I found, but not one woman among them all.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.G— which my nephesh kept seeking but did not find: one adam in a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I did not find.
KJV
King James VersionWhich yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleWhile my soul was still searching but not finding, among a thousand I have found one upright man, but among all these I have not found one such woman.
Footnotes
This is among the most contested verses in Ecclesiastes. נַפְשִׁי (nafshi) — nephesh in its searching, hungering sense — signals that Qohelet's deepest self is invested in the quest. The verse may reflect a personal autobiographical observation in the Solomonic frame (a thousand wives and concubines, 1 Kgs 11:3), or it may engage the wisdom motif of Lady Wisdom being rarer than even a truly wise man (Prov 8). Some commentators read אָדָם (adam) as generic "one person in a thousand," with the woman clause addressing the failure to find personified Wisdom. Both versions retain the gender contrast as the text presents it, without smoothing the difficulty; the interpretive tension is part of the text's own challenge to the reader.
