Ecclesiastes 1:15
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
American King James Version (AKJV)
That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
American Standard Version (ASV)
That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
That which is bent may not be made straight, and that which is not there may not be numbered.
Webster's Revision
That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
World English Bible
That which is crooked can't be made straight; and that which is lacking can't be counted.
English Revised Version (ERV)
That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
Clarke's Ecclesiastes 1:15 Bible Commentary
That which is crooked cannot be made straight - There are many apparent irregularities and anomalies in nature for which we cannot account; and there are many defects that cannot be supplied. This is the impression from a general view of nature; but the more we study and investigate its operations, the more we shall be convinced that all is a consecutive and well-ordered whole; and that in the chain of nature not one link is broken, deficient, or lost.
Barnes's Ecclesiastes 1:15 Bible Commentary
He saw clearly both the disorder and incompleteness of human actions (compare the marginal reference), and also man's impotence to rectify them.
Wesley's Ecclesiastes 1:15 Bible Commentary
1:15 Crooked - All our knowledge serves only to discover our miseries, but is utterly insufficient to remove them; it cannot rectify those disorders which are either in our own hearts and lives, or in the men and things of the world. Wanting - In our knowledge. Or, counted out to us from the treasures of human learning. But what is wanting, will still be so. And that which is wanting in our own knowledge, is so much that it cannot be numbered. The more we know, the more we see of our own ignorance.