Ecclesiastes Chapter 5 verse 3 Holy Bible
For a dream cometh with a multitude of business, and a fool's voice with a multitude of words.
read chapter 5 in ASV
When you take an oath before God, put it quickly into effect, because he has no pleasure in the foolish; keep the oath you have taken.
read chapter 5 in BBE
For a dream cometh through the multitude of business, and a fool's voice through a multitude of words.
read chapter 5 in DARBY
For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.
read chapter 5 in KJV
read chapter 5 in WBT
For as a dream comes with a multitude of cares, so a fool's speech with a multitude of words.
read chapter 5 in WEB
For the dream hath come by abundance of business, and the voice of a fool by abundance of words.
read chapter 5 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - The first clause illustrates the second, the mark of comparison being simply the copula, mere juxtaposition being deemed sufficient to denote the similitude, as in Ecclesiastes 7:1; Proverbs 17:3; Proverbs 27:21. For a dream cometh through (in consequence of) the multitude of business. The verse is meant to confirm the injunction against vain babbling in prayer. Cares and anxieties in business or other matters occasion disturbed sleep, murder the dreamless repose of the healthy laborer, and produce all kinds of sick fancies and imaginations. Septuagint, "A dream cometh in abundance of trial (πειρασμοῦ);" Vulgate, Multas curas sequuntur somnia. And a fool's voice is known by multitude of words. The verb should be supplied from the first clause, and not a new one introduced, as in the Authorized Version, "And the voice of a fool (cometh) in consequence of many words." As surely as excess of business produces fevered dreams, so excess of words, especially in addresses to God, produces a fool's voice, i.e. foolish speech. St. Gregory points out the many ways in which the mind is affected by images from dreams. "Sometimes," he says, "dreams are engendered of fullness or emptiness of the belly, sometimes of illusion, sometimes of illusion and thought combined, sometimes of revelation, while sometimes they are engendered of imagination, thought, and revelation together" ('Moral.,' 8:42).
