Book of Ecclesiastes
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40 free Book of Ecclesiastes trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Ecclesiastes is the Bible's great sceptic. In twelve short chapters a speaker called the Teacher tests work, pleasure, riches and learning against the fact that everyone dies, and reports back with a bluntness found nowhere else in scripture. Along the way he coins a remarkable number of lines that people still quote without knowing where they come from. This quiz follows him through the text. Most questions ask about a particular verse: what he says about work and rest, friendship, promises made to God, rulers, fools and growing old. Others step back to the questions scholars ask, such as who the Teacher was meant to be, what language clues reveal about the date, and where the scroll sits in Jewish and Christian Bibles. A final group traces its long afterlife in novels, pop music, cinema and everyday idioms. It suits Bible study groups, Sunday school classes, church quiz teams and anyone reading through the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Every answer comes with a short explanation that points back to the verse or the source.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which number one hit by the Byrds takes its lyrics almost word for word from Ecclesiastes chapter 3?
Turn! Turn! Turn!
Turn! Turn! Turn! was written by Pete Seeger, who added only the title refrain and the closing lines. The Byrds' recording is known as the American chart-topper with the oldest lyrics.
Q 02Ecclesiastes 1:9, the source of a famous saying, declares that there is nothing new under what?
The sun
The sun closes the Teacher's complaint that whatever has been done will only be done again. He uses the same three-word phrase 29 times as his shorthand for life on earth.
Q 03In the King James Bible, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes opens his speech by declaring that all is what?
Vanity
Vanity here means emptiness rather than conceit, which is why many modern Bibles say 'meaningless' or 'futile' instead. The same cry returns near the end to bracket the whole speech.
Q 04Which American novelist took the title of his first novel, set in Paris and Pamplona, from Ecclesiastes 1:5?
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway also printed the passage as an epigraph, beside Gertrude Stein's remark about a lost generation. British readers first met the novel under the title Fiesta.
Q 05Jewish and Christian tradition credits Ecclesiastes to which king of Israel, called David's son in its first verse?
Solomon
Solomon is never actually named in the text, which only hints at him through a fabulously rich and wise royal narrator. Its late style of Hebrew leads most scholars to date it centuries after his reign.
Q 06After praising two as better than one, Ecclesiastes 4:12 says what of three strands is not quickly broken?
A cord
A cord of three strands caps a short passage on companionship: two people can keep each other warm, lift each other after a fall and fight off an attacker together.
Q 07Ecclesiastes 9:4 argues that the living still have hope because a live dog is better than a dead what?
Lion
Lion or not, the dead lose out in the Teacher's reckoning. The living at least know that they will die, he says, while the dead know nothing and are soon forgotten.
Q 08Ecclesiastes 11:1 promises a return after many days to anyone who casts what upon the waters?
Bread
Bread on the waters is often read as a saying about spontaneous acts of kindness. The next verse adds a hedge: divide your portion among seven or eight, because disaster may strike the land.
Q 09The final verses of Ecclesiastes sum up the whole duty of man as fearing God and keeping what?
His commandments
His commandments close Ecclesiastes in an epilogue spoken by a narrator, not the Teacher. Many scholars think a later scribe added it to give a sceptical work a more orthodox ending.
Q 10Ecclesiastes 10:1, on a little folly outweighing much wisdom, is the likely source of which idiom?
A fly in the ointment
A fly in the ointment comes from the King James wording, in which dead flies make an apothecary's ointment stink. The verse's point is that a little folly can outweigh a great deal of honour.
Q 11Ecclesiastes 12:12 warns that much study wearies the body and that there is no end to the making of what?
Books
Books without end is the narrator's wry parting warning to a pupil he calls 'my son'. It comes just after he praises the Teacher for searching out and arranging many proverbs of his own.
Q 12Ecclesiastes 3:20 says that humans and animals alike all come from, and all return to, what?
Dust
Dust is the shared end the Teacher sees for people and beasts alike. He then asks who can really know whether the human spirit rises upward while an animal's goes down into the earth.
Q 13The first verse of Ecclesiastes introduces the Teacher as a son of David ruling as king in which city?
Jerusalem
Q 21Ecclesiastes 9:11 says the race is not to the swift because which two things happen to everyone?
Time and chance
Time and chance, the Teacher argues, undo any guarantee that talent wins: battles do not go to the strong, nor wealth to the intelligent. He likens people to fish caught suddenly in a net.
Q 22Which English writer rewrote Ecclesiastes 9:11 in bloated modern prose in 'Politics and the English Language'?
George Orwell
George Orwell praised the verse as vivid, concrete English, then recast it as abstract jargon with many more syllables and not one fresh image, to show how such writing smothers meaning.
Q 23Which title does the King James Bible give the speaker of Ecclesiastes, whom most modern versions call the Teacher?
Jerusalem is where the Teacher says he outdid every ruler before him, laying out gardens, parks and reservoirs and piling up silver and gold, only to judge the whole effort futile.
Q 14Which John Grisham legal thriller, his debut novel, borrows its title from the poem of seasons in Ecclesiastes 3?
A Time to Kill
A Time to Kill lifts one of the poem's fourteen paired opposites, the one matched with a time to heal. Grisham reused the pattern decades later for a sequel called A Time for Mercy.
Q 15In which Ray Bradbury novel does the fireman Guy Montag find he has memorised part of Ecclesiastes?
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 ends with Montag among exiles who each carry a banned work in their heads. Ecclesiastes is his contribution, held in memory for the day society is ready to read again.
Q 16Which saying from Ecclesiastes 8:15 does the rich fool echo in a parable in Luke 12?
Eat, drink and be merry
Eat, drink and be merry is the Teacher's sincere advice, given because he finds nothing better in a short life. In the parable the same words are a rich man's boast on the night he dies.
Q 17Ecclesiastes 5:10 warns that whoever loves what will never be satisfied, however much of it he gains?
Money
Money only attracts more mouths, the Teacher goes on: when possessions increase, so do those who consume them, and the owner gains nothing but the sight of them.
Q 18Ecclesiastes 12:1 urges readers to remember their Creator in the days of what, before the hard years arrive?
Their youth
Their youth is the moment to do it, because the poem that follows pictures old age as a household falling quiet, with trembling guards, dim windows and doors shut to the street.
Q 19The Teacher of Ecclesiastes keeps calling human toil futile and comparing it to a pursuit of what?
The wind
The wind can be chased but never caught, and the Teacher passes that verdict on his own building projects, his pleasures and even his hard-won wisdom.
Q 20Ecclesiastes 10:20 warns against cursing the king even in private because what creature may carry the words?
A bird
A bird of the air may carry your words, the Teacher warns, and a winged creature may report them. The same verse says not to curse the rich even in your bedroom.
The Preacher
The Preacher and the Teacher are two attempts at a Hebrew title for someone who speaks before a gathering. Oddly, the Hebrew word is feminine in form, which has puzzled commentators for centuries.
Q 24According to Ecclesiastes 5:12, whose sleep is sweet whether he eats little or much?
The worker
The worker rests easy, while the rich man's abundance is said to permit him no sleep at all. It is one of several places where the Teacher treats great wealth as a burden.
Q 25Ecclesiastes 7:1 opens a run of proverbs by saying that what is better than fine perfume?
A good name
A good name makes a pun in Hebrew, where name is shem and perfumed oil is shemen. The verse then grows darker, claiming the day of death is better than the day of birth.
Q 26Ecclesiastes 9:10 says that whatever your hand finds to do should be done with all your what?
Might
Might is called for because, the verse goes on, there is no work, planning or knowledge in the realm of the dead, where everyone is headed.
Q 27Ecclesiastes 5:2 advises that words spoken before God should be what, since God is in heaven and you on earth?
Few
Few words are best, the Teacher says, comparing a fool's stream of talk to the dreams that come from too many cares. He would rather worshippers draw near to listen.
Q 28Ecclesiastes 5:5 says it is better not to make what at all than to make one to God and not fulfil it?
A vow
A vow should be paid without delay, the Teacher insists, because God takes no pleasure in fools. He adds that nobody should tell the messenger it was all a mistake.
Q 29Ecclesiastes 10:8 warns that anyone who breaks through a wall may be bitten by what?
A snake
A snake in the stonework is one of four workplace hazards the Teacher lists: the digger may fall into his own pit, the quarryman be hurt by stones and the log-splitter by his logs.
Q 30Ecclesiastes 10:10 says more strength is needed, though skill brings success, when which tool is left blunt?
An axe
An axe with a dull edge is the Teacher's case for working smart: sharpen first and the job takes less effort. The saying follows warnings about quarrying stone and splitting logs, trades where a careless hand gets hurt.