“Futility of futilities”
Futility of futilities, says the Teacher, futility of futilities! Everything is futile! (Ecclesiastes 1:2 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A bleak declaration that everything is utterly pointless and meaningless.
The cultural key
The word repeated like a refrain through Ecclesiastes, rendered 'futility' (or in older versions 'vanity'), is the Hebrew hevel, and it literally means vapor, breath, or mist, the puff of air you can see on a cold morning that vanishes as you watch it. It is even the name Abel (Hevel), the son whose life was cut short. So the Teacher's verdict is less a nihilist's 'nothing matters' than an observation about the texture of life: it is vapor, fleeting, insubstantial, impossible to grip or control, gone before you can hold it. Read as 'meaningless,' the book sounds like despair; read as 'a breath,' it becomes a clear-eyed meditation on how transient everything under the sun really is, which is exactly why it keeps urging us to enjoy the simple gifts of each passing day.
Recovered meaning
The refrain is hevel, 'vapor' or 'breath', not 'meaningless.' The Teacher's point is that life is fleeting and ungraspable like mist, a call to hold it lightly and savor each day, not a shrug that nothing matters.