And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

ECCLESIASTES 4:12KJV
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Ecclesiastes 4:12 (KJV)

What does Ecclesiastes 4:12 mean?

Ecclesiastes 4:12 says that people together have a strength that a person alone may lack. The verse pictures an attack: one person may be overcome, while two can stand against the attacker. The cord adds an image of several strands holding together under strain.

The Teacher moves from two people to three strands. A threefold cord would be made by twisting strands together, making a single cord harder to break. The image grows out of the passage’s concern with the disadvantages of being alone.

The Hebrew behind Ecclesiastes 4:12

  • “prevail” — תָּקַף (taqaf): This word carries the sense of overpowering someone. The picture is of an attacker gaining the upper hand over a person who is alone.
  • “quickly” — מְהֵרָה (meherah): This word means quickly or readily. It qualifies “broken”: the cord is hard to break, rather than impossible to break.

Why Ecclesiastes 4:12 matters

  • The verse gives a practical reason for companionship. After describing the trouble of having no one nearby to help in verse 10, the Teacher adds the danger of an attacker in verse 12.
  • The third strand extends the image beyond the pair. The words “a threefold cord” introduce another picture of joined strength without identifying the strands as particular people or things.

Where else these words appear

“prevail” Hebrew H8630 · used in 3 verses

  • Job 14:20 Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.
  • Job 15:24 Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.

“threefold” Hebrew H8027 · used in 6 verses

  • Genesis 15:9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
  • Deuteronomy 19:3 Thou shalt prepare thee a way, and divide the coasts of thy land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither.
  • 1 Kings 18:34 And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time.

“cord” Hebrew H2339 · used in 7 verses

  • Genesis 14:23 That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:
  • Judges 16:12 Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread.
  • Song of Solomon 4:3 Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

“quickly” Hebrew H4120 · used in 20 verses

  • Numbers 16:46 And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun.
  • 1 Samuel 20:38 And Jonathan cried after the lad, Make speed, haste, stay not. And Jonathan's lad gathered up the arrows, and came to his master.
  • Psalms 37:2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.