Vanity

Emptiness. It is often applied to the man who wishes you to think more highly of him than what he really deserves; hence the vain man flatters in order to be flattered; is always fond of praise, endeavours to bribe others into a good opinion of himself by his complaisance, and sometimes even by good offices, though often displayed with unnecessary ostentation. The term is likewise applied to this world, as unsatisfactory, Ecc 1:2; to lying, Psa 4:2; to idols, Deu 32:21; to whatever disappoints our hopes, Psa 60:11.

See PRIDE.

Does not usually denote, in Scripture, self-conceit or personal pride, 2Pe 2:18, but sometimes emptiness and fruitlessness, Job 7:3 Psa 144:4 Ecc 1:1-18 . It often denotes wickedness, particularly falsehood, Deu 32:21 Psa 4:2 24:4 119:37, and sometimes idols and idol-worship, 2Ki 17:15 Jer 2:5 18:15 Jon 2:8. Compare Paul’s expression, "they turned the truth of God into a lie," 1Ch 1:25 . "In vain," in the second commandment, Exo 20:7, is unnecessarily and irreverently. "Vain men," 2Sa 6:20 2Ch 13:7, are dissolute and worthless fellows.\par

The word most frequently rendered iniquity is Aven (און) --Assyrian, annu. Some critics connect this word with a root which signifies desire; others, with greater reason, hold that its original meaning is nothingness. Its connection with idolatry is noticeable (see chap.27. § 2), and originates in the fact that an idol is a thing of naught, a vain thing in Amo 5:5, we read, ’Bethel shall come to naught’ (aven); and, turning to Hos 4:15; Hos 5:8; Hos 10:5; Hos 10:8, we find that Bethel, the House of God, is designated as Beth-aven, i.e. the house of vanity, because idols were worshipped there.

The word is rendered vanity in several passages: Job 15:35, ’They conceive mischief and bring forth vanity;’ Psa 10:7, ’Under his tongue is mischief and vanity;’ Pro 22:8, ’He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity.’ See also Isa 41:29; Isa 58:9; Jer 4:14; Zec 10:2.

The word Aven is to be found in Pro 11:7 (unjust); Isa 10:1; Isa 55:7 (unrighteous); Psa 90:10 (sorrow); Deu 26:14 (mourning); Job 5:6 (affliction); Psa 140:11 (evil); Pro 17:4 (false); Psa 36:4 (mischief).

Aven is rendered wickedness in a few passages, and iniquity in thirty-eight places. The most noticeable are: Num 23:21; 1Sa 15:23; Job 4:8; Job 21:19; Job 31:3; Job 34:22; Psa 5:5; Psa 6:8; Isa 1:13; Mic 2:1.

on considering all these passages, we shall be led to the conclusion that the word Aven suggests not so much breach of law or injury done to another, as a course of conduct which will in the end prove unprofitable to the doer. It presents the evil devices of man in their false, hollow, and unreal aspect; and by the use of this word the inspired writers put a stamp of nothingness or unreality up on every departure from the law of God, whether it consists of wrong-doing, evil devising, false speaking, or idolatrous worship.

The leading rendering of Aven in the LXX is ἀνομία; ἀδικία is used several times; πόνος and κόπος occasionally.

GOD Not Hearing Or Regarding Vanity

Job_35:13.

The Reward For Following Vanity

2Ki_17:7-23; Job_15:31; Jer_18:13-17.

Vain Men

Job_11:7-12; Jam_2:20-22.

Wealth Gotten By Vanity

Pro_13:11.

What Is Not Vain

Deu_32:45-47.

What Is Vanity

Psa_39:5; Psa_60:11-12; Psa_94:11; Psa_108:12-13; Psa_144:3-4; Pro_21:6; Pro_31:30; Ecc_1:1-2; Ecc_1:12-14; Ecc_2:1; Ecc_2:15; Ecc_2:17; Ecc_2:18-19; Ecc_2:20-23; Ecc_2:24-26; Ecc_3:18-19; Ecc_4:4; Ecc_4:7-8; Ecc_4:13-16; Ecc_5:6-7; Ecc_5:10; Ecc_6:9; Ecc_7:5-6; Ecc_8:9-10; Ecc_8:14; Ecc_11:8-10; Ecc_12:7-8; Isa_41:29; Isa_44:9; Isa_57:3-13; Jer_3:23; Jer_10:2-5; Jer_10:14-15; Jer_16:19-20; Jer_51:17-18; Act_14:8-15; 1Co_3:20-21; Jam_1:26.

What Was Made Subject To Vanity

Rom_8:18-21.

Who Became Vain

Rom_1:18-23; Eph_4:17-19.

Who Shall Reap Vanity

Pro_22:8.

VANITY.—The root-idea of the word is ‘emptiness.’ Skeat suggests that the Lat. vanus (perhaps for vac-nus) is allied to vacuus ‘empty.’ In English literature ‘vanity’ signifies (1) emptiness, (2) falsity, (3) vainglory. The modern tendency is to confine its use to the last meaning. But ‘vanity’ in the sense of ‘empty conceit’ is not found in the English Bible.

1. In the OT.—(1) ‘Vanity’ is most frequently the tr. [Note: r. Textus Receptus.] of hebhel, ‘breath’ or ‘vapour.’ The RV [Note: Revised Version.] rightly gives the literal rendering in Isa 57:13: ‘a breath (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] vanity) shall carry them all away.’ The word naturally became an image of, what is unsubstantial and transitory; in Psa 144:4 man is said to be ‘like a breath’ (RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ), because ‘his days are as a shadow that passeth away.’ In Ecclesiastes ‘vanity’ often occurs; it connotes what is fleeting, unsatisfying, and profitless. ‘Vanity of vanities’ (Ecc 1:2; Ecc 12:8) is the superlative expression of the idea of the futility of life. Jeremiah regards idols as ‘vanity,’ because they are ‘the work of delusion’ (Jer 10:15), ‘lies and things wherein there is no profit’ (Jer 16:19). (2) Another Heb. word (’âven), whose root-meaning is ‘breath’ or ‘nothingness,’ is twice rendered ‘vanity’ in the RV [Note: Revised Version.] , and is applied to idols (Isa 41:29, Zec 10:2). But ’âven generally describes moral evil as what is naughty and worthless; the RV [Note: Revised Version.] therefore substitutes ‘iniquity’ for ‘vanity’ in Job 15:35, Psa 10:7; cf. Isa 58:9. (3) More frequently, however, ‘vanity’ is the tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of shav’, which also signifies ‘what is naught.’ In the OT it is used to set forth vanity as that which is hollow, unreal, and false. In Psa 41:6 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ‘he speaketh falsehood’ is preferable; but the AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘he speaketh vanity’ exemplifies the close connexion between vain or empty words and lies (cf. Psa 12:2; Psa 144:8, Job 35:13, Pro 30:8, Eze 13:8; Eze 22:28). (4) ‘Vanity’ occurs twice as the rendering of rîq ‘emptiness,’ and refers to what is destined to end in failure (Psa 4:2, Hab 2:13). (5) In the RV [Note: Revised Version.] it is used for tôhû ‘waste,’ but the marginal alternative in all passages but one (Isa 59:4) is ‘confusion’ (Isa 40:17; Isa 40:23; Isa 44:9).

2. In the NT.—‘Vain’ is the rendering of (a) kenos ‘empty,’ (b) mataios ‘worthless.’ When the former word is used, stress is laid on the absence of good, especially in essential qualities. The true thought is suggested by the RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ‘void’ in 1Co 15:10; 1Co 15:14; 1Co 15:58. A partial exception is Jas 2:20—a rare example of the absolute use of the word. The ‘vain man’ is not only ‘one in whom the higher wisdom has found no entrance,’ but he is also ‘one who is puffed up with a vain conceit of his own spiritual insight’ (Trench, NT Synonyms, p. 181). Even here the primary negative force of the word is clearly discernible; the man’s conceit is ‘vain,’ that is to say, his conception of himself is devoid of real content. He is a ‘man who cannot be depended on, whose deeds do not correspond to his words’ (Mayor, Com. in loc.). kenos is the word rendered ‘vain’ in the NT, except in the passages cited in the next paragraph.

When ‘vain’ is the tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of mataios, as in 1Co 3:20; 1Co 15:17, Tit 3:9, Jas 1:26, 1Pe 1:18 (cf. the adverb Mat 15:9, Mar 7:7), more than negative blame is implied. ‘By giving prominence to objectlessness it denotes what is positively to be rejected, bad.… In Biblical Greek the word is, in the strongest sense, the expression of perfect repudiation’ (Cremer, Bib.-Theol. Lexicon of NT Greek, pp. 418, 781). In 1Co 15:14 the reference (kenos) is to ‘a hollow witness, a hollow belief,’ to a gospel which is ‘evacuated of all reality,’ and to a faith which has ‘no genuine content.’ But in 1Co 15:17 the reference (malaios) is to a faith which is ‘frustrate,’ or ‘void of result,’ because it does not save from sin (cf. Findlay, EGT [Note: Expositor’s Greek Testament.] , in loc.).

‘Vanity’ occurs only three times in the NT (Rom 8:20, Eph 4:17, 2Pe 2:18); it is always the tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of mataiotçs, which is not a classical word, but is often found in the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , especially as the rendering of hebhel ‘breath’ (see above). When St. Paul describes the creation as ‘subject to vanity’ (Rom 8:20), he has in mind the marring of its perfection and the frustration of its Creator’s purpose by sin; nevertheless, the groanings of creation are, to his ear, the utterance of its hope of redemption. When he says that ‘the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind’ (Eph 4:17), he is dwelling on the futility of their intellectual and moral gropings, which is the result of their walking in darkness (Eph 4:18). In 2Pe 2:18 the intimate connexion between unreality and boastfulness in speech is well brought out in the graphic phrase, ‘great swelling words of vanity.’ How pitiful the contrast between the high-sounding talk of the false teachers who were themselves ‘bond-servants of corruption,’ and yet had the effrontery to ‘promise liberty’ to those whom in reality they were bringing into bondage (2Pe 2:19).

J. G. Tasker.

Neither in the OT nor in the NT is the word ‘vanity’ used in the sense of self-conceit or vainglory (see Pride): it is always a rendering of ìáôáéüôçò, which is an essentially Scriptural word, not being found in an ethical sense in the classical writers. There is, however, an adjective, rendered ‘vain,’ which has no corresponding substantive, namely êåíüò. Perhaps the prevailing sense of êåíüò is ‘emptiness’ or ‘hollowness,’ while ìÜôáéïò rather expresses ‘futility’ or ‘fruitlessness,’ and denotes an absence of aim or a purpose unfulfilled; but the two epithets are so nearly synonymous even on the showing of R. C. Trench (NT Synonyms 9, London, 1880, p. 180 f., where he defines êüðïò êåíüò [1Co_15:58] as ‘labour which yields no return’) that the distinction cannot always be pressed. J. B. Mayor on 2Pe_2:10 (see The Epistle of St. Jude, and the Second Epistle of St. Peter, London, 1907) discusses the passages of Septuagint where ìáôáéüôçò is found, e.g. Psa_4:3; Psa_39:6 and the famous Ecc_1:2 (‘vanity of vanities’), and concludes that in these cases, as in 2Pe_2:10, the word approximates to the Pauline use in Rom_8:20 (‘the creation was subjected to vanity’) and denotes what is simply passing and transient. On the other hand, in Psa_26:4; Psa_119:37; Psa_144:8 and Eph_4:17 he is of opinion that the word expresses moral instability, being used ‘of men without principle on whom no reliance can be placed.’

As against the view of Mayor, it should be remembered that in Rom_8:20 the meaning of resultlessness or ineffectiveness (see Sanday-Headlam, International Critical Commentary , ‘Romans’5, Edinburgh, 1902, in loc.) is equally harmonious with the context as indicating the opposite of ôÝëåéïò, that is, the disappointing character of the present existence with its unfulfilled aims and its pursuit of ends never realized. The word is found in Barn. iv. 10; Polyc. ad Phil. vii. 2; Ignatius, ad Trall. viii. 2. On the whole, an examination of the passages where ìáôáéüôçò and ìÜôáéïò are found as well as compound words like ìáôáéïëïãßá and ìáôáéïðíßá tends to support the theory that ‘vanity,’ or ìáôáéüôçò (Heb. äֶáֶì, though in Septuagint the word is also a rendering of ùָׁåְà), denotes ‘either absence of purpose or failure to attain any true purpose’ (J. Armitage Robinson, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians 2, London, 1909, on 4:17).

R. Martin Pope.