---
title: Ecclesiastes 9:18 (JPS 1917) — Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroyeth much… · tree and pragmatics
description: Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroyeth much good. Who acts: Wisdom, one sinner. Ecclesiastes 9:18 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 9:18 · JPS 1917

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Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroyeth much good.

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**Who acts:** Wisdom, one sinner · **What happens:** be, destroy · **To what, where:** much good

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This is Ecclesiastes 9:18 · JPS 1917 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Wisdom, one sinner), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:ECC:187
# text = Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroyeth much good.
1	Wisdom	wisdom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
4	than	than	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	weapons	weapon	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	war	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	sinner	sinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	destroyeth	destroy	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	good	good	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: evaluate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Wisdom |  |  |  |  | than weapons of war; good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **destroy** | present | one sinner | much good |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent good=Patient |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

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טוֹבָ֥ה חָכְמָ֖ה מִכְּלֵ֣י קְרָ֑ב וְחוֹטֶ֣א אֶחָ֔ד יְאַבֵּ֥ד טוֹבָ֥ה הַרְבֵּֽה׃

[Ecclesiastes 9:18: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.9.18/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:ECC:187` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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