A familiar Bible saying, checked in context
This too shall pass
No exact KJV match
The reassuring sentence is absent as an exact phrase from this site's KJV index.
By @The..Mustard..Seed · Updated
Read the relevant KJV passage
2 Corinthians 4:17For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
2 Corinthians 4:18While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Compare the evidence
The previous verse says the outward person perishes while the inward person is renewed day by day, giving Paul’s contrast a human setting.
2 Corinthians 4:16For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
Ecclesiastes speaks of a season for every thing; it is a separate poem, not the exact source of the popular sentence.
Ecclesiastes 3:1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
What the context adds
Second Corinthians 4:17–18 contrasts present affliction with an eternal weight of glory and things seen with things unseen. Paul does call what is seen temporal, but he does not say the familiar four-word sentence. Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 is often attached because it lists seasons, yet its poem asks a different question. Paul’s comparison directs attention to present affliction and lasting hope, a different thought from Ecclesiastes’ poem about seasons. The saying also circulated long before recent social-media captions; Lincoln quoted a form of it as a received story rather than claiming he invented it.
A source for the saying
Abraham Lincoln quoted “And this, too, shall pass away” in an 1859 agricultural address as a saying presented to a ruler; his speech attests its use, not its origin. Read Lincoln’s 1859 address ↗
A question to carry forward
How does Paul’s contrast between seen and unseen differ from promising a fixed end date for present pain?
Keep reading
Read 2 Corinthians 4:7–18 and note the contrast between what is seen and what is not seen.
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