Reference: Vanity
American
Does not usually denote, in Scripture, self-conceit or personal pride, 2Pe 2:18, but sometimes emptiness and fruitlessness, Job 7:3; Ps 144:4; Ec 1. It often denotes wickedness, particularly falsehood, De 32:21; Ps 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," Ro 1:25. "In vain," in the second commandment, Ex 20:7, is unnecessarily and irreverently. "Vain men," 2Sa 6:20; 2Ch 13:7, are dissolute and worthless fellows.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
You shall not use or repeat the name of the Lord your God in vain [that is, lightly or frivolously, in false affirmations or profanely]; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
They have moved Me to jealousy with what is not God; they have angered Me with their idols. So I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will anger them with a foolish nation.
Then David returned to bless his household. And [his wife] Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, How glorious was the king of Israel today, who stripped himself of his kingly robes and uncovered himself in the eyes of his servants' maids as one of the worthless fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!
They despised and rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers and His warnings to them, and they followed vanity (false gods -- "falsehood, emptiness, and futility) and [they themselves and their prayers] became false (empty and futile). They went after the heathen round about them, of whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do as they did.
So am I allotted months of futile [suffering], and [long] nights of misery are appointed to me.
O you sons of men, how long will you turn my honor and glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and futility and seek after lies? Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted himself up to falsehood or to what is false, nor sworn deceitfully.
Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity (idols and idolatry); and restore me to vigorous life and health in Your ways.
Man is like vanity and a breath; his days are as a shadow that passes away.
Thus says the Lord: What unrighteousness did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and [habitually] went after emptiness, falseness, and futility and themselves became fruitless and worthless?
Yet My people have forgotten Me; they burn incense to false gods, they have been caused to stumble in their ways and in the ancient roads, to walk in bypaths, in a way not graded and built up [not on a highway],
Those who pay regard to false, useless, and worthless idols forsake their own [Source of] mercy and loving-kindness.
Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it).
For uttering loud boasts of folly, they beguile and lure with lustful desires of the flesh those who are barely escaping from them who are wrongdoers.
Hastings
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.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity, and their inmost soul hatches deceit.
Surely God will refuse to answer [the cry which is] vanity (vain and empty -- "instead of abiding trust); neither will the Almighty regard it -- "
O you sons of men, how long will you turn my honor and glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and futility and seek after lies? Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, oppression (fraud); under his tongue are trouble and sin (mischief and iniquity).
To his neighbor each one speaks words without use or worth or truth; with flattering lips and double heart [deceitfully] they speak.
And when one comes to see me, he speaks falsehood and empty words, while his heart gathers mischievous gossip [against me]; when he goes away, he tells it abroad.
Man is like vanity and a breath; his days are as a shadow that passes away.
Whose mouths speak deceit and whose right hands are right hands [raised in taking] fraudulent oaths.
Remove far from me falsehood and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me,
Vapor of vapors and futility of futilities, says the Preacher. Vapor of vapors and futility of futilities! All is vanity (emptiness, falsity, and vainglory).
Vapor of vapors and futility of futilities, says the Preacher. All is futility (emptiness, falsity, vainglory, and transitoriness)!
All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and emptiness (waste, futility, and worthlessness).
Who brings dignitaries to nothing, Who makes the judges and rulers of the earth as chaos (emptiness, falsity, and futility).
Behold, these [pagan prophets and priests] are all emptiness (falseness and futility)! Their works are worthless; their molten images are empty wind (confusion and waste).
All who make graven idols are confusion, chaos, and worthlessness. Their objects (idols) in which they delight do not profit them, and their own witnesses (worshipers) do not see or know, so that they are put to shame.
When you cry out, let your [rabble] collection of idols deliver you! But the wind shall take them all, a breath shall carry them away. But he who takes refuge in Me shall possess the land [Judea] and shall inherit My holy mountain [Zion, also the heavenly inheritance and the spiritual Zion].
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, Here I am. If you take away from your midst yokes of oppression [wherever you find them], the finger pointed in scorn [toward the oppressed or the godly], and every form of false, harsh, unjust, and wicked speaking,
None sues or calls in righteousness [but for the sake of doing injury to others -- "to take some undue advantage]; no one goes to law honestly and pleads [his case] in truth; they trust in emptiness, worthlessness and futility, and speaking lies! They conceive mischief and bring forth evil!
They are devoid of worth, usefulness, or truth, a work of delusion and mockery; in their time of trial and punishment they shall [helplessly] perish.
[Then said Jeremiah] O Lord, my Strength and my Stronghold, and my Refuge in the day of affliction, to You shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, emptiness, and futility, worthless things in which there is no profit!
Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have spoken empty, false, and delusive words and have seen lies, therefore behold, I am against you, says the Lord God.
And her prophets have daubed them over with whitewash, seeing false visions and divining lies to them, saying, Thus says the Lord God -- "when the Lord has not spoken.
Behold, is it not by appointment of the Lord of hosts that the nations toil only to satisfy the fire [that will consume their work], and the peoples weary themselves only for emptiness, falsity, and futility?
For the teraphim (household idols) have spoken vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility) and the diviners have seen a lie and the dreamers have told false dreams; they comfort in vain. Therefore the people go their way like sheep; they are afflicted and hurt because there is no shepherd.
Uselessly do they worship Me, for they teach as doctrines the commands of men.
In vain (fruitlessly and without profit) do they worship Me, ordering and teaching [to be obeyed] as doctrines the commandments and precepts of men.
For the creation (nature) was subjected to frailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it -- "[yet] with the hope
For the creation (nature) was subjected to frailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it -- "[yet] with the hope
And again, The Lord knows the thoughts and reasonings of the [humanly] wise and recognizes how futile they are.
But by the grace (the unmerited favor and blessing) of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not [found to be] for nothing (fruitless and without effect). In fact, I worked harder than all of them [the apostles], though it was not really I, but the grace (the unmerited favor and blessing) of God which was with me.
And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is in vain [it amounts to nothing] and your faith is devoid of truth and is fruitless (without effect, empty, imaginary, and unfounded).
And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is in vain [it amounts to nothing] and your faith is devoid of truth and is fruitless (without effect, empty, imaginary, and unfounded).
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is mere delusion [futile, fruitless], and you are still in your sins [under the control and penalty of sin];
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is mere delusion [futile, fruitless], and you are still in your sins [under the control and penalty of sin];
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be firm (steadfast), immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord [always being superior, excelling, doing more than enough in the service of the Lord], knowing and being continually aware that your labor in the Lord is not futile [it is never wasted or to no purpose].
So this I say and solemnly testify in [the name of] the Lord [as in His presence], that you must no longer live as the heathen (the Gentiles) do in their perverseness [in the folly, vanity, and emptiness of their souls and the futility] of their minds.
So this I say and solemnly testify in [the name of] the Lord [as in His presence], that you must no longer live as the heathen (the Gentiles) do in their perverseness [in the folly, vanity, and emptiness of their souls and the futility] of their minds. Their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. [They are] alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the life of God [with no share in it; this is] because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge and perception, the willful blindness) that is deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart [to the insensitiveness of their moral nature].
But avoid stupid and foolish controversies and genealogies and dissensions and wrangling about the Law, for they are unprofitable and futile.
If anyone thinks himself to be religious (piously observant of the external duties of his faith) and does not bridle his tongue but deludes his own heart, this person's religious service is worthless (futile, barren).
Are you willing to be shown [proof], you foolish (unproductive, spiritually deficient) fellow, that faith apart from [good] works is inactive and ineffective and worthless?
For uttering loud boasts of folly, they beguile and lure with lustful desires of the flesh those who are barely escaping from them who are wrongdoers. They promise them liberty, when they themselves are the slaves of depravity and defilement -- "for by whatever anyone is made inferior or worse or is overcome, to that [person or thing] he is enslaved.