“This too shall pass” is not in the Bible. Here is what is

No. The phrase is not in the King James Version or in the World English Bible; we searched the full text of both. It comes from an old fable about a king and a ring, told by medieval Persian poets and in Jewish folklore, and it reached English in the nineteenth century. Scripture does have a sentence that begins the same way. It is in Ecclesiastes, it comes thirteen times, and it is not only about bad days.

Not in either translation

Neither of the translations this site prints has this too shall pass, this also shall pass or this too will pass, in any form. The nearest the King James comes is shall pass away, which it says six times: Jeremiah 8:13, Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33, James 1:10 and 2 Peter 3:10. Three of the six are one saying, reported in three gospels:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.Matthew 24:35 · World English Bible

It is the closest the Bible gets to the proverb, and it says nearly the reverse. The proverb tells you that whatever you are going through will pass. This sentence agrees that heaven and earth will, and then names the one thing that will not.

Where it comes from: a king’s ring

The story has many tellers. In most versions a king asks his wise men for a sentence that will be true at every moment, and they give him a ring with it engraved inside. Wikipedia’s article on the phrase, drawing on Ralph Keyes’s The Quote Verifier, finds it in the twelfth-century Persian poets Sanai and Attar. Jewish folklore tells it with Solomon as either the king or the one who supplies the motto, and in Hebrew the motto is gam zeh ya’avor, “this too will pass”.

English readers mostly know it from Edward FitzGerald, who put it in Polonius, a collection of sayings published in 1852, under the heading “Solomon’s Seal”. As printed in the 1887 edition of his works: “The Sultan asked Solomon for a Signet motto, that should hold good for Adversity or Prosperity. Solomon gave him, ‘This also shall pass away.’”

Two things in that are worth noticing. FitzGerald wrote this also, not this too. And the motto was for adversity or prosperity. It was meant to be read on a good day as well as a bad one.

Abraham Lincoln told the story seven years later, to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society in Milwaukee on 30 September 1859. From the text in his Collected Works: “It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride!—how consoling in the depths of affliction!”

Chastening in the hour of pride; consoling in the depths of affliction. The saying is used now almost entirely for the second. Lincoln, for his part, went straight on: “And yet let us hope it is not quite true.”

The Bible’s own “this also”

The Hebrew motto opens with gam zeh: also this, this too. Those two words also open a sentence the Bible does contain. It is the refrain of Ecclesiastes, gam zeh hevel, which our translations render this also is vanity or, in places in the King James, this is also vanity.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.Ecclesiastes 7:6 · World English Bible

We checked every occurrence against the Hebrew interlinear. Gam zeh hevel comes thirteen times in Ecclesiastes (2:15, 2:19, 2:21, 2:23, 2:26, 4:4, 4:8, 4:16, 5:10, 6:9, 7:6, 8:10 and 8:14). Both our translations have the English sentence fourteen times, because they render 2:1 the same way, where the Hebrew is gam hu hevel, “also it”, instead of “also this”.

Hevel (1892) is breath or vapour, which is the first sense Brown-Driver-Briggs gives; vanity is the figurative one. Our page of wedding readings meets the same word in Ecclesiastes 9:9. So the refrain is close to this too is a breath, which is a sentence about things passing, as the proverb is.

The difference is what Ecclesiastes says it about. Not, mostly, about trouble. It says it about pleasure (2:1), about being wise (2:15), about work and who ends up with what it earned (2:19 to 2:26), about achievement driven by envy (4:4), about money (4:8 and 5:10), about popularity (4:16), about wanting more (6:9), about a fool’s laughter (7:6) and about the way the righteous and the wicked are treated (8:10, 8:14).

He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.Ecclesiastes 5:10 · King James Version

That is the half of the ring the proverb has dropped: chastening in the hour of pride. Ecclesiastes kept it.

Weeping comes to stay the night

For a hard time, the verse people reach for is this one:

For his anger is but for a moment. His favour is for a lifetime. Weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning.Psalms 30:5 · World English Bible

For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.Psalms 30:5 · King James Version

The verb is yalin, from lun (3885), which Brown-Driver-Briggs glosses “lodge, pass the night”: the word for a traveller stopping somewhere overnight. Word for word the line runs in the night lodges weeping, and in the morning joy. Weeping is pictured as a guest who stays the night. The psalm does not say it will not come, or that the night will be short.

Our pages on grief and heartbreak both quote this verse and note that it promises a morning without saying which one. The verb adds something you can check in the toggles. The modern rendering says stay, and it says stay again for Ruth’s vow to Naomi, where you stay, I will stay, which is the same Hebrew verb and is on our wedding page. The King James says endure in the psalm and lodge in Ruth, which hides it.

The New Testament’s word for “temporary”

For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we don’t look 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.2 Corinthians 4:17-18 · World English Bible

Paul uses two different words for things that pass. The affliction is parautika, “for the moment”, a word that occurs only here in the New Testament. Everything that is seen is proskaira, which Thayer’s lexicon glosses “enduring only for a while, temporary”.

That second word occurs four times, and neither of our translations renders it the same way twice:

• Matthew 13:21, the seed with no root: dureth for a while in the King James, endures for a while in the modern rendering.
• Mark 4:17, the same parable: endure but for a time, and short-lived.
• 2 Corinthians 4:18, above: temporal in both.
• Hebrews 11:25, of Moses: the pleasures of sin for a season, and for a time.

So the New Testament’s word for temporary covers everything that can be seen, the pleasures of sin, and a faith with no root. It is Ecclesiastes again: things pass, the good with the bad. What Paul adds is not that this too shall pass. It is where he is looking while it does: the things which are not seen are eternal.

So can you say it?

Of course. It is a good proverb, and true as far as it goes. Just know that it is a proverb, and that the sentence in the Bible which starts the same way is harder and more even-handed: it is said over the good things too.

If you want Scripture rather than a saying, Psalm 30:5 is for a night that will end, 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 for a trouble that is long, and Matthew 24:35 for the one thing that does not pass. To someone in fresh grief, any of them can sound like being told to wait it out, so our post on what to say to someone grieving is worth reading first.

For more, see our Bible verses for when you feel overwhelmed, verses about not giving up and verses about hope. Everything quoted here is public domain: copy it into a card or a message with no permission and no fee.