Four words that have steadied people for centuries: this too shall pass. The phrase lives on rings for a reason, because in the most famous story about it, that is exactly where it was written.
The King Solomon legend
In the best-known telling, a Jewish folktale, King Solomon asks his minister to find him a ring with a unique power: it must make a happy man sad and a sad man happy. The minister searches in vain until he meets a jeweler who engraves three Hebrew words on a simple band: gam zeh ya'avor, this too shall pass. Solomon reads it and understands. Joy is temporary, and so is sorrow, and wisdom is holding both at once.
Honesty requires saying the tale does not appear in the Bible or the Talmud. It is a folk legend, told and retold in Jewish tradition and popularized in the nineteenth century. Abraham Lincoln retold a version of it in an 1859 speech, marveling at how the words are "true and appropriate in any situation." The story stuck because it deserves to.
What the phrase means in practice
People reach for it in both directions. In hard seasons, it is a promise that the weight is not permanent. In good ones, it is a nudge to stay humble and present. That double edge is why it belongs on something you wear rather than something you post: it works quietly, all day, in every situation you carry it into.
The ring itself
Our This Too Shall Pass Band Ring ($29.95) puts the phrase where the legend put it, on a clean band you can wear daily. People buy it for themselves in difficult stretches, and even more often for someone else going through one: a friend in a hard year, a graduate leaving home, a soldier's family counting days. It is the rare gift that says exactly the right thing without a card.
Gam zeh ya'avor
The Hebrew phrasing, gam zeh ya'avor, carries the legend's roots. Hebrew is the language of resilience worn openly, which is also why Hebrew pieces and Star of David jewelry share a shelf with this ring in so many homes.
The bottom line
This too shall pass is a legend about perspective, engraved on the one object you look at a hundred times a day. Whether you are marking an ending, an anniversary of loss, or a hard-won beginning, the ring says it for you, quietly, until it comes true.
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Last updated August 2026. Prices checked at publication and may change.
