A time for everything
3
📚To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: 2 📚A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
3 📚A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up;
4 📚A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;
5 📚A time to throw stones away, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 📚A time to get and a time to lose; a time to search and a time to give up;
7 📚A time to tear and a time to sew; a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
8 📚A time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace.
Time compared with eternity
9 📚What profit does the worker have from that in which he labours?
3:1-9 Solomon turns from thoughts of his own works and experiments to the world outside. Is there anything there to give life meaning? No. There is only a meaningless cycle of activities. What is done in one time is undone in another. He is not saying each man should do or will do all the things in this list; only that this is the general course of life on earth. And in all of it put together he cannot see anything of permanent value (v 9).⚜
10 📚I have seen the task God has given to exercise the sons of men.
11 📚He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has set eternity in their heart, yet no man can find out the work that God has done from beginning to end.
12 📚I know that there is nothing better for them than for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life,
13 📚And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good results of all his labour; it is the gift of God.
14 📚I know that whatever God does, it will be forever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken away from it; and God does it so that men will fear in his presence.
3:14 The fear of the Lord is a theme he often wrote about (Eccl 5:7; 7:18; 8:12-13; 12:13; Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33). To produce it in men is one basic reason for God’s actions in the world. It is of supreme importance in a life pleasing to God (notes at Gen 20:11; Ps 34:11-14; 111:10; 130:3-4). In Solomon’s eyes it is one thing that is not meaningless, for it has to do with Him who is above the sun.⚜
Thoughts of God’s judgment
15 📚That which has been, still is, and that which is to be has already been; and God requires what is past 📖.
3:10-15 Any satisfaction in life he can get now comes from thoughts of God. God’s works are beautiful and beyond man’s understanding (v 11), perfect and permanent (v 14). But man cannot understand what God has done and is doing, so it is better, he says, to stop being concerned about it and try to find some happiness in his own works (vs 12,13. Also v 22 and Eccl 1:14).
In v 11 there is this significant phrase – “He has set eternity in their heart”. This is one reason why the things of time, all that is passing and impermanent fail to satisfy our heart.⚜
16 📚And, moreover, under the sun I saw the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
17 📚I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work”.
3:16-17 Injustice in the world is a fact that troubled the minds of many thoughtful persons in the Bible (Job 24:1-12; Ps 10:1-12; 13:1-2; 73:2-12; Hab 1:2-11). Solomon knew that the only answer for man’s injustice is God’s just judgments overturning the false judgments of men. But he did not know when or how this will take place. (Christians now know – Matt 16:27; Acts 17:31; Rom 2:2-11.)⚜
Of animals and men
18 📚I said in my heart concerning the matter of the sons of men, that God tests them that they might see that they are like beasts.
19 📚For what happens to the sons of men happens to beasts; the same thing happens to them. The one dies just as the other dies; yes, they all have the same breath, so that a man has no advantage over a beast; for all is emptiness.
20 📚All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust again.
21 📚Who knows the spirit of man which goes upward, and the spirit of the beast which goes downward to the earth?
3:18-21 Observe carefully his words in v 18 (also Eccl 2:1, 15) – “I said in my heart”. These verses (and some others in this book) are not a revelation God gave him but how things appeared to him with his human wisdom. We must not get our doctrine from what Solomon thought, but from what God has revealed through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. Solomon himself learned the truth of his question in v 21 and stated it in Eccl 12:7. But man with his unaided reasoning can never find the answer to what happens after death. God must reveal it. We have this revelation in the Bible, to some extent in the Old Testament, fully in the New Testament (see Job 10:21-22; Ps 16:9-11; 49:15; Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2-3; 2 Tim 1:10).⚜
22 📚Therefore I saw that there is nothing better than that a man rejoice in his own works; for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will be after him?