Advice to be active, not knowing the future
11
📚Cast your bread on the waters, for you will find it after many days 📖. 11:1 This truth appears in other places in the Bible – Ps 41:1-2; Prov 11:24; 14:21; 19:17; 22:9; Luke 6:35, 38; 2 Cor 9:6-9; Gal 6:9-10; Heb 6:10. Cast your bread upon the waters means to give of what you have to help others. It may seem like a complete loss to you, even a foolish use of what you have (like literally casting bread on the waters). But God will see to it that you are rewarded.⚜
2 📚Give a portion to seven and also to eight, for you do not know what disaster will come on the earth.
11:2 In other words, if you help others when you can, they may help you later when you are in need, or God will see to it that someone helps you.⚜
3 📚If the clouds are full of rain they empty themselves on the earth, and if the tree falls toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will be.
11:3 If God has filled our lives with good things we should pour them out to others. Once the tree of our life falls there will be no change in its direction, in its place.⚜
4 📚He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who considers the clouds will not reap.
5 📚Just as you do not know the path of the spirit 📖 or how the bones grow in the womb of the pregnant woman, even so you do not know the works of God who makes everything.
6 📚In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not let your hand be idle, for you do not know whether this or that will prosper, or whether they will both alike be good.
11:4-6 Solomon is saying that we should get on with our work and leave with God things beyond our control and the unanswered questions.⚜
7 📚Truly the light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to see the sun,
8 📚But if a man lives many years, and rejoices in them all, still he should remember the days of darkness; for they will be many. All that comes is emptiness.
Advice to the young
9 📚Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
10 📚Therefore expel sorrow from your heart, and put away trouble from your body, for childhood and youth are emptiness.
11:7-10 He says that in spite of the meaninglessness of life there is some joy to be found especially for the young. But dark clouds rise over the horizon (last part of v 8), and God’s judgment is coming (v 9). This is the last of the five times Solomon advises us to enjoy life (Eccl 2:24; 3:12-13; 5:18-19; 8:15). But the grounds he gives for the enjoyment of life are feeble. He never says in this book that we should find our joy in God alone, not in the things He gives. He never says that our happiness should be to serve God and even to suffer for His sake. Probably at this point in his life, and with the knowledge he had, he could not say such things.⚜