For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
What profit has he who works in that in which he labors? I have seen the burden which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice, and to do good as long as they live. Also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labor, is the gift of God. I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; and God has done it, that men should fear before him. That which is has been long ago, and that which is to be has been long ago. God seeks again that which is passed away.
Moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there. 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.” I said in my heart, “As for the sons of men, God tests them, so that they may see that they themselves are like animals. For that which happens to the sons of men happens to animals. Even one thing happens to them. As the one dies, so the other dies. Yes, they have all one breath; and man has no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows the spirit of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, whether it goes downward to the earth?”
Therefore I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who can bring him to see what will be after him?
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 He speaketh of this diversity of time for two…
He speaketh of this diversity of time for two causes: first to declare that there is nothing in this world perpetual: next to teach us not to be grieved, if we have not all things at once according to our desires, neither enjoy them so long as we would wish.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–22 Ecc 3:1 To every [thing there is] a season,…
Ecc 3:1 To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
Ver. 1. To everything there is a season.] A set time, such as we can neither alter nor order. This is one of those keys that God carries under his own belt. {Act 1:7} To seek, to do, or get anything before the time, is to pull apples before they are ripe, saith a father, {a} which set the teeth on edge, and breed stomach worms. They labour in vain that would prevent the time prefixed by God, as those hasty Ephraimites in Egypt {1Ch 7:22 Psa 78:9-10} those heady Israelites in the wilderness. {Num 14:40} Moses would be acting the judge before his time, {Exo 2:12} he is therefore sent to keep sheep in Midian. {Exo 2:15} David stayed God’s leisure for the kingdom, those in Esther for deliverance - they knew that God would keep his day exactly, as he did with the Israelites in Egypt. "Even the self same day," when the "four hundred and thirty years" foretold were expired, God’s people were thrust out of Egypt. {Exo 12:40-41} So in Dan 5:30. In that night was Belshazzar slain; because then exactly the "seventy years" were ended. And as God fails not his own time, so he seldom comes at ours, {Jer 8:20} for he loves not to be limited. We are short breathed, short sighted, apt to antedate the promises in regard of the accomplishment. {Hab 2:2} And no less apt to outstand our own markets, to let slip opportunities of grace which are ever headlong, and once past, irrecoverable. "Oh, if thou hadst known at the least in this thy day," "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" {Heb 2:3} "Therefore shall every one that is godly seek thee in a time when thou mayest be found." {Psa 32:6} There is a certain time set for men to come in and be saved; as Alexander set up a taper when he besieged a town; as Tamerlane hung out first a white flag and then a red. Many a man loseth his soul, as Saul did his kingdom, by not discerning his time. Esau came too late; so did the foolish virgins. If the gale of grace be past over, the gate shut, the draw bridge taken up, there is no possibility of entrance. "Let us, therefore, fear lest a promise being left us," and an overture made us "of entering into God’s rest, any of us should seem to fall short" υστερηκεναι, {Heb 4:1} or come late, a day after the fair, an hour after the feast. God, who in his eternal counsel hath appointed things to be done, hath also ordained the opportunity and time wherein each thing should be done, which to neglect is such a presumption as he usually punisheth with final hardening. {Eze 24:13}
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{a} Poma importuni tempore decerpunt. - Tertul.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–22 A season; a certain thee appointed by God for…
A season; a certain thee appointed by God for its being and continuance, which no human wit or providence can prevent or alter. And by virtue of this appointment or decree of God, all the vicissitudes and changes which happen in the world, whether comforts or calamities, do come to pass; which is here added, partly, to prove what he last said, Ecc 2:24,26, that both the free and comfortable enjoyment of the creatures which some have, and the crosses and vexations which others have with them, are from the hand and counsel of God; partly, to prove the principal proposition of the book, that all things below are vain, and happiness is not to be found in them, because of their great uncertainty, and mutability, and transitoriness, and because they are so much out of the reach and power of men, and wholly in the disposal of another, to wit, God, who doth either give or take them away, either sweeten or embitter them, as it pleaseth him; and partly, to bring the minds of men into a quiet and cheerful dependence upon God’s providence, and submission to his will, and a state of preparation for all events.
To every purpose, or will, or desire, to wit, of man; to all men’s designs. attempts, and businesses. Not only natural, but even the free and voluntary actions of men, are ordered and disposed by God to accomplish his own purpose. But it must be considered, that he doth not here speak of a thee allowed by God, wherein all the following things may lawfully be done, which is wholly besides his scope and business; but only of a thee fixed by God, in which they would or should be done.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 11, 16 The scope of these verses is to show, 1.…
The scope of these verses is to show, 1. That we live in a world of changes, that the several events of time, and conditions of human life, are vastly different from one another, and yet occur promiscuously, and we are continually passing and repassing between them, as in the revolutions of every day and every year. In the wheel of nature (Jam 3:6) sometimes one spoke is uppermost and by and by the contrary; there is a constant ebbing and flowing, waxing and waning; from one extreme to the other does the fashion of this world change, ever did, and ever will. 2. That every change concerning us, with the time and season of it, is unalterably fixed and determined by a supreme power; and we must take things as they come, for it is not in our power to change what is appointed for us. And this comes in here as a reason why, when we are in prosperity, we should by easy, and yet not secure - not to be secure because we live in a world of changes and therefore have no reason to say, Tomorrow shall be as this day (the lowest valleys join to the highest mountains), and yet to be easy, and, as he had advised (Ecc 2:24), to enjoy the good of our labour, in a humble dependence upon God and his providence, neither lifted up with hopes, nor cast down with fears, but with evenness of mind expecting every event. Here we have,
I. A general proposition laid down: To every thing there is a season, Ecc 3:1. 1. Those things which seem most contrary the one to the other will, in the revolution of affairs, each take their turn and come into play. The day will give place to the night and the night again to the day. Is it summer? It will be winter. Is it winter? Stay a while, and it will be summer. Every purpose has its time. The clearest sky will be clouded, Post gaudia luctus - Joy succeeds sorrow; and the most clouded sky will clear up, Post nubila Phoebus - The sun will burst from behind the cloud. 2. Those things which to us seem most casual and contingent are, in the counsel and foreknowledge of God, punctually determined, and the very hour of them is fixed, and can neither be anticipated nor adjourned a moment.
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II. The proof and illustration of it by the induction of particulars, twenty-eight in number, according to the days of the moon's revolution, which is always increasing or decreasing between its full and change. Some of these changes are purely the act of God, others depend more upon the will of man, but all are determined by the divine counsel. Every thing under heaven is thus changeable, but in heaven there is an unchangeable state, and an unchangeable counsel concerning these things. 1. There is a time to be born and a time to die. These are determined by the divine counsel; and, as we were born, so we must die, at the time appointed, Act 17:26. Some observe that here is a time to be born and a time to die, but no time to live; that is so short that it is not worth mentioning; as soon as we are born we begin to die. But, as there is a time to be born and a time to die, so there will be a time to rise again, a set time when those that lie in the grave shall be remembered, Job 14:13. 2. A time for God to plant a nation, as that of Israel in Canaan, and, in order to that, to pluck up the seven nations that were planted there, to make room for them; and at length there was a time when God spoke concerning Israel too, to pluck up and to destroy, when the measure of their iniquity was full, Jer 18:7, Jer 18:9. There is a time for men to plant, a time of the year, a time of their lives; but, when that which was planted has grown fruitless and useless, it is time to pluck it up. 3. A time to kill, when the judgments of God are abroad in a land and lay all waste; but, when he returns in ways of mercy, then is a time to heal what he has torn (Hos 6:1, Hos 6:2), to comfort a people after the time that he has afflicted them, Psa 90:15. There is a time when it is the wisdom of rulers to use severe methods, but there is a time when it is as much their wisdom to take a more gentle course, and to apply themselves to lenitives, not corrosives. 4. A time to break down a family, an estate, a kingdom, when it has ripened itself for destruction; but God will find a time, if they return and repent, to rebuild what he has broken down; there is a time, a set time, for the Lord to build up Zion, Psa 102:13, Psa 102:16. There is a time for men to break up house, and break off trade, and so to break down, which those that are busy in building up both must expect and prepare for. 5. A time when God's providence calls to weep and mourn, and when man's wisdom and grace will comply with the call, and will weep and mourn, as in times of common calamity and danger, and there it is very absurd to laugh, and dance, and make merry (Isa 22:12, Isa 22:13; Eze 21:10); but then, on the other hand, there is a time when God calls to cheerfulness, a time to laugh and dance, and then he expects we should serve him with joyfulness and gladness of heart. Observe, The time of mourning and weeping is put first, before that of laughter and dancing, for we must first sow in tears and then reap in joy. 6. A time to cast away stones, by breaking down and demolishing fortifications, when God gives peace in the borders, and there is no more occasion for them; but there is a time to gather stones together, for the making of strong-holds, Ecc 3:5. A time for old towers to fall, as that in Siloam (Luk 12:4), and for the temple itself to be so ruined as that not one stone should be left upon another; but also a time for towers and trophies too to be erected, when national affairs prosper. 7. A time to embrace a friend when we find him faithful, but a time to refrain from embracing when we find he is unfair or unfaithful, and that we have cause to suspect him; it is then our prudence to be shy and keep at a distance. It is commonly applied to conjugal embraces, and explained by Co1 7:3-5; Joe 2:16. 8. A time to get, get money, get preferment, get good bargains and a good interest, when opportunity smiles, a time when a wise man will seek (so the word is); when he is setting out in the world and has a growing family, when he is in his prime, when he prospers and has a run of business, then it is time for him to be busy and make hay when the sun shines. There is a time to get wisdom, and knowledge, and grace, when a man has a price put into his hand; but then let him expect there will come a time to spend, when all he has will be little enough to serve his turn. Nay, there will come a time to lose, when what has been soon got will be soon scattered and cannot be held fast. 9. A time to keep, when we have use for what we have got, and can keep it without running the hazard of a good conscience; but there may come a time to cast away, when love to God may oblige us to cast away what we have, because we must deny Christ and wrong our consciences if we keep it (Mat 10:37, Mat 10:38), and rather to make shipwreck of all than of the faith; nay, when love to ourselves may oblige us to cast it away, when it is for the saving of our lives, as it was when Jonah's mariners heaved their cargo into the sea. 10. A time to rend the garments, as upon occasion of some great grief, and a time to sew, them again, in token that the grief is over. A time to undo what we have done and a time to do again what we have undone. Jerome applies this to the rending of the Jewish church and the sewing and making up of the gospel church thereupon. 11. A time when it becomes us, and is our wisdom and duty, to keep silence, when it is an evil time (Amo 5:13), when our speaking would be the casting of pearl before swine, or when we are in danger of speaking amiss (Psa 39:2); but there is also a time to speak for the glory of God and the edification of others, when silence would be the betraying of a righteous cause, and when with the mouth confession is to be made to salvation; and it is a great part of Christian prudence to know when to speak and when to hold our peace. 12. A time to love, and to show ourselves friendly, to be free and cheerful, and it is a pleasant time; but there may come a time to hate, when we shall see cause to break off all familiarity with some that we have been fond of, and to be upon the reserve, as having found reason for a suspicion, which love is loth to admit. 13. A time of war, when God draws the sword for judgment and gives it commission to devour, when men draw the sword for justice and the maintaining of their rights, when there is in the nations a disposition to war; but we may hope for a time of peace, when the sword of the Lord shall be sheathed and he shall make wars to cease (Psa 46:9), when the end of the war is obtained, and when there is on all sides a disposition to peace. War shall not last always, nor is there any peace to be called lasting on this side the everlasting peace. Thus in all these changes God has set the one over-against the other, that we may rejoice as though we rejoiced not and weep as though we wept not.
III. The inferences drawn from this observation. If our present state be subject to such vicissitude, 1. Then we must not expect our portion in it, for the good things of it are of no certainty, no continuance (Ecc 3:9): What profit has he that works? What can a man promise himself from planting and building, when that which he thinks is brought to perfection may so soon, and will so surely, be plucked up and broken down? All our pains and care will not alter either the mutable nature of the things themselves or the immutable counsel of God concerning them. 2. Then we must look upon ourselves as upon our probation in it. There is indeed no profit in that wherein we labour; the thing itself, when we have it, will do us little good; but, if we make a right use of the disposals of Providence about it, there will be profit in that (Ecc 3:10): I have seen the travail which God has given to the sons of men, not to make up a happiness by it, but to be exercised in it, to have various graces exercised by the variety of events, to have their dependence upon God tried by every change, and to be trained up to it, and taught both how to want and how to abound, Phi 4:12. Note, (1.) There is a great deal of toil and trouble to be seen among the children of men. Labour and sorrow fill the world. (2.) This toil and this trouble are what God has allotted us. He never intended this world for our rest, and therefore never appointed us to take our ease in it. (3.) To many it proves a gift. God gives it to men, as the physician gives a medicine to his patient, to do him good. This travail is given to us to make us weary of the world and desirous of the remaining rest. It is given to us that we may be kept in action, and may always have something to do; for we were none of us sent into the world to be idle. Every change cuts us out some new work, which we should be more solicitous about, than about the event.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–22 To every thing there is a season,.... A set…
To every thing there is a season,.... A set determined time, when everything shall come into being, how long it shall continue, and in what circumstances; all things that have been, are, or shall be, were foreordained by God, and he has determined the times before appointed for their being, duration, and end; which times and seasons he has in his own power: there was a determined time for the whole universe, and for all persons and things in it; a settled fixed moment for the world to come into being; for it did not exist from everlasting, nor of itself, nor was formed by the fortuitous concourse of atoms, but by the wisdom and power of God; nor could it exist sooner or later than it did; it appeared when it was the will of God it should; in the beginning he created it, and he has fixed the time of its duration and end; for it shall not continue always, but have an end, which when it will be, he only knows: so there is a determined time for the rise, height, and declension of states and kingdoms in it; as of lesser ones, so of the four great monarchies; and for all the distinct periods and ages of the world; and for each of the seasons of the year throughout all ages; for the state of the church in it, whether in suffering or flourishing circumstances; for the treading down of the holy city; for the prophesying, slaying, and rising of the witnesses; for the reign and ruin of antichrist; for the reign of Christ on earth, and for his second coming to judgment, though of that day and hour knows no man: and as there is a set time in the counsels and providence of God for these more important events, so for every thing of a lesser nature;
and a time to every purpose under the heaven; to every purpose of man that is carried into execution; for some are not, they are superseded by the counsel of God; some obstruction or another is thrown in the way of them, so that they cannot take place; God withdraws men from them by affliction or death, when their purposes are broken; or by some other way; and what are executed he appoints a time for them, and overrules them to answer some ends of his own; for things the most contingent, free, and voluntary, fall under the direction and providence of God. And there is a time for every purpose of his own; all things done in the world are according to his purposes, which are within himself wisely formed, and are eternal and unfrustrable; and there is a time fixed for the execution of them, for every purpose respecting all natural and civil things in providence; and for every purpose of his grace, relating to the redemption of his people, the effectual calling of them, and the bringing them to eternal glory; which are the things that God wills, that he takes delight and pleasure in, as the word (e) signifies. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions render it, "to everything under the heaven there is a time"; and Jarchi observes that in the Misnic language the word used so signifies. The Targum is,
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"to every man a time shall come, and a season to every business under heaven.''
(e) "omni voluntati", Montanus, Mercerus, Cocceius; i.e. "rei proprie capitae ac desideratae", Drusius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–22 Solomon proves, that we ought to make use of…
Solomon proves, that we ought to make use of what God has given us, by shewing the mutability of all human affairs, ver. 1- 10. The immutability and unsearchableness of the Divine counsels, ver. 11-15. The vanity of honour and power, often an instrument of oppression, for which God will judge the oppressors, ver. 16, 17. Whose condition in this world is no better than that of brutes, ver. 18-21. Therefore live well, ver. 22.
A season - A certain time appointed by God for its being and continuance, which no human wit or providence can alter. And by virtue of this appointment of God, all vicissitudes which happen in the world, whether comforts or calamities, come to pass. Which is here added to prove the principal proposition, That all things below are vain, and happiness is not to be found in them, because of their great uncertainty, and mutability, and transitoriness, and because they are so much out of the reach and power of men, and wholly in the disposal of God. Purpose - Not only natural, but even the voluntary actions of men, are ordered and disposed by God. But it must be considered, that he does not here speak of a time allowed by God, wherein all the following things may lawfully be done, but only of a time fixed by God, in which they are actually done.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 Every thing has its time and season, 1-8.
CHAPTER III
Every thing has its time and season, 1-8.
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Men are exercised with labour, 9, 10.
Every thing is beautiful in its season, 11.
Men should enjoy thankfully the gifts of God, 12, 13.
What God does is for ever, 14.
There is nothing new, 15.
The corruption of judgment; but the judgments of God are right,
16, 17.
Man is brutish, and men and brutes die in like manner, 18-21.
Man may enjoy the fruit of his own labours, 22.
NOTES ON CHAP. III
Verse 1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose] Two general remarks may be made on the first eight verses of this chapter.
1. God by his providence governs the world, and has determined particular things and operations to particular times. In those times such things may be done with propriety and success; but if we neglect the appointed seasons, we sin against this providence, and become the authors of our own distresses.
2. God has given to man that portion of duration called TIME; the space in which all the operations of nature, of animals, and intellectual beings, are carried on; but while nature is steady in its course, and animals faithful to their instincts, man devotes it to a great variety of purposes; but very frequently to that for which God never made time, space, or opportunity. And all we can say, when an evil deed is done, is, there was a time in which it was done, though God never made it for that purpose.
To say any farther on this subject is needless, as the words themselves give in general their own meaning. The Jews, it is true, see in these times and seasons all the events of their own nation, from the birth of Abraham to the present times; and as to fathers and their followers, they see all the events and states of the Christian Church in them!
It is worthy of remark, that in all this list there are but two things which may be said to be done generally by the disposal of God, and in which men can have but little influence: the time of birth, and the time of death. But all the others are left to the option of man, though God continues to overrule them by his providence. The following paraphrase will explain all that is necessary to be generally understood:-
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 Ecc 3:1. To every thing, &c. — Solomon having…
Ecc 3:1. To every thing, &c. — Solomon having mentioned God’s overruling providence in the latter end of the foregoing chapter, proceeds in this to illustrate the imperfection of human wisdom, which is confined to a certain season for all things that it would effect, which if we neglect, or let slip, all our contrivances signify nothing. He then shows that the utmost perfection at which our wisdom can arrive in this world, consists, 1st, In being contented with this order in which God hath placed all things, and not disquieting ourselves about that which it is not in our power to alter. 2d, In observing and taking the fittest opportunity of doing every thing, as the most certain means to tranquillity. 3d, In taking the comfort of what we have at present, and making a seasonable and legitimate use of it; and, lastly, in bearing the vicissitudes which we find in all human things with an equal mind; because they are ordered by a powerful, wise, and gracious Providence. These were the things he had suggested in the conclusion of the former chapter, and this may be considered as having a relation to every one of them. See Bishop Patrick. There is a season — A certain time appointed by God for its being and continuance, which no human wisdom or providence can alter. And by virtue of this appointment of God, all vicissitudes which happen in the world, whether comforts or calamities, come to pass; which is here added to prove the principal proposition, that all things below are vain, and happiness is not to be found in them, because of their great uncertainty, and mutability, and transitoriness, and because they are so much out of the reach and power of men, and wholly in the disposal of God. And a time to every purpose — Not only things natural, but even the voluntary actions of men, are ordered and disposed by God. But it must be considered, that he does not here speak of a time allowed by God, wherein all the following things may lawfully be done, but only of a time fixed by God, in which they are actually done.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 Everything - More particularly, the actions of people (e.…
Everything - More particularly, the actions of people (e. g. his own, Ecc 2:1-8) and events which happen to people, the world of Providence rather than the world of creation. It would seem that most of his own works described in Ecc 2:1-8 were present to his mind. The rare word translated “season” means emphatically “fitting time” (compare Neh 2:6; Est 9:27, Est 9:31).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 Heaven, in this world, where alone things change. (St.…
Heaven, in this world, where alone things change. (St. Jerome) --- Nothing is here perpetual, but to be used in a proper manner. (Worthington) --- The heart must not be attached to any thing created. (Calmet) --- Pleasure had been condemned and approved, chap. 2. He shews that all must have its time. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Of Earthly Happiness, its Impediments and Means of Advancement
SECOND DISCOURSE
Of Earthly Happiness, its Impediments and Means of Advancement
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Chap. 3–5.
A. The substance of earthly happiness or success consists in grateful joy of this life, and a righteous use of it.
Ecc_3:1-22.
1. The reasons for the temporal restriction of human happiness (consisting in the entire dependence of all human action and effort on an unchangeable, higher system of things)
(Ecc_3:1-11.)
1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: time to be born, and 2a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and 6a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, arid a time to lose; 7a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; 8a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time io love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. 9What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth ? 10I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the ons of men to be exercised in it. 11He hath made every thing beautiful in his time; also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
2. The nature of the temporally restricted human happiness
(Ecc_3:12-22.)
12know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. 13And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour; it is the gift of God. 14I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. 15That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past. 16And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity wxs there. 17I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. 18I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. 19For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity. 20All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. 21Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth ? 22Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him ?
[Ecc_3:1.—זְמָן This is one of the words relied upon to prove the later Hebraic, or Chaldaic, period of the book. We have, however, no right to say that a word running through the Shemitic tongues [as thia is found in Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopia, as well as Hebrew] is peculiar to any one of them, or borrowed from any one of them, though circumstances may have made it rare in an oariy dialect, perhaps on account of a precision of meaning raruly needed, whilst it has become loose and vulgarized in another. It may have been well known in the days of Soiomon, though seldom used when the more indefinite עֵת would answer.עֵת means time generally, מוֹעֵד a fixed time (like a yearly festival), זמן its earlier sense, before it became vulgarized, a time or an occasion precisely adapted to a purpose. Hence we see its very probable connection with זמם proponit, and having also tho sense of binding, like Arabic ׂדّ’ the purpose linked to the due occasion. This suits all the acts following, as more or less tho result of purpose In a time proposed. It has good support, too, etymologically, in the final ם changiug to the ן as is the tendency in other words. Thus, besides other examples, Lam_3:22, according to Rabbi Tanchum, תּמם becomes תּמן to avoid the harshness of tho final מ making תָּמְמוּ = תָּמְנוּ “they are not consumed,” or spent [that is, the mercies of the Lord instead of “we are not consumed.” We may be assured that the writer did not intend a tautology hero. זמן is more precise than עת as it has more of purpose than מוֹעֵד which relates to things immovable.—T. L.]
[Ecc_3:18.—על־דּברת E. V. On account of the sons of men. Compare Psa_110:4, after the manner of.LXX., περὶ λαλιᾶς Vulgate, simply, de filiis. Syriac, על ממללא after the speech of men—morehumano—humanly speaking,which seems the most suitable of any, for reasons given in the Exeget. and Note.—T. L.]
[Ecc_3:18.—הֵמָה לָהֶם Literally, themselves to themselves—in their own estimation. לְבָרָם to prove them—make it clear, literally, (LXX., διακρινεῖ αὐτοὺςvulg ut probaret), let them see from themselves, or from their own conduct fo themselves, how like beasts they are. This qualified sense is very different from asserting that they are beasts absolutely. The key to it all is in the על דברת above. The writer is speaking more humano-tho judgment that must bo pronounced if men were judged by their own ways.—T. L.]
[Ecc_3:21—הָעֹלָה It can only mean, as it stands in tho text, “that which goeth up.” An effort has been made to give it another turn by pointing ה as interrogative. It is sufficient to say that it is against the text For oLhtr reasons against H, see Exeget. and Note—T. L]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The unconditional dependence of man on God’s government of the world, in all his efforts for happiness, which formed the concluding thought ! of the preceding discourse (Ecc_2:24-26), now becomes the starting point of a new and independent reflection, in so far as temporal conditions and restrictions of human happiness are deduced therefrom, and its essence is placed in gratefully cheerful enjoyment and a devout use: of the earthly blessings bestowed by God. For Divine Providence in its controlling power here below will ever remain obscure and mysterious, so that man, in this its hidden side, can neither alter its course nor observe any other conduct than humble submission and godly fear (Ecc_3:9-11; Ecc_3:14-15). In the same way the view of the many wrongs in this life, and of the extreme obscurity and concealment of the fate that will overtake individual souls after death, obliges.us to cling to the principle of a cheerful, confiding and contented enjoyment of the present (Ecc_3:16-20).—In the more special development of this train of thought, we may either (with Vaihinger and Keil) make three principal sections or strophes of the chapter (Ecc_3:1-8; Ecc_3:9-15, and Ecc_3:16-22), or, what appears more logical, two halves; of which each is divided into sec-tions of unequal length. 1. Ecc_3:1-11 show the reason for the temporal restriction of the earthly happiness of man-a, as consisting in the dependence of all human action on time and circumstances (Ecc_3:1-8); b, as consisting in the short-sightedness and feebleness of human knowledge in contrast with the endless wisdom and omniscience of God (Ecc_3:9-11). 2. Ecc_3:12-22 describe human happiness in its nature as temporally restricted and imperfect—a, with reference to the awe-inspiring immutability of those decrees of God which determine human fate (Ecc_3:12-15); b, with reference to the secret ways adopted by Divine justice, in rewarding the good and punishing the evil in this world, and. still more in the world beyond (Ecc_3:16-22).
2. First Division, first strophe.
Ecc_3:1-8. Every human action and effort are subject to the law of’ time and temporal change.—To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.—“Every thing,” namely, every thing that man undertakes or does on earth; a very general expression, more clearly defined by the following כָּל־חֵפֶץ every business, every undertaking, but more clearly illustrated in the subsequent verses in a number of special examples.—זְמָן lit., precision, limitation, indicates in later style (Neh_2:6; Est_9:27; Est_9:31), a certain period, a term for any thing, whilst tho more common עת [lime) signifies a division of time in general.
Ecc_3:2. A time- to be born and a time to die.—This is the original text, as is the same turn until the 8th verse.1 The Sept. and the Vulg. express this construction genitively [καιρὸς τοῦ τέκειν tempus nascendi, etc.) The word לָלֶדֶת does not stand for the passive לְהִוָּלֵד to be born (Vulg., Luther, Ewalt, Gesenius, Elsies.),, but like all the fol-lowing infinitives, is to be taken actively: to bear. The constant usage of the Old Testament favors this rendering with reference to the verb יָלַד and also the circumstance that with, לֶהֶת an undertaking (חֵפֶץ), a conscious and intentional action or business is to be named, which can only be said of the maternal part of the act of human birth, and not of that of the child. Death fittingly follows closely to birth. By this juxtaposition of the acts which mark the entrance into life and the exit from it, the whole arena within which the subsequent actions are performed, is from the beginning “ marked by its fixed limits ”(Hitzig). A time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.—For the affinity between these two ideas and that of birth and death, comp. Pro_12:12; Ps. 1:37; 37:35 f.; Psa_92:13 f.; Psa_128:3; Dan_4:11; Dan_4:20; Mat_3:8-10; Mat_7:17 f.; Mat_15:18. לַעֲקוֹר probably from Chald.2 עִקָּר“root,” means originally to root out, to unroot, but is always elsewhere in the o. T. used metaphorically, e.g., of the destruction of cities (Zep_2:4), of striking down horses or oxen, and making them useless by severing the sinews of their hind feet. (Gen_49:6 :).
Ecc_3:3.—A time to kill and a time to heal.—A negative thought here precedes, as also in the subsequent clauses, till the first of Ecc_3:5, after which, until the end, the positive or negative idea alternately precedes. “To kill” (הֲרוֹג lit., cut down, or stab) indicates the inflicting of the very wounds whose healing the following verb points out.
Ecc_3:4 : A time to weep, etc.—לִבְכוֹת appears only on account of similarity of sound to be placed immediately after לִּבְוֹת as in the following clause: רְקוֹד to leap, to danee, appears to be chosen on account of its like sounding ending as a contrast to סְפוֹד to lament (κόπτεσθαι plangere).3Ecc_3:5. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together.—In this first expression there is, of course, no allusion to the destruction of the temple, of which, according to Mar_13:2, not one stone shall remain upon another (as Hengstenberg and others think), and quite as little to the stoning of malefactors, or to the throwing of stones on the fields of enemies, according to 2Ki_3:19; 2Ki_3:25 (Hitzig, Elster, etc. But הַשְׁלִיךְ אֲבנים is here identical with סִקֵל “to free from stones,” Isa_5:2; Isa_62:10, and alludes therefore to the gathering and throwing away of stones from the fields, vineyards, etc.; whilst the latter expression naturally means the collecting of stones for the construction of houses (as Vaihinqer justly observes).__A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.—Whether the connection of the preceding expressions with חֲבוֹק to embrace, is really effected by the fact that one embraces with the hand the stone to be cast, as Hitzig supposes, is very doubtful. At all events, however, חבק means the embrace of love (Pro_5:20), and-the intensive in the second rank is purposely placed there to indicate that every excess of sexual intercourse is injurious.
Ecc_3:6. A time to get, and a time to lose.—אִבֵּד as a contrast to בִּקֵּשׁ must clearly here mean to lose (or also to be lost, to abstain from getting, Vaihinger) although it every where else means to destroy, to ruin; for in all the remaining clauses of the series, the second verb asserts directly the opposite of the first. In contrast to the unintentional losing, the corresponding verb הַשְׁלִיךְ of the second clause then indicates an intentional casting away of a possession to be preserved (2Ki_7:15; Eze_20:8).—A time to rend and a time to sew.—One might here suppose the rending of garments on hearing sad tidings (1 Sam. 1:11; 3:39; Job_1:20; Job_2:12; Mat_26:63), and again the sewing up of the garments that had been thus rent as a sign of grief. And also by the following “to keep silence” one would first think of the mournful silence of the sorrowing (Gen_34:5; Job_2:13)
Ecc_3:8. A time to love, etc.—Love and hatred, war and peace, forming an inter-relation with each other, are now connected with the contents of the preceding verse by the intermediary thought of the agreeable and disagreeable, or of well and evil doing.
3. First Division, second strophe
Ecc_3:9-11. In consequence of the temporal character of all worldly action and effort, human knowledge is also especially ineffective and feeble in presence of the unsearchable ruling of the Eternal One.—What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?—That is, what profit do all the various, antagonistic actions, of which a number has just been quoted (Ecc_3:3-8) bring to man ? The question is one to which a decidedly negative answer is expected, and draws therefore a negative result from the preceding reflection: There is nothing lasting, no continuous happiness here below.
Ecc_3:10. I have seen the travail, etc.—Comp. Ecc_1:13. This verse has simply a transitional meaning; it prepares us for the more accurate description given in Ecc_3:11 of the inconstant, transitory and feeble condition of human knowledge and effort, in the presence of the unsearchable wisdom of God.
Ecc_3:11. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time—The principal emphasis rests on the word בְּעִתּוֹ “in his time,” as the connection with the foregoing Ecc_3:1-8 shows. God has arranged all things beautifully in this life (comp. Gen_1:31), but always only “in his time,” always only so that it remains beautiful and good for man during its restricted time, but after that becomes an evil for him; therefore always only so that the glory of this earth soon reaches its end.—Also he hath set the world in their heart.—(Zöckler’s rendering, eternity in their heart).—That is, in the hearts of men; for the suffix in בְּלִבָּם refers to the children of men in Ecc_3:11, whilst in the subsequent clause the individual man הָאָדָם is placed opposite to the one God. This clause clearly holds a rising relation to the contents of the preceding: God has here below not only arranged all things well for man in this temporal period; He has even given them eternity in their hearts. This is clearly the author’s train of thought. With eternity given to the heart cf man, he also means the knowledge of God’s eternal nature and rule, innate even in the natural man, that notitia Dei naturalis insita s, innata, which Paul, Rom_1:19 f., describes as an intellectual perception of God’s eternal power and divinity, peculiar as such to man, and which develops itself in the works of creation. It appears as well from the word בְּלִבָּם(heart, here in the same sense as Ecc_1:13-17, etc.)i as from the following: “So that no man can find out,” that it is substantially this natural knowledge of God, namely, something belonging to the realm of human conception, a moral good from the sphere of intellectual life,—that the author means by the expression הָעוֹלָם (consequently not simply the character of immortality)—although he must have considered this closely connected with the natural conception of God, according to Ecc_7:7. For this restrictive clause clearly expresses a restriction of human nature in an intellectual sense, an inability to find, which is equal to an inability to know. But as certainly as this inability to know refers to the extent and limits of Divine action, so certainly will also the knowledge of the human heart, expressed by הָעוֹלָם be a religious knowledge referring to God and Divine things. Therefore we would reject as opposed to the text those explanations of הָעוֹלָם which give to this expression the sense of “world” (Vulg., Luther, Umbreit, Ewald, Ulster, etc.), or “worldly-mindedness” (Gesenius, Knobel), or “worldly wisdom,” “judgment” (Gaab, Spohn); also Hitzig, who, however, contends for עֵלֶם instead of עולם And besides the connection, the style of the entire Old Testament and of this book is opposed to this rendering; according to them עולם is always eternity (comp. Ecc_1:4; Ecc_1:10; Ecc_2:16; Ecc_3:14; Ecc_9:6; Ecc_11:5) and first receives the signification of “world macrocosmos” in the literature of the Talmud.—So that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.—That is, this one restriction is laid on this human conception of the Eternal One, that it can never obtain a perfect and truly adequate insight into the Divine plan of the world, but rather, is only able to perceive the unsearchable ways and incomprehensible decrees of God, fwgmentarily and in a glass darkly (Rom. 2:32; 1Co_13:12).מִבְּלִי אֲשֶׁר is here clearly in the sense of only that, “except that,” therefore synonymous with אֶפֶס כִּי formerly used for this (Amo_9:8; Jdg_4:9; 2Sa_11:14). Comp. Ewald, Lehrbuch, § 354 b. The deviating significations Vulg., Gesenius: “ita tit non;” (Sept., Herzpeld ὅπως μὴ: “in order not,” Knobel: “without that;” Hitzig, Umbreit, Hahn: “without which,” etc.) are not only inconsonant to the text, but without suflicient linguistic authority, so far as regards the signification of מִבְּלִי אֲשֶׁר4—The author is here silent in respect to the profoundesfc reason why man cannot thoroughly know and comprehend the works and reign of God, that is the interruption of the original pure harmony of his Spirit by means of sin; he is so because he would seem rather, as it were, purposely to presuppose this fact than emphatically to express it.
4. Second Division, first strophe. Ecc_3:12-15. Human happiness is temporally restricted, consisting mainly in the cheerful enjoyment and proper use of tfte moment, because it depends on the immutable decrees qf divine laws, claiming fear and humble submission, rather than bold hope and effort.—I know that there is no good in them—namely, in the “children of men,” (Ecc_3:10) to whom the Ecc_3:11 already referred. בָּם “in them with them,”5 is mainly synonymous with “for them;” comp. Ecc_2:24. יָדַעְתּי is literally, “I have perceived, and I know in consequence thereof;” it means the past, in its result reaching into the future, here also as in Ecc_3:14.—But for a man to rejoice and do good in this life—Together with the gratefully cheerful enjoyment of life’s goods, the “doing good” is here named more distinctly than in Ecc_2:26, as a principal condition and occupation of human happiness. Anil therewith is also meant, as that passage shows, and as appears still more definitely from the parallels in Psa_34:14; Psa_37:3; Isa_38:3, etc., not merely benevolence, but uprightness, fulfilment of the divine commands (comp. Ecc_12:13). For the meaning of עֲשׂוֹת טוֹב in the sense of “be of good cheer,” to be merry (Aben Ezra, Luther, de Wette, Knobel, Hitzig, etc.) there is not a single philological proof; for in chap, Ecc_2:24; Ecc_3:22; Ecc_5:7, etc., there are similar phrases, but still materially different from this one, which express the sense of being merry.” 6—בְּחַיָּיו lit., “in his life” refers again to the singular הָאָדָם Ecc_3:11, so that in this verse the singular and the plural use of this verb alternates as in the preceding.
Ecc_3:13. And also that every man should eat and drink, etc., it is the gift of God. Clearly the same thought as in Ecc_2:24-25. The particle וְנַם introducing still another object of perception to יָדַעְתִּי besides that named already in Ecc_3:12, refers to the whole sentence. As to the peculiar construction of the first conditional clause without אִם or other particle, see Ewald, § 357, c.
Ecc_3:14. I know that -whatever God doeth it shall be forever. Herein it appears that all human action is dependent on the eternal law of God, and that especially all cheerful, undisturbed enjoyment of the blessings of this life, depends on the decrees of this highest law-giver and ruler of the world. Comp. the theoretical description of the ever constant course of divino laws in Ecc_1:4-11.—Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. To it (עָלָיו) namely, to all that everlastingly abiding order which God makes, to all those eternally valid enactments of the Most High. for the construction אֵין לְהוֹסִיף Comp. Ewald, § 237, c. For the sentence: Sir_18:5; Rev_22:18.—And God doeth it, that men should fear before Him.—And this by those very immutable laws of his world-ruling activity, on which men, with all their deeds and destiny, depend; comp. Ecc_9:12; 2Co_5:11; and for the construction: Eze_36:27; Rev_13:15. As in those places, so also here, the expression “doeth it that,” does not mean “in order that,” but “effecting that” “making it to be so,” accomplishing. By יָרִא “to fear,” Koheleth does not mean a feeling of terror and horror, but rather that sacred feeling of holy awe which we call reverence; but nevertheless “he here considers this reverence not as a beneficent blissful sensation, but rather as a depressing feeling of the yanity of man in contrast with the boundless fulness of the power of God, as an inward shudder at the bonds of the divine decree, which envelop him, and by which, in his conception, every spiritual movement is restricted in advance to a certain measure,” (Elster).
Ecc_3:15. That which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been.—(כְּבַר הוּא) i.e. already long present, comes of old (not exactly; is something old, as Hitzig translates, turning the adverb into a substantive). The second clause containing אֲשֶׁר לִהְיוֹת says, literally, as in the English rendering: “that which is to be.” For the sentence comp. Ecc_1:9; Ecc_6:10, and especially Job_14:5; Psa_139:15, where still more clearly than here, is expressed the predestination of all the destinies of man by God.—And God requireth that which is past. (Lit., and God seeketh that which was crowded out). He again briags forth that which the vicissitudes of time had already crowded out, or pushed back into the past; Deus instaurat, quod abiit (Vulgate). This signification alone of יְבַקֵשׁ אֶת נִרְדָף is in accordance with the context not that given in the Sept. Syridc, Targ., Heng-stenberg, etc., according to which the allusion here would be to the divine consolation and gracious visitation of the persecuted, (Mat_5:10; Luk_19:10, etc.).
5. Second Division, second strophe. Ecc_3:16-22. The restriction of human happiness appears especially in the numerous cases of.unsatisfactory, indeed, apparently unjust, distribution of happiness and unhappiness, according to the moral worth and merit of men, as this mundane life reveals it, as well as in the uncertainty regarding the kind of reward in the world beyond, which ever exists in this world below. And moreover I saw under the sun.—The “moreover” (עוֹד) refers to Ecc_3:12, and therefore introduces something which comes as a new conception to the one there described (and also in Ecc_3:14 f.), and which holds the same relation to that as the special to the general.—The place of judgment, etc. Lit., at the place of judgment; for מְקוֹם here, and in the subsequent clause is strictly taken, not as the object of “I saw,” but, as the accents indicate, is an independent nominative (or locative)—an abrupt construction which produces a certain solemn impression well adapted to the excited feelings of the poet.מִשְׁפָט and צֶדֶק judgment and righteousness, differ materially as objective and subjective, or as the judgment that must serve the judge as the absolute rule for his decisions, and as the practical judgment in the life of the normal man; the latter expression is, therefore, largely synonymous with “innocence,” virtue. In contrast to both ideas, Koheleth calls הָרֶשַׁע “the evil,” “the crime,” thinking of course, in the first place, of objective, and in the second place of subjective wrong, or, the first time, of crime as a wicked judge practices it, the second time, of the wantonness of the wicked in general.
Ecc_3:17. God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.—He will appoint to them, therefore that “judgment” which, according to Ecc_3:16, is so frequently in human life, either not to be found at all, or not in the right place; comp. Ecc_5:7; Deu_1:17; Psa_82:1 ff.—For there is a time there for every purpose, and every work.—That is, in heaven above, with God, the just judge, there is a time to judge every good and every evil deed of men. שָׁם pointing upwards, (as in Gen_49:24, מִשָּׁם) and עֵת here as elsewhere, is the “time of judicial decision, the term;” comp. Ecc_9:11-12, as well as the New Testament ἡμέρα 1Co_3:13; 1Co_4:2, etc. Others read שָׂם instead of שָׁם “He has set a time for everything,” (Houbigant, Van dee Palm, Döderlein, Hitzig, Elster), but which is quite as unnecessary as the temporal signification of שָׁם=time, in tempore judicii (Hibronymus), or as referring the expression to the earth as the seat of the tribunal here meant (Hahn), or as the explanation of שָׁם according to the Talmud, in the sense of “appraising, taxing” (Furst, Vaihinger: “And He appraises every action”), or, finally, as Ewaln’s parenthesizing of the words כִּי עֵת לְכָל־חֵפֶץ whereby the sentence acquires the following form: “God will judge the just and the unjust (for there is a time for everything), and will judge of every deed.”7
Ecc_3:1-8.Concerning the sons of men, that God might manifest them. As the introductory words: “I said in my heart,” connect the verse with the preceding one, it assumes the same relation to Ecc_3:16 as to that, and to עַל־דִבְטרַת בְּנֵי הָאָדָם and, therefore, the principal thought of this 16th verse is to be thus supplied: “On account of the sons of men, does this unfinished toleration of wrong on earth exist, in order that God may manifest (try) them, i. e., grant them their free decision for or against His truth (comp. Rev_22:11). For בָּרַר, to test, prove, compare chap, Ecc_9:1; Dan. 9:35, as well as the Rabbinic style, according to which this verb means “to sift,” “to winnow” (Schebiit, 5, 9). לְבָרָם הָאֱלֹהִים is lit.
“for God proving them,” a somewhat harsh construction, but which has its analogy in Isa_29:23.—That they might see, namely, the sons of men, for whose instruction the test is indeed instituted; since God, for His part, needs not to see it, for He knows in advance of what men are made, (Psa_103:14).—That they themselves are beasts. Men are here declared to be beasts, that is, not better than the beasts of the field, not on account of their conduct (as Psa_73:22), but on account of their final dissolution, and their inevitable sinking under the dominion of death; comp. Ecc_3:19 f.; Ecc_9:12, and also Hab_1:14; Psa_49:20. Therefore, not the brutal disposition, and the lawlessly wild conduct of the natural mind (Hitzig, Elster, etc.), but his subjection to the rule of death, and the curse of vanity (Rom_5:12 ff; Rom_8:19 ff.), furnish the reason for this placing our race on a level with the brutes (as Luther, Hengstenberg, Vaihinger. correctly assume).—“They themselves,” i.e., apart from God’s redeeming influence, Which can finally secure to their spirit eternal life and blessedness notwithstanding the subjection of the body to death (Ecc_12:7; Ecc_12:13).—לָהֶם casts the action back on the subject, and serves to bring out this latter with special emphasis, comp. Gen_12:1; Amo_2:14; Job_6:19, etc. According to Ewald, § 315, a.—הֵמָּה לָהֶם is a playful intensity of the sense something like the Latin ipsissimi; but Bwald can quote no other proof than this very passage.
Ecc_3:19 affords a still further illustration of the comparison between men and beasts, which extends to Ecc_3:21 inclusive, with the view of forcibly expressing the uncertainty of the destiny of the former in and after their death.—For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts. [Lit. Ger. For chance are the sons, of men, and chance the beasts); this because they are both equally under the dominion of chance (מִקְרֶה, as chap, Ecc_2:14-15), because the lot of both is inevitably marked out for them from without, (Hengstenbebg). But it is arbitrary to refer this appellation “chance,” simply to the beginning of life in men and beasts, as “the issues of a blind fate,” (Hitzig) and it is in opposition to the remark immediately following: (in the German) “and one fate, or chance, overtakes them all;” which shows that the end of both is death, striking them all the same inexorable blow; on which account it is, by a bold metaphor, called “chance.”—As the one dieth, so dieth the other, that is, in external appearance, which is authoritative for the author’s present judgment; for he is now disregarding that life which exists for man after death, as ho simply wishes to call attention to the transitory character of the earthly existence of our race.—Yea, they have all one breath, so that man has no pre-eminence above a beast, רוּחַ is here as in Ecc_3:21, not spirit, in the stricter sense, but breath, or force of life, the animating and organizing principle in general, and is therefore, in that more extended sense, applicable to men as well as beasts, as in Gen_7:21 f.; Psa_106:29, and Ecc_8:8, of this book. On account of the broader latitude of the conception רוח, “breath,” the following remark, that man has no preeminence (מוֹתָר) over the beast, is meant not in the sense of an absolute, but simply of a relative equality of both natures; the poet will place both on the same level only in reference to the external identity of the close of their life (and not as Knobel supposes, who here thinks materialism openly taught).8 Comp. also the dogmatical and ethical section.
Ecc_3:20. All go unto one place, i.e., men and beasts; for they both alike become dust, as they were formed of dust. The following clause shows that by the “one place,” is meant the earth as a common burial place for the bodies of men and beasts; and not Scheol, “the house appointed for all living,” (Job_30:23).—All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Comp. Gen_3:19; Psa_104:29; Psa_107:4; Sir_40:11; Sir_41:10. All these passages, like this one, regard man solely as a material being, and, in so far, assert a perfect likeness in his death to that of beasts. The question whether the spirit of man shares this fate, is yet unanswered. The following verse refers to that, not to afford a definite answer, but to affirm the impossibility of an answer founded on sense-experience.
Ecc_3:21. For who knoweth the spirit of man that gosth upward?—The interrogative form of this and the following clause, is unconditionally required by the structure of the sentence and the context. Therefore הָעֹלָה is not, as in the masoretic text, to be written with the ה articuli, but with the ה interrogativum, (thus, הֲעלָה) and the same way in the following, or הֲיֹרֶדֶת. That construction is therefore not, as in Joe_2:14, that of an affirmative question, but rather that of a doubtful one, expressing uncertainty. As in Psa_90:11, or above in Ecc_2:19, מִי יוֹדֵעַ הֲ points out that the matter is difficult of conception, not, at first view, clear and apparent, but rather eluding the direct observation of sense. This verse does not, therefore, assert an absolute ignorance (as Knobel. supposes), but rather some knowledge regarding the fate of the spirit in the world beyond, though wanting certainty and external evidence. Concerning the return of the spirit of man to its Divine Giver, it maintains that no one, in this world, has ever seen or survived it, just as emphatically, and in like manner, as John [Ecc_1:18; Ecc_1:1 Epist. Ecc_4:12] asserts of the sight of God, that it has never been granted to any man. A denial of the immortality of the spirit of man, as an object of inward certainty of faith [as later testimony from this standpoint of faith shows, Ecc_12:7], is as little to be found in this passage as in the assertion of John, “no one has ever seen God,” is to be found a doubt of the fact, certain to faith, of the future beholding of God (1Jn_3:2). Ignoring this state of the case, the Masora, in order to destroy the supposed skeptical sense of the passage, has punctuated the twice repeated ה, before עלה and before ירדת as articles, and so reached the thought maintained by many moderns (Geier, Dathe, Rosenmueller, Hengstenberg, Hahn): “Who knoweth the spirit of man, that which goeth upward? and the spirit of the beast, that which goeth downward to the earth?” The only just conception, according to connection and structure, is that given by the Sept., Vulg., Chald., and Syr., which not only the “rationalistic exegesis,” as Hengstenberg supposes, but also Luther, Starke, Michaelis, Elster, and many others, have adopted, who are very far from attributing to the Preacher skeptical or materialistic tendencies.9
Ecc_3:22. A return to the maxim already given in Ecc_3:12, that one must cheerfully and joyously seize the present as now offered by God, and use it to get a sure path into the future.—Than that a man should rejoice in his works—בְּמַעֲששָׂיו, i.e., in his labor and efforts in general, in his works as well as in their fruits; comp. Ecc_5:18. This “rejoicing in his own works,” is not materially different from the passage in Ecc_2:24, that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor [Hitzig thinks otherwise], nor from the expression (Ecc_3:12-13) “to rejoice and do good,” etc.—For that is his portion—i.e., for nothing farther is allotted to him here below, comp. Ecc_2:10.—For who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?—That is, not into the condition after death, into the relations of human life in another world, but, as shown by the parallel passages, Ecc_6:12; Ecc_2:19 : into the future conditions of human life, into the relations as they shall be on earth after his departure from life (especially in his immediate surroundings and sphere of activity, comp. Ecc_2:19). This sentence involves, therefore, neither a denial of the personal continuance of man (Hitzig), nor an authorization of the Epicurean principle: “Enjoy before death, that you may not go out empty” (Knobel), nor, indeed, any reference to the world beyond, but simply an exhortation to profit by the present in cheerful and diligent occupation, without being anxious and doubting about the future, which is indeed inaccessible to our human knowledge. Hengstenberg justly observes: “Man knows not what God will do,” Ecc_3:11. Therefore, it is foolish to chase after happiness by toilsome exertion, or to be full of anxiety and grief, Ecc_3:9-10; and quite as foolish (chap, Ecc_6:12) to engage in many wide reaching schemings, to chase after the ἀδηλότητα πλού του (1Ti_6:17) to gather and heap for him to whom God will give it, Ecc_2:26; but, on the contrary, it is rational to enjoy the present. Properly understood, therefore, this verse draws its practical consequence not from the verses 19–21 immediately preceding, but from the contents of the entire chapter.
APPENDIX TO THE EXEGETICAL
[Interpretation of Verses 11, 14, 15; the Inquisition of the Ages, Ecc_3:15,יְכֵקִּשׁ אֶת נִרְדָּף וְהָאֱלהִים This remarkable language is rendered, in our English Version, “God requireth that which is past,” or, as given in the margin, “that which is driven away.”—Zöckler has das Verdrängte, that which is pushed away, crowded out. None of these give the exact force of נִרְדָף, nor do they seem to. recognize the very peculiar figure which is so strongly suggested by. נִרְדָּף and יְבַקֵשׁ when thus taken together. Pursued, the true rendering, is something different from being driven away, or crowded out. The expression does, undoubtedly, refer to time past, but not after the common representation of something left behind U3, but rather of something sent before, or gone before, which is chased and shall be overtaken. It is more like an idea very frequent in the Koran, and coming undoubtedly from the ancient Arabic theology, that the lives of men, and especially their sins, are all gone before to meet them at the judgment. The flight of time is a common figure in all languages, and especially its great swiftness—sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus. The representation of the ages driving away their predecessors, and taking their places, is also a familiar one, as in Ovid Met. XV. Ecc 181:
ut unda impdlilur unda,
Urgeturque prior venienti, urgetque priorem,
Tempora sic fugiunt pariter pariterque sequuntur.
The figure here, however, although presenting this general image, has something else that is both rare and striking. We know it from the words נִרְדָּף and יְכַקִּשׁ which, as thus used, immediately call, up the idea of the flying homicide with the avenger or the inquisitor [יְכַקִּשׁ] behind him. See how רדף is used in such passages as Deu_19:6; Jos_20:5 [הַדָּם אַחֲרֵי הָרצֵ֗תַ וְגו יִרְרּף גאֵ֗ל], and בִּקֵּש denoting inquisitor (pursuer or avenger), in places like 2Sa_4:11 [אֲכַקִּשׁ אֶת דָּמו֗], Eze_3:18; Eze_3:20; Eze_33:8, and, without דם [blood], 1Sa_20:16, besides other places where this old law of pursuit is referred to. They all show that the words [and especially בִּקֵּש] had acquired a judicial, a forensic, or technical sense. The figure here, however strange it may seem, can hardly be mistaken: God will make inquisition for that which is pursued, that which has gone before us, seemingly fled away, as though it had escaped forever. They are not gone, these past ages of wrong; they shall be called up again. They shall be overtaken and made “to stand up in their lot,” at some “latter, day” of judgment and inquisition. There can be no severance of times from each other; מָה שֶּׁההָיָה כְכָר חוּא;
What was is present now;
The future has already been;
And God demands again the ages fled.
The thought is closely allied to the cyclical idea so prominent elsewhere in this book (see Ecc_1:9-10; Ecc_6:10), and the idea of the olam as the unity of the cosmos in time. As each power or thing in space, according to an old thought existing long before Newton, is present dynamically and statically in every other part of space, so is every time present in every other time, and in the whole of olamic duration. The cosmos is one in both respects. It is the עולם of God “to which nothing can be added (Ecc_3:14) and from which nothing can be diminished.” But besides this cyclical idea, which would seem like asserting an actual reappearance, it may be said, with equal emphasis, that the ages come again in judgment, and as really, too, in one sense, as when they were here, in the events to be judged. God shall arraign these homicidal centuries; “He shall call to them and they shall stand up, and say here we are” (Isa_48:13; Job_38:35). It is the same great idea of judgment that seems to pervade all the writer says, and which comes out so clearly, and so solemnly, at the close: “For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” It is that great thought which has ever been in the souls of men, and, which they cannot get rid of. It appears in the Old Testament, Psa_1:5 [לֹא יָקוּמוּ רְשָעים בַּמִּשְׁכָּט, “the wicked shall not stand in the judgment];” Daniel 12,; Ecc_12:11; Job_21:30 [כִי לְיוֹם אֵיד יֵחָשֶׂךְ רָע]; Proverbs and Prophets sparsim. How prominent the idea, though indefinite as to time and manner, in the Greek dramatic poetry: there must be retribution for wrong, however it may take place, and however long delayed,—retribution open, penal, positive, and not merely as concealed in blind physical consequences. It presents itself more, or less in all mythologies; but its deepest seat is in the human conscience. If there is any thing that may be called a tenet of natural religion, it is this, that there will be, that there must be, a righting of all wrongs, and a way and a time for its manifestation. It holds its place amid all speculative difficulties; it rises over all objections that any philosophy, or any science, can bring against it in respect to time, place, or manner; it remains in the face of all doubts and questions arising out of any doctrine of eschatology, so called. Deeper than , any speculative reasoning lies in the soul the feeling that tells us it must be so. We cannot bear the thought that the world’s drama shall go on forever without any closing act, without any συντέλεια, reckoning, or winding up, whether final, or preparatory to some higher era. We cannot read a poor work of fiction, even, without feeling pain if it does not end well,—if right is not made clear, and wrong punished, even according to our poor fallen standard of right and wrong. The worst man has more or less of this feeling. We have all reason to fear the judgment; but when the mind is in something of a proper state, or when reason and conscience are predominant, the soul would rather suffer the pain arising from the risk and fear of the individual condemnation, than obtain deliverance from it by the loss of the glorious idea.
This doctrine of judgment is not only in harmony with that cyclical idea which is strongly suggested by the general aspect of the passage, and especially by what immediately precedes in this same verse, but may be regarded, in some respects, as identical with it. If any choose so to view it, the ages past may be said to be judged in the ages that follow, though still in connection with the thought of some general and final manifestation. Such, is the view which, is most impressively given by Rabbi Schelomo in his comments on the passage. He deduces from it a notion similar to one that is now a favorite with some of our modern authorities. It is, that history repeats itself; the events in one age being types of succeeding events on a larger scale in another. The Jewish writer has the same thought, though he gives it more of a retributive aspect, as though these types came over again in judgment. As we should expect, too, he draws his examples from the Scriptural history, or from traditions connected with it. Thus Esau pursues Jacob. It is the same thing coming over, on a larger scale, when Egypt pursues the children of Israel. Other examples are given from other parts of the Jewish history, and then he says, generally: “that which is going to be in the latter day is the exemplar [דוגמה, it should be דיגמה, a Rabbinical word formed from the Greek δεῖγμα, παράδειγμα] of what already has been; as in the first, so it is in the last” [באחרונח כאשר בראשונח]. He means that the first event is the δεῖγμα, the παράδειγμα, or paradigm, to which the latter is adapted, either retributively, or for some other purpose, and taken, generally, on a larger scale.
The commentary of Aben Ezra on the passage is also well worthy of note. His general remark on the whole verse is that God’s way is one—that is, that the world, whether regarded in space or time, has a perfect unity of idea, אלהים על דרך אהת מּעשה, and then he thus proceeds to explain the verse: “What was (or is), already had there been like it, and that which is to be, of old there had been the same; and that which is pursued (נִרְדָּף), or the past, is that which is present, and that (the present) lies between the past and the future. The meaning of it is that God seeks from time that it shall be pursued, time pursuing after time, and never fail; for the time that is past again becomes the present [העִומד that which stands], and the time that is to be, shall be again like that which was, and So it is all one time. If we divide time into the future and the past, then, in the course of things (גלגל the wheel, or mundane orbit), it becomes clear that every portion ever pursues after one point (or towards one point), and that is the centre, so that the portion that was in the East appears again in the West, and conversely; and to the place of the world’s revolution there is no beginning from which such motion commences; for every beginning is an end, and every end a beginning, and that which is pursued, that is the centre, and so it is clear to us that all the work of God is on one way,”—or, as we would say, on one idea, ever repeating itself. See something like this in the Book of Problems, ascribed to Aristotle, Vol. XIV., Leip.; Prob. XVIII., Sec. 3, on the question, “How shall we take the terms Before and After?” (on the supposition of an eternal repeating cycle).
It is the idea in Ecc_3:14 which seems mainly to have influenced Aben Ezra, and other Jewish commentators [such as Levi Ben Gerson, in his profound book entitled Milhamoth ha-Schem], in the interpretation of these words of the 15th: “I learned that all which God made is for eternity [or the world time, לעולם]; to it there is no adding, and from it there is no diminishing, and God made it that men might fear before him.” This, in their view, would seem to refer not merely to the amount of matter in the cosmos, or the amount of force, or motion, or even to the amount of space and time assigned to it, but to the amount of eventualities making up the olam,—or, as we might rather say, the amount of historical action, as one great drama, having a perfect unity, both of movement and idea, so that any change would be a diminution or an addition, out of harmony with the one great spiritual thought to whose manifestation it is devoted. This is shown, “that men might fear before him,” מלפניו, in the presence of such a God; as though there was something more awful in such an exhibition of the eternal thought, than in any display of mere power, whether in the matural or the supernatural. See remarks on the Divine constancy in the greater movements of Nature, and the quotation from Cicero in Note on the Olamic Words, p. 61.
Some modern writers who dogmatize about the supernatural, and deny its possibility, might, perhaps, regard the philosophizing author of Koheleth, especially when thus interpreted by these Jewish doctors, as being of the same opinion. Thus, in Ecc_3:14, he would seem to say, that there is no change out of a fixed law and fixed idea of the universe, whatever may have been his conception of the world’s extent. There is no addition, no diminution, and this would seem to exclude every thing that was not provided for in the original arrangement of forces, and in the system of causation which it embraces, with all its machinery, great and small. Now we may say that these venerable Rabbis, although sincere and devout believers in the supernatural, understood the nature of this argument as well as any of its modern, English, French and German propounders. No where has it ever been more profoundly discussed than by Levi Ben Gerson in the Sixth book of the work before referred to, where he treats of Miracles and Prophecy,—although written nearly a thousand years ago. If by the supernatural is meant any departure from the system of things which God arranged from the beginning, or any change in the great series of causes and effects, antecedents and consequents, which constitute the sum of things, including the Divine will, thought, and action, among them,—then is there no supernatural. But this would be reducing the whole great question to a trifling play upon words, If, however, by the words supernatural, or miraculous—though they do not mean exactly the same thing—there be intended the changes which God Himself may introduce into the visible nature, “according to the counsel of His own will,” but which are physically connected with no prior working of cosmical dynamical agencies, then there is a supernatural, although this supernatural belongs as much to the one great idea, or I system of things, as the most seemingly regular causation, or most familiar sequence of antecedents and consequents ever presented to our senses. Far more than this—it is not merely a part of that one great idea, but truly constitutive of it, as its very essence. The supernatural, as differing from the merely miraculous, is something eternal, lying above nature, upholding nature in its origin, regulating its creative days, sending into it new creative words to raise it to higher and still higher planes, deflecting, if need be, its general course, and, at times, interrupting its movements, thus producing what we call miracles, prodigies, signs, etc. These, however, in distinction from originating or creating acts, must be regarded as belonging to a world, or to a department of the world, where evil, or moral irregularity, predominates. We may feel warranted in saying, that in a state sinless in the beginning, if God had so willed to secure it, or which had continued sinless, if God had so willed to keep it, or in one which had reached a sinless condition, and where the moral order was unbroken, there would be no miracles, so called, no interruptions in the constant harmonious series of things and events. There would be no need of them; for nature itself would be religious, ever manifesting instead of hiding God. In such constancy of movement there would be, for holy souls, no dimming of the Divine glory, no deifying of second causes, no veiling of a personal Deity under the sheltering name of natural law. There would be sublimity, admiration, exalted contemplation, reverence never lowered, adoring study never tiring, wonder never diminished by familiarity,—all miranda, yet no miracula, as we now use the term, no prodigies, portents, σημεῖα, τέρατα, arresting signs, startling displays of power, such as may be demanded in the regulation of that lower sphere where moral and spiritual disorder have their mirrored counterpart in a dark and refracted nature. In such a fallen world, however, miracles, signs, etc., may be parts of the Divine plan, having their proper place, and to be brought in at such intervals of time”, with such intermissions, and in such ways, as the eternal wisdom may decide. They are all in the great idea, together with all such means, if need be, for their bringing out in time. If not regular, in the sense of calculable recurrence, they are all regulated. They belong to עוֹלָם, the world, or whole (Ecc_3:14), which cannot be added to nor diminished. “God hath done it that men may fear before him.” To a fallen race there is ground for fear both ways. There is something awful for them, both in the constant and in the portentous. To such a moral state there is something terrible in this fixedness of nature; it so shows us our impotence, our dependence, notwithstanding all our boasts of what our reason, or our science, are going to achieve; it gives us such just reason to fear, if we have no higher faith to allay it, lest we may perchance be crushed in some unknown and unknowable turning of its mighty wheels,—and this, too, notwithstanding the petty victories which we now and then seem to obtain over it, but which may be only a deflecting of its resistless movement, into some more destructive channel. On the other hand, there is the dread of the portentous, the “coming out from his (hiding) place” of the spiritual power that men would so gladly forget, or veil from themselves under the deification of nature and natural law.
It is thus that Rabbi Schelomo interprets the language as referring to the fear of the portentous: “The Blessed One, in the beginning of His work, had purposed how the world should be, and no change can take place in it either by way of increase or diminution. When it is changed (or appears to be changed) it is God that does it. the commands and effects the change, that men should fear before him.” That is, the belief in the supernatural, or in some higher power and will that can, and does, change the visible course of nature as presented to our sense and our experience, is, for us, the ground of all religion—that is, of all “fear of the Lord”—the term יראת יהוה being the Hebrew name for religion in its essential definition, as דרך יהוה (the way of the Lord) denotes its practical action. And then he proceeds: “Thus it was that Oceanus broke its bound in the generation of Enosh, and inundated one-third of the world; and this God did that men might fear before Him. Again, for seven days the course of the sun was changed in the generation of the flood, and this was that men might fear before Him.” After these semi-scriptural, semi-traditional instances, he mentions the turning back of the ten degrees in the days of Hezckiah. “All this was done that men might fear before Him.” And then he concludes, as the Jewish writers generally do, “that it is not good for man to engage in useless physical disputation (לעסוק), or to study any thing but the commands and ways of God, and thus to fear before Him.” See Job_28:21-28.
In rendering the 15th verse, the Vulgate presents the idea of cyclical renovation: quod factum est ipsum pcrmanct; qucefutura sintjam fuerunt, et Deus instaurat quod abit—“God renews what is past.” The LXX. seems to have in view the idea of retribution in its very literal rendering, ὁ Θεὸς ζητήσει τὸν διωκόμενον, where there would appear to be an allusion to the fleeing homicide. The Syriac: “That which was before is now, and all that is to be has been, and God seeks for the pursued that is pursued.” The tautology arose, perhaps, from some dim perception of the idea, but in the attempt to make it clear, the Syriac has only made it the more obscure.
It would seem to have been an old Rabbinical fancy to represent one world, or עולם thus following another, or one cycle of events making way for another, by the birth of Jacob with his hand upon Esau’s heel. We have this imagery of the idea in, a strange passage from the Apocryphal book of 2 Esdras Ecc_6:7 : “Then answered I and said, what shall be the parting asunder of the times; or when shall be the end of the first and the beginning of it that followeth ? And lie (the angel) said unto me, from Abraham unto Isaac, when Jacob and Esau were born of him, Jacob’s hand held fast the heel of Esau; for Esau is the end of the world [the עולם αἰών] and Jacob is the beginning of it that followed. The hand of man is betwixt the heel and the hand. Other question, Esdras, ask thou not.” The book is apocryphal, but it shows the reasoning of its day, and how some of the old language was understood.—T. L.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
(With Homiletical Hints.)
The two halves of this section, of which the one (Ecc_3:1-11) presents the reason for the temporal restriction of earthly happiness, and the other (Ecc_3:12-22) the nature of this earthly and temporal happiness, are to each other as the theoretical and practical part of a connected series of reflections on the theme of the temporal nature of all human efforts and deeds. The clause, that “to every thing there is a season,” or the theoretical principal part of the reflection, is subservient to the clause, “rejoice and do good in thy life,” as a foundation sustaining the practical. The illustrations of the immutability of the eternal decrees of God (Ecc_3:14-15), of the ever just distribution of human destinies in the next world (Ecc_3:16-17), and of the total uncertainty of the fate of the spirit of man after death (Ecc_3:18-21), are but subsequent glances from the practical to the theoretical portion, whereby is specially shown, in various ways, the necessity of a joyous and diligent use of the present, in order thus to lend more emphasis to the final exhortation to rejoice in the works of this life. The entire contents of the chapter are therefore, substantially, of an exhortatory character, a reference’to the eternal rule of the Highest, that insures to the man, who walks in His paths, happiness in the next world, if not in this, and thus encourages him to grateful and cheerful enjoyment of present blessings, and to unalloyed confidence in the benevolent and assisting hand of God. The theme of Koheleth’s present section, according to the just observation of Hengstenberg, is mainly in unison with the expression of Jeremiah (Jer_10:23): “I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,” or, with the ground thought of the hymn of consolation in affliction,
I know, my God, that all mine acts,
And doing rest upon thy will,—
or of the verses,
Why, then, should I repine,
And on the future think?
or this,
On Heaven’s blessing, and its grace,
Is all my care reposed,
and others similar. Only in this text there is no necessity of referring the consoling tendency of the section specially to the people of Israel as an Ecclesia pressa, suffering amid stern persecutions and ill treatment on the part of external enemies. For if the chapter presents also some allusions to sufferings and wrongs as prevalent occurrences in the epoch and surroundings of the author, (Ecc_3:16-18, and comp. also for the impossibility of the origin of these descriptions from the Solomon of history: Int. p. 13) nothing at all can be discovered in illustration of these sad events, from the stand-point of the theocratic and redemptive pragmatism of the prophets. The descriptions in question maintain, rather, a very general character, and nowhere reflect on the individual position, or the redemptive calling of the people of Israel. For which reason, also, these must be condemned as forced and artificial that allegorical conception of the introductory verses 1–8, by virtue of which Hengstenberg and some predecessors would discover here special allusions to the changing destinies of the people of God, and explain “to be born,” and “to die,” in the sense of Isa_54:1; Hab_1:12; and “to plant,” and “to pluck up,” in the sense of Psa_80:8; Psa_80:12; “to kill,” and “to heal,” in the sense of Hos_6:1; “to break down” and “build up,” in the sense of Jer_24:6; Jer_31:6; Jer_52:10. In the practical treatment of this section, this specific redemptory reference, together with others, may certainly have its due influence, but it can lay no claim to exclusive attention.
In the practical and homiletical treatment of this chapter, we are to give special care to the consideration of the very characteristic assertions regarding the world that is set in the hearts of men, (Ecc_3:11), and the equality of the final destiny of men and beasts in death (Ecc_3:18-21). On the basis of the former passage we should develop the elements of the doctrine of the knowledge of God, to be derived from nature, and the eternal nature and calling of man, (comp. Fabri, “Time and Eternity,” already quoted,, especially pp. 60 ff.). In connection with the second part, on the contrary, we demonstrate that double character of human nature, belonging in the body to time, but in the Spirit to God and eternity, and point out the practical consequences resulting therefrom for the feelings and the conduct of the children of God. In addition to the homiletical hints quoted below from Tauler, Melanohthon, etc., comp. especially Kleinert, on the Old Testament doctrine of the Spirit of God (Annual for German Theology, 1807, No. 1, p. 13): The enlivening and elevating truth, that our flesh lives through the Spirit of God. (Gen_2:7), becomes in Koheleth a two-edged sword, that turns against its own rejoicing; since all life is from God, that of man as of beast, (Ecc_3:19-20); our life is that of something foreign to us, and belongs not to us (comp. Ecc_8:8), but must again give up its substance at another’s behest, to become what it was—dust, (Ecc_3:20; Ecc_12:7).
To treat the unity of thought in a comprehensive and homiletical style, one might most fittingly take up Ecc_3:11-12, and make a formula of them, something in tire following manner: “As a citizen of the world, and an heir of eternity, man should thankfully enjoy the pleasures of this life, and by a conscientious performance of its duties gather fruits propitious for eternity.” Or, “Live nobly in time, and eternity will crown thee.” Or, “Seek in time to live thy eternal life; then will it, in the future, certainly be thine.” Comp. also these lines of Böhme:
From conflict ever freed is he,
To whom the eternal is as time,
And time is as eternity.
HOMILETICAL HINTS ON SEPARATE PASSAGES
Ecc_3:1. Brenz: Solomon condemns in the beginning of this chapter all anxious reflection and care concerning earthly things, above all, useless worldly anxiety. For this is so deeply rooted in the minds of many, indeed of most men, that it can scarcely be eradicated. This is a torment not only of a very painful, but of an entirely useless character. Nearly all other trials and troubles can be easily borne, and oppress only the body; but anxiety ruins both body and soul.—Therefore Solomon here says: Act ever so justly or unjustly, and torture thyself with care till death, thou wilt travail in vain before the completion of the time fixed by God. For, everything occurs according to His divine arrangement, in His own time, without our intervention.
Luther: That nothing occurs before the hour arrives which has been determined by God, Solomon proves by examples drawn from all human affairs, and says: There is a time to build up and a tune to break down, etc., and concludes therefrom that all human resolve in thought, reverie, or effort, is simply a phantom, a shadow, an illusion, unless it be first resolved in heaven. Kings, princes, lords, may hold their councils and resolve what they will; the thing whose hour has come, will occur; the others stand still and hinder and impede each other. And although it may seem that the hour is now come, nothing will take place till the hour does come, although all men on earth should tear themselves to pieces. God permits neither kings, princes, lords, nor wise men on earth to set the dial for Him. He will set it; and we are not to tell Him what it has struck. He will tell us. Christ says in the gospel: My hour is not yet come, etc.—Hamann: We find here a series of contradictory things and actions which occur in human life, but which cannot possibly exist together, and hence each has its special time. That moment is fixed for everything which is the best and the most fitting for it. The beauty of things consists in this moment of their maturity which God awaits. He who would eat the blossom of the cherry to taste the fruit, would form a faulty judgment regarding it; he who would judge of the cool shade of the trees from the temperature of winter, and their form in this season, would judge blindly. And we make just such conclusions regarding God’s government and its purpose !
Ecc_3:2-8. Geier (Ecc_3:2): Plants and trees are set and tended on account of their fruits, and the unfruitful are rooted up. Art thou then, O man, planted in the garden of the Lord, but unfruitful, beware, and reform, else wilt thou also be rooted up? Luk_13:6 ff.
Starke (Ecc_3:3; Ecc_3:1 st clause): God is so gracious that He wounds and lacerates the hearts of men for their own good, but heals them again by the assurance of His grace, and the pardon of sins, Hos_6:1.
Hengstenberg (Ecc_3:3, second clause): The people of God have the advantage therein that the destructive activity is ever a means and a preparation for the constructive, and that the final purpose of God is ever directed to the latter. Therefore one can tie cheerful and consoled in the kingdom of God, during the momentary activity of destruction.—(Ecc_3:8): The epoch in which this book was written, was mainly a “period of hatred,” as the faithful learned it by daily and painful experience. But they were assured by the word of God that, in some future time, a “period of love would come, such as they had not seen” (Isa. 59:23; Isa_60:16; Isa_66:12), and while hoping for this it was more easy for them to accept the seeming hatred from the same dear hand that would dispense the love..... The whole finds its end in the sweet name of peace, which is so engraven on the heart of the church militant. Peace, peace, to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord, Isa. 56:19.
Ecc_3:9-10. Luther: Before the hour comes, thought and labor are lost. But we are, nevertheless, to labor, each in his sphere and with diligence. God commands this; if we hit the hour, things prosper; if we do not, nothing comes of it, and thus no human thought avails. They, therefore, who would anticipate God’s hour, struggle, and have nothing but care and sorrow.
Starke (Ecc_3:10): Sin causes man to have many cares, dangers, and vexations in the employments of life, Gen_3:17. It is not the active but the permissive will of God, that permits sinful men to experience these various evil results of their sins.
Ecc_3:11. Brenz:—Although God has created all things in the best and wisest way, and fitted them to our needs, our own will, and our shortsighted earthly wisdom nevertheless prevent us from deriving the profit and enjoyment therefrom which the beasts find in the works of God.
Geier:—In searching out the works and ways of God be careful not curiously to seek things hidden of God, and on the contrary to neglect His revealed will to the injury of our souls.
Starke:—The indwelling desire of the human soul to live eternally is a remnant of the divine image. O that we would endeavor to calm this feeling in the right manner, how happy then would we be!
Elster:—The ability of man to reflect in himself the harmony of the world ( ? more correctly, the eternal power and divinity of the Most High mirrored in the things of the world) is indeed a power in whose perfect exercise the individual is impeded by individual weakness. Because the original, pure harmony of the spirit, is obscured in the inner man, he cannot comprehend that which exists without him in its full purity and truth; and that which is highest he is only able to comprehend imperfectly, namely, the eternal, divine, creative thoughts which form, the innermost essence of things.
Ecc_3:12-15. Melanchthon (Ecc_3:12-13):—These words are not intended satirically to illustrate the principles of a man of Epicurean enjoyment, but to express the seriously meant doctrine that the things of this world are to be used and enjoyed according to divine intent and command, and also to impart directions for the happy and temperate enjoyment of them. We must, therefore, look in faith to God, perform the works of our calling, implore and await God’s help and blessing, bear patiently the toils and burdens that He sends, and then certainly know that, so far as our labor is crowned with success, this comes from the guidance and protection of God.
Luther:—Because so many obstacles and misfortunes meet those who are diligent and mean to be faithful and upright, and because there is so much unhappiness in the world, there is nothing better than cheerfully to employ the present that God gives to our hand, and not to worry and grieve with cares and thoughts about the future. But the skill lies in being able to do it; that is the gift of God.
Osiander, (Ecc_3:14-15): God acts immutably that we may therein perceive His majesty and power, fear Him, and serve Him with piety and highest reverence. However God deals with us, we must accept it, and consider it good, Job_2:10.
Berleburg Bible:—You must not hesitate and let yourself for that reason (by sorrows and tribulations) be drawn away from the highest good. For God will not let the injustice and violence that are done to the pious, go unpunished.
Ecc_3:16-17. Hansen:—As there is here a certain period When men follow their inclinations, so there is, beyond, a fixed time when they will be summoned before a tribunal.
Hengstenberg:—The sentence on the wicked may be expected with so much the more confidence, when they have assumed the place of judgment and justice, and from thence practised their iniquity, thus abusing magisterial power.
Ecc_3:18-21. Tauler:—Man is composed from time and eternity; from time as regards the body, from eternity as regards the spirit. Now everything inclines towards its origin. Because the body is composed from earth and time, it inclines to temporal things, and finds its pleasure therein. Because the spirit came from God, and is composed from eternity, it inclines therefore to God and eternity. When man turns from time and creatures to eternity and God, he has an in working in God and eternity, and thus makes eternity from time, and from the creature God in the godly man.
Melanchthon:—Solomon speaks thus of external appearances. If one questioned only the eyes and the judgment, without listening to the word of God, human life would appear to be governed by mere chance, to such an extent that men would seem to be, as it were, like a great ant-hill, and like ants to be crushed. But the revelation of the divine word must be placed in contrast with this appearance.
Starke:—As thou desirest, after death, a better state than that of beasts, see to it, then, that in life thou dost distinguish thyself from the beasts by a reasonable, Christian demeanor, Psa_32:9.
Ecc_3:22. Wohlfarth:—Only the moment that we live in life, is our possession. Every hour lived sinks irrevocably into the sea of the past: the future is uncertain: therefore is he a fool who lets the present slip by unused, wastes it in vain amusement, or grieves with useless lamentations.
Hengstenberg:—See the exegetical remarks on this passage.
Footnotes:
[1][Zöckler renders “its time to burn and its time to die,” making it all dependent (this and the following verses) on the first. “every thing has its time.” On זְמָן see Text notes.—T. L.]
[2]The root, though not frequent, is common enough in Hebrew for this purpose; why go to the Chaldaic?
[3][All such infinitives as rekodh and sephodh have a like rhyming. The fact that accounts for the choice here is rather the similarity of primary sense which is found in verbs of daucing and mourning. All passions in early times were expressed by a violence of outward action, such as beating the breast rending the garments, rolling on the earth, etc., that in these colder days of the world’s old age would be deemed utterly extravagant. Thus. in the Greek κόπτεσθαι mentioned by Zöckler. Homer’s προπροκυλίνδεσθαι, Iliad XXII. 221, Hebrew ספוֹד primarily to smite the breast. We still find traces of it in modern words, though almost worn out. Thus our word plaint is but a feeble echo of the Latin plangere. In the Syriac this same root, here rendered to dance, is used in the Aphel conjugation for mourning Thus in that children’s ditly, or play upon words, recited by our Saviour, Mat_11:17, the word, in the Peschito Version, for mourning is אַרְקֵד, for dancing רַקִד, in Roman letters, arked, raked. A play upon words of this kind is proof that the gospel (of Matthew at least) in its oral form before any writing. was Arama’c, and that our Saviour spoke it. Such children’s ditties are very tenacious, and it must have been of long standing. The play upon words that it gives could not have been original in the Greek, though afterwards early translated.—T. L.J
[4] [Ecc_3:11. The strong objection to the interpretation of Gesenius, De Wette, and Knobel, is that the New Testament use of the word world for worldliness, love of the world, is unknown to the Hebrew Scriptures. Equally unwarranted are Hitzig and Stuart in first transforming עוֹלָם into עֶלֶם (not found in Hebrew in any such sense, but supposed to be equivalent to the Arabic (ِבד and then rendering it “Knowledge, without,” etc. The Arabic sense of the verb בד to know, is later than the primary Hebrew, to be hidden or obscure, though coming from it by a seeming law of contraries peculiar to the Shemitic tongues; it is Knowledge as discovery, or science strictly, or the hidden found. It is only in the Arabic הַבَד mundus, equal to עוֹלָם, that the old Hebrew primary appears. Besides, this view of Hitzig and Stuart is at war with the מִבְּלִי אֲשֶׁר which they have no right to render without which. The proper way of expressing that, in Hebrew, would be by placing אֲשֶׁר first, and following it with the personal suffix and a different particle, אֲשֶׁר מִבַּלְעָדָיו (which without it they cannot, etc,). A plansible rendering is, “he hath put obscurity in their hearts;” but this, though agreeing with the primary sense of the verb, never occurs as a sense of the noun. The view of Zöckler, substantially agreeing with one given by Geier, that עוֹלָם here, or eternity regarded as in the heart of man, refers to the natural human recognition of the eternal power and Godhead, as spoken of by Paul, Rom_1:20, presents an admirable meaning if it can be sustained. It may be said that it is giving עולם too much of an abstract sense, but it is certain that the writer intends here no common thought, and, therefore, the word employed may be fairly extended, philologically, to its utmost limits. It can hardly be reconciled, however, with the מִבְּלִי אֲשֶׁר which Zöckler, without any other warrant than his own assertion, makes equivalent to אפּם כּי and then renders it nur dass nicht, only that not, thus turing it into a mere exceptive limitation, as is also done by Tremellius and Grotius: excepto quod non. There are no Scriptual examples of such use of מבלי or מבלי אשר, and this would be enough, even if every reader did not feel that there is something in it at war with the whole spirit of this profound declaration. In this compound particle מבלי the מ is negative, implying hinderance, and intensifying the negation in the other part. The LXX. have, therefore, properly rendered it ὅπως μὴ. that not, or rather, in such a way that not (ὅπως, in distinction from ἵνα, referring to the manner of accomplishing, rather than to the purpose itself). “He hath so presented it to their minds, that they cannot, etc. So the Targum דלא the Syriac איך דלא, Rashi כדי שלא, Aquila ωςοὐχ, Vulgate, Pagnin. Drus. Merc. ut non.
That other idea, however, of the word as world, worldtime, world plan (see Ecc_3:14), which has been so fully dwelt upon in the Excursus on the Olamic Words, p. 40, harmonizes perfectly with the immediate context, and the whole tenor of the deeper reflections contained in this book: The world-problem hath God so put into their hearts (literally, given in their heart, נתן בלבם)—presented to their minds,—or, as the Vulgate well expresses it, tradidit disputationi eorum, that, etc. Whether we take it in the cosmical or olamic sense, what a comment upon this is furnished by the ancient schools, Greek, Egyptian, Persian, or Oriental generally, in their endless cosmogonical disputations on the world, its first matter, its first moving principles, its origin,—on the question of its duration, whether it had a beginning or would ever have an end, whether it had any thing immutable (τὸ ὄντως ὄν) or was ever phenomenal and flowing,—whether there were more worlds than one, either in time or space—in short, whence it came, how it existed, and what was it all for, or what did it truly mean. These disputations were much older than Thales, and Solomon must have heard of them, at least, even if unacquainted particularly with all, or any, of the theories held. Let any one see, especially, how these disputations of the early ante-Socratic Greek schools are summed up by Xenophon, Memorabilia, 1.Ecc 14: τῶν τε περὶ τῆς τῶν πάντων φύσεως μεριμνώντων κ. τ. λ., and he will well appreciate the force of the strong language: “so that they cannot find it out to the end from the beginning,”—especially as confirmed by the still more striking declaration, Ecc_8:17 : “yea, though a wise man (a philosopher) say that he knows it, yet shall he not be able to find it out.” In the time sense, or the olamic sense of the word world, it is still more clear, especially when regarded as the great olam, or world period, or world idea (Ecc_3:14), compared with that list of brief passing times mentioned before as belonging to “things beneath the sun.” The writer had presented special seasons belonging to the chief occupations and events of human life—a time to plant, a time to love, a time to hate, to mourn, to rejoice, etc. The fitness of these man could study and perceive, but the great all-containing time, the encircling eternity or world time, who could understand.—God had so presented this to the human thought, the human mind, that though it could reason well of passing events, it “could not find out the end from the beginning.” It could not discover the world idea (Ecc_3:14), that higher wisdom than the natural from which it all depended, nor that deeper wisdom than nature to which it was all as a means to an end. Even in its highest state, taking the form of the most lauded science, it was only the study of links (see remarks, Int., Met. Ver.), of adaptations to adaptations, among which it could never find beginnings nor ends. Something greater might be divined by faith, but otherwise, it was as unsearchable as the wisdom so anxiously inquired after, Job 28.: “The deep saith it is not in me,” etc. It was true even of physical knowledge, that it could not find out its own limits, when taken comparatively. The individual man occupies but a point in the great world cycle. As things go round, he sees, or may see, “how they are all fair in their season,” each fitting to the one next, and so on, as far as he may carry his researches; but what it is all about, or what it all means, that no science of nature can reveal to him. His angle of vision, even with the mightiest aid it has ever had, or may expect to have, is too small to take in more than a very few degrees, or a very few seconds of a degree, in the mighty arc we are traversing, or have passed during the longest known times that either history, or the observation of nature, has revealed to us. The thought is not beyond what may be ascribed to Koheleth, with his grand cyclical ideas, and nothing could be in better harmony with the contexts, or the peculiar particles by which they are united. There are some rich homiletical thoughts arising from such a view of verses 11th, 14th, and 15th, but they belong in another place.—T. L.]
[5][It is by no means clear that the the pronoun in בָּם refers to persons. The most natural connection would be with the things mentioned above, and all summed up in the אֶת הַכֹּל of Ecc_3:11 : “No good in these things except to rejoice, etc.” The מ in בְּלִבָּם would not, grammatically, server this, since it does not belong to the main assertion.—T. L.
[6] · ,עֲשׂות טוב has not here, as zöckler well says, the sense of “being merry;” neither can it be taken as denoting beneficence; or even good conduct (doing the divine commands), in a general moral sense. It strictly means to do well, in the sense of prosperity, to have success—corresponding to the Greek εὖ πράττειν, rather than to εὖ ποίειν, or εὖ πασχειν—T. L.]
[7] [שָׁם, ver.17, there. This little word coming in such connection is most suggestive. The thought presented through so unobtrusively expressed, is, in reality, one of the modulating key notes of this singular book. The connection between this verse, 17th, and the commencement of the chapter is unmistakable. In contrast with the particular times and occasions there mentioned, there is here placed the great time, the great olam, to which all the particular times have reference, and in which they are all to be judged. For there, too, unto every purpose, and for every work, לִכָל־חֵפֶּץ וְעַל מַעֲשֶׂה there is an עֵת, a time appointed. It immediately leads the mind away from this subsolar state (תַּחַת הַשֶּׁמִש) to that higher world that more remote state, or world beyond (Jenseits) to which all has reference and which seems to be constantly in the writer’s mind as an idea, but without locality, or specific manner, or any assigned or assignable chronology,—as though it were something he firmly believed, but could not define, or even distinctly conceive. It is the basis of all his contemplation, the ground on which he so firmly rests in the concluding declaration of the book. שָׁם may mean any great occasion, crisis, or eventuality, as well as place. Comp. Gen_9:9; Psa_133:3. As used here, it strongly calls to mind the Greek ἐκεῖ, and the manner in which the poets employ it to express a similar indefinite contrast with the present state or world in like characteristic manner styled ἐνθὰδε, here, Diesseits (this side of time). Thus Medea (1069) says to her children, ἐυδαιμονοῖτον, as though giving them the usual maternal blessing, and then suddenly checks herself with the thought of what is coming—
αλλ· ἘΚΕΙ· τα δ’ ΕʼΝθΑʼ ΔΕ
Πατὴρ ἀφείλετʼ
“but there: all here your Father’s hand has taken quite away.” There in that other world, or time, or state. The expression seems to have little or no direct, connection with their mythology, or the fabled regions of Hades, but rather to have come from this innate idea of the human soul, or the moral necessity that gives birth to the thought of some other world and time than this, but without known chronology or locality. Things must be balanced; somehow, and somewhere, and at sometime, the equation must be completed. For a similar use of ἐκεῖ and ἐνθάδε, compare Æschylus Iketides 230, Pindar Olymp. II:105, and especially, Plato Repub., 330 D., where both terms are used, with my thological reference indeed, but carrying the same general and most impressive thought of an after world, or time of judgement, as a correspondence to this; οἱ τὲ γὰρ λεγόμενοι μῦθοι περὶ τῶν ἐν Ἅιδου, ὡς τὸν ἘΝΘΑ′ΔΕ ἀδικήσαντα δεῖ ἘΚΕΙ διδὸναι δίκην κ. τ. λ. :“For the myths that are told us respecting Hades (or the unseen), how that the wrong doer here must make compensation there,—myths once derided,—now disturb the soul with fear lest they be true.” This striking passage, taken in its remarkable connection, shows that there was, in the old Greek mind, the same fear of “a judgment to come,” of something awful after this world, that is now felt by the common modern mind. It was before Christianity. It created myths, and was not created by them.—It is the voice of conscience, independent of all mythologies, but showing itself in all their varied forms, as though, without some such idea, religion would have no existence.—T. L.]
[8] [The key to the right interpretation of the whole passage, Ecc_3:18-21, together with a complete defence to the charge of materialism which knobel brings against Koheleth, is found in the phrases לברם ,על דברת, and המה להם, in verse 18 above. The first is rendered in our version, “on account of;” Vulgate has simply de (de filiis hominum); 70. περὶ λαλιᾶς υἰὠν τοῦ ἀνθρὠπου (“concerning the talk of men”); So the Syriac על ממללא (“according to the speech of the sons of men”)—that is “speaking after the manner of men,” speaking humanly, or more humano. The other rendering, “on account of,” or “by reason of” (which is nearer to the sense of the phrase elsewhere, comes to very much the same thing, or expresses the same general idea. See Psa_110:4, where it is rendered “after the manner of.” It is an intimation that the language of the following verses is hypothetical, or adapted to a supposed state of things, such as Koheleth had called up before his own mind, that is, “said in his heart.” It is the language of human action. The Arabian rhetoricians and critics have a peculiar phrase for it. ב׃ַה ַַב “the tongue of the condition,” or “the case speaking.” See Rabbi Tanchum, Arabic Commentary on Lamentations, Lam_3:36; also marg. note Genesis, p. 361. This they get from the Rabbinical grammarians and interpreters who have a similar Hebrew phrase, לשִון הדבר, for such cases as this. All the language following, which seems to represent man as having no supremacy over the beast, is affected by this hypothetical impression. It is man’s judgment upon himself, as pronounced by his own conduct. The writer, in this “talking to his heart,” takes men as they are, as they appear, fallen, worldly, sensual, animal. It is the language of their lives. It is all that could be gathered by one who confined himself to this view, or who had nothing to go by but the observation of the general human conduct,—the way of the world. Such an interpretation is fortified by what follows in the same verse: “that God might prove them,” לברם האלהים, “make it clear to them” by their own experience, their own ways, how much like beasts they are, or rather, how much like beasts they live and die, though He had created them in His own image. It calls up Ps. 49:12, 29: “Man that is in honor, and understandeth it not, is like the beasts that perish.” In both cases it may be said: “this their way is their folly,” and we have no more right to charge Epicureanism, or materialism, on the one passage than on the other. The same impression of hypothetical speaking is produced, and, perhaps, still more strongly, by the pronouns המה להם, at the close of that verse. Zöckler’s opinion that this is simply an intensive phrase equivalent to ipsissimi is not satisfactory. The Rationalist Hitzig comes nearer to the true view of these pronouns. He connects them with ברם, to prove them,’ to “try” (or test them), to let them see (zur Einsicht zu bringen) how like beasts they are. So Stuart: “That they might see for themselves” As is often the case, however, in Hebrew, the sense is best brought out by the most literal interpretation the words will bear: “Themselves to themselves,” or, “to let them see that they are beasts, themselves to themselves;” not in their treatment of one another, as Geier and some others take it (homo lupus homini), but rather “in their own estimation” (see Metrical Version), as they are, or as they must appear, to themselves, in the light of their own general conduct,—the speaking of their own lives. This view at once clears Koheleth himself from Knobel’s charge of materialism; though we see not how, in any other way, it can be denied. It is so far from materialism that, to the devout reader, it immediately raises the opposite thought. What Koheleth “says in his heart,” throughout this passage, is a mournful rebuke (we will not call it by the heartless name of satire) of the worldly, sensual, beastlike life of man; whilst, by this very aspect of it he points to a higher destiny which the animal life of mere sense so directly contradicts: “Who knows it,” who thinks of it (see the next marginal note) ? and yet the bare thought of such super-solar destiny, though carrying with it no knowledge of condition, lifts man above the earth and the beasts who descend wholly into it. There is, also an evident paronomasia, here, of המה להם with the two words שהם בהמה, just preceding; and this also furnishes some reason for the peculiar style of expression, making it all the more forcible to the Hebrew ears addressed.
Thus also must we render Ecc_3:22, by giving ראיתּי, the sense of judgment (as in many other places) instead of sight as a fact. It is the same hypothetical judgement, founded on human action, or what one must conclude as to “the supposed good,” and the human destiny, if determined from such a standpoint of human conduct.—T. L.]
[9] [Ecc_3:21. מִי יודֵע, “who knows,” etc. Zöckler disposes of this important passage too easily. From the Hebrew text as it stands there can be made no other translation than that given in our English Version. The ה in הָעֹלָה and in הַיֹּרֶדֶת [that goeth up, that goeth down] is the article. This cannot be overthrown, as Stuart and others attempted to do, by examples of ה interrogative having patach with dagesh, every one of which, if not wholly anomalous, depends on peculiar conditions that do not here exist. The old Jewish grammarians, who have never been surpassed in their thorough knowledge of these minutiæ of their language, have reduced the matter to rules by an exhaustive induction that leaves no doubt. One of these rules is, that every הקמוצ ה or he kamezatus, to use their technics [or ה with ָ] before ע, is every where the article of specification [ה ידיעה], never the interrogative. It might have been so said in respect to the gutturals generally, with a very few exceptions having their peculiar reasons not here found. But in the case of ע there are not exceptions. This settles the question for the word הָעֹלָה even if it had stood alone. But there is the participle הַיוֹרֶדֶת presenting a still stronger case for the article. Here ה cannot be interrogative. The attempt to make it so would only interfere with another rule which is settled without exception, namely, that ה interrogative may cause dagesh in a radical following if it has schewa [שוויה], but never without it, so that the ה in הַירֶֹדֶת [the radical י having its vowel cholem] must be the pronominal article (that which goeth down). This is confirmed by Aben-Ezra, Rabbi Schelomo, Ben Melech, Kimchi, and others. In fact, the best Jewish authorities are here all one way. But then, it is gratuitously said, the authors of the Masora changed the punctuation. There is neither reason nor authority for such an assertion. The LXX. indeed has εἰ αναβαίνει (if it ascends), but this Version was made from unpointed Hebrew, and, on such a question, settles nothing against the better understanding of the Masorites. The Vulgate follows the 70. [si ascendat], and the Syriac has every appearance of having been here conformed to the Greek, as in many other places. Besides the 70 and Vulgate rendering would not correspond to the ה interrogative, but rather to the particle אם (if), which would be the best word in Hebrew if such a doubt were to be expressed: מִי יוֹדֵעַ הָרוּחַ אִם עֹלָה הִיא וְאִם ירֹדֶתֶ.
If we look at the internal evidence, the case for the article will be found still stronger. Taking the passage as Stuart does and Hitzig; or as it is somewhat qualified by Zöckler, we find ourselves involved in terrible difficulties. We cannot rest with ascribing to Koheleth merely ignorance, or non-recognition, of the doctrine of the soul’s survival. That might, with some reason, be said of an Old Testament writer generally, namely, that he says nothing about it, and seems to have no knowledge of it. This is not, however, the case with Koheleth. He had doubtless heard an echo of the old belief, held, beyond all doubt, by nations cotemporary, and so curtly expressed in the Grecian Drama, as something that had come down from ancient days:—
πνεῦμα μὲν πρὸς αἰθέρα,
τὸ σῶμα δ εἰς γῆν.
He shows his knowledge of the dogma, as a belief existing, and then denies its truth, or attempts to throw doubt upon it. This is certainly strange, unexampled, we may say, in the Old Testament. Worse than all, he not only denies it, but scoffingly denies it, as though it were an absurd thought, should it even chance to occur to one of these poor creatures whose vain condition he is so graphically describing—a foolish hope, itself a vanitas vanitatum. He sneers at it as something which might be vainly held by a few—some early Essene dreamers perhaps—but was wholly contrary to sense and experience. No one knows any thing about it. It would be something like the sneer that used to be heard from the coarser kind of infidels—who ever saw a soul? This cannot be the serious Koheleth, the man, too, who so expressly, so solemnly says, Ecc_12:7, “that the spirit does go up to God who gave it.”
How then shall we take the question מִי יודֵעַ? There is but one way, and that seems conclusive of the view presented in the note page 71. It does not express the disbelief even doubt of Koheleth, but is, in fact, his reproof of men in general, as he sees them living and acting in his day. Their lives are a denial of any essential difference between man and the brute. Who among them knows—who recognizes—this great difference? Moreover, the expression מִי יוֹדֵעַ must be taken as an universal or a partial negation, according to the ideas that necessarily enter into the context; as in Ecc_2:19, it is equivalent to no one knows. So in Psa_90:11, “who knoweth the power of thine anger,”—a thing most real, yet hard to be appreciated. Compare also Joe_2:14; Jon_3:9, מִי־וֹדֵעַ יָשׁוּב וְנִחַם where it expresses a hope, “who knows but he may turn and repent.” In Isa_53:1, a precisely similar expression, “who hath believed our report,” denotes what is most rare. So in Psa_94:16, “who hath known the mind of the Lord,” Rom_11:34 (τίς γὰρ ἔγνω, cognovit recognovit). This, says S, Basil, significat non quod absurdum est, sed quod rarum. So here: How few, if any, recognize the great truth, the great difference between man and beast? The context, the general aspect of the passage, together with what the writer most seriously affirms in other places, must all be considered; and it would show, we think, that in uttering this complaining query, he was only the most strongly expressing his individual opinion, or feeling rather, of the mighty, yet unheeded difference. There must surely be for man something better than all this dying vanity, if he would only recognize it. That ידע may have this sense, is shown by the use of the verb in many places, and especially by the infinitive noun דעת, which often means belief, opinion, tenet, etc. Zöckler’s reference to Joh_1:18 : “No man hath seen God at any time,” we cannot help regarding as containing a fallacy of interpretation, and as being, in reference to this passage, quite irrelevant.—T. L.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 time to die-- (Psa 31:15; Heb 9:27).
time to die-- (Psa 31:15; Heb 9:27).
plant--A man can no more reverse the times and order of "planting," and of "digging up," and transplanting, than he can alter the times fixed for his "birth" and "death." To try to "plant" out of season is vanity, however good in season; so to make earthly things the chief end is vanity, however good they be in order and season. GILL takes it, not so well, figuratively (Jer 18:7, Jer 18:9; Amo 9:15; Mat 15:13).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–22 1. To every thing — Better, To every enterprise,…
1. To every thing — Better, To every enterprise, or undertaking.
Season… time — Denoting a fixed time, an appointed season. The Great Ordainer has balanced human affairs by setting one thing over against another, and writing this law of changefulness upon the animal and vegetable kingdoms, upon the processes of inanimate nature, and upon the instincts and judgments of mankind.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–22 1. To every thing there is a season, and…
1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose] The two Hebrew nouns stand to each other in much the same relation as the Greek χρόνος and καιρός, the former expressing a period of duration, the latter the appointed time at which an event happens. Accepting this view, the words “season” and “time” in the A. V. ought, perhaps, to change places. The thought is one of which we find an echo in the maxim of Pittacus, Καιρὸν γνῶθι—“Know the right season for everything” (Diog. Laert. i. 4, § 6). It is significant, in connexion with the conclusion maintained in the Introduction, Ch. iii., that Demetrius Phalereus, the librarian of Ptolemy Philadelphus, wrote a treatise, περὶ καιροῦ, of opportuneness (Diog. Laert. Ecc_3:5 § 9). So Theognis, (402), Μηδὲν ἄγαν σπεύδειν, καιρὸς δʼ ἐπὶ πάσιν ἄριστος, “Do nothing in excess, In all we do is the right season precious.” So here the thought with which the new section opens is that it is wisdom to do the right thing at the right time, that inopportuneness is the bane of life. The survey of human occupations and interests that follows has a striking parallel in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (iv. 32), who, from his Stoic standpoint, sees in their perpetual recurrence, evidence of the monotonous iteration of the phenomena of man’s life, analogous to that of the phenomena of Nature.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21 (1) A season.—The word is only found in later…
(1) A season.—The word is only found in later Hebrew (Neh_2:6; Est_9:27; Est_9:31), and in the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra.
Purpose.—The use of the word here and in Ecc_3:17; Ecc_5:8; Ecc_8:6, in the general sense of “a matter,” belongs to later Hebrew. The primary meaning of the word is “pleasure” or “desire,” and it is so used in this book (Ecc_5:4; Ecc_12:1; Ecc_12:10).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–22 Vers. 1-22. Section 4. In confirmation of the truth…
Vers. 1-22. Section 4. In confirmation of the truth that man"s happiness depends upon the will of God, Koheleth proceeds to show how Providence arranges even the minutest concerns; that man can alter nothing, must make the best of things as they are, bear with anomalies, bounding his desires by this present life.
Vers. 1-8. The providence of God disposes and arranges every detail of man"s life. This proposition is stated first generally, and then worked out in particular by means of antithetical sentences. In Hebrew manuscripts and most printed texts vers. 2-8 are arranged in two parallel columns, so that one "time" always stands under another. A similar arrangement is found in Jos_12:9, etc., containing the catalogue of the conquered Canaanite kings; and in Est_9:7, etc., giving the names of Haman"s tensions. In the present passage we have fourteen pairs of contrasts, ranging from external circumstances to the inner affections of man"s being.
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To every thing there is u season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.. "Season" and "time" are rendered by the LXX kairov and cronov. The word for "season" (zeman), denotes a fixed, definite portion of time; while eth, time," signifies rather the beginning of a period, or is used as a general appellation. The two ideas are sometimes concurrent in the New Testament; e.g. Act_1:7; 1Th_5:1. (comp. also Dan_2:21, where the Septuagint has kairouv kainoiv; and Dan_7:12, where we find the singular kairou kai kairou in Theodotion, and cronou kai kairou in the Septuagint) So in RAPC Wis 8:8, "wisdom to foreseeth signs and wonders, and the events of seasons and times (ejkbaseiv kairwn kainwn)." Every thing refers especially to men"s movements and actions, and to what concerns them. Purpose; chephets, originally meaning "delight," "pleasure," in the later Hebrew came to signify business," "thing," matter." The proposition is In human affairs Providence arranges the moment when everything shallhappen, the duration of its operation, and the time appropriate thereto. The view of the writer takes in the whole circumstances of men"s life from its commencement to its close. But the thought is not, as some have opined, that there is naught but uncertainty, fluctuation, and imperfection in human affairs, nor, as Plumptre conceives, "It is wisdom to do the right thing at the right time, that inopportuneness is the bane of life," for many of the circumstances mentioned, e.g. birth and death, are entirely beyond men"s will and control, and the maxim, Kairon gnwqi, cannot apply to man in such eases. Kobeleth is confirming his assertion, made in the last chapter, that wisdom, wealth, success, happiness, etc., are not in man"s hands, that his own efforts can secure none of them they are distributed at the will of God. He establishes this dictum by entering into details, and showing the ordering of Providence and the supremacy of God in all men"s concerns, the most trivial as well as the most important. The Vulgate gives a paraphrase, and not a very exact one, Omnia tempus habeat, et suis spatiis transenat universa sub caelo. Koheleth intimates, without attempting to reconcile, the great crux of man"s free-will and God"s decree.
HOMILETICS.
Vers. 1-9.
Times and seasons; or, Heaven"s order in man"s affairs.
I THE EVENTS AND PURPOSES OF LIFE.
1. Great in their number. The Preacher"s catalogue exhausts not, but only exemplifies, the "occupations and interests," occurrences and experiences, that constitute the warp and woof of mortal existence. Between the cradle and the grave, instances present themselves in which more things happen than are here recorded, and more designs are attempted and fulfilled than are here contemplated. There are also cases in which the sum total of experience is included in the two entries, "born," "died;" but the generality of mortals live long enough to suffer and to do many more things beneath the sun.
2. Manifold in their variety. In one sense and at one time it may seem as if there were "no new thing under the sun", (Ecc_1:9) either in the history of the race or in the experience of the individual; but at another time and in another sense an almost infinite variety appears in both. The monotony of life, of which complaint is often heard, (Ecc_1:10) exists rather in the mind or heart of the complainant than in the texture of life itself. What more diversified than the events and purposes the Preacher has catalogued? Entering through the gateway of birth upon the mysterious arena of existence, the human being passes through a succession of constantly shifting experiences, till he makes his exit from the scene through the portals of the grave, planting and plucking up, etc.
All the world"s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. ("As You Like It," act it. sc. 7. )
3. Antithetic in their relations. Human life, like man himself, may almost be characterized as a mass of contradictions. The incidents and interests, purposes and plans, events and enterprises, that compose it, are not only manifold and various, but also, it would seem, diametric in their opposition. Being born is in due course succeeded by dying; planting by plucking up; and killing it may be in war, or by administration of justice, or through some perfectly defensible cause if not by actual raising from death, which lies confessedly beyond the power of man (1Sa_2:6; 2Ki_5:7) at least by healing every malady short of death. Breaking down, whether of material structures (2Ch_23:17) or of intellectual systems, whether of national (Jer_1:10) or religious (Gal_2:18) institutions, is after an interval followed by the building up of those very things which were destroyed. Weeping endureth only for a night, while joy cometh in the morning. (Psa_30:5) Dancing, on the other hand, gives place to mourning. In short, whatever experience man at any time has, before he terminates his pilgrimage he may almost confidently count on having the opposite; and whatever action he may at any season perform, another season will almost certainly arrive when he will do the reverse. Of every one of the antinomies cited by the Preacher, man"s experience on the earth furnishes examples.
4. Fixed in their times. Though appearing to come about without any order or arrangement, the events and "purposes of mundane existence are by no means left to the guidance, or rather no-guidance, of chance; but rather have their places in the vast world-plan determined, and the times of their appearing fixed. As the hour of each man"s entrance into life is decreed; so is that of, his departure from the same (Heb_9:27; 2Ti_4:6) The date at which he shall step forth upon the active business of life, represented in the Preacher"s catalogue by "planting and plucking up," "breaking down and building up," "casting away stones and gathering stones together," "getting and losing;" the period at which he shall marry (ver. 4), with the times at which weddings and funerals (ver. 4) shall occur in his family circle; the moment when he shall be called upon to stand up valiantly for truth and right amongst his contemporaries, (Pro_15:23) or to preserve a discreet and prudent silence when talk would be, (Pro_10:8) or even hurtful to the cause he serves; the times when he shall either suffer his affections to flow forth in an uninterrupted stream towards the good, or withhold them from unworthy objects; or, if be a statesman, the occasions what, he shall go to war and return from it, are all predetermined by infinite wisdom.
5. Determined in their durations. How long each individual life shall continue (Psa_31:15; Act_17:26) how long each experience shall last, and how long each action shall take to perform, is equally a fixed and ascertained quantity, if not to man"s knowledge, certainly to that of the supreme Disposer of events.
II THE TIMES AND SEASONS OF LIFE.
1. Appointed by and known only to God. As in the material and natural world the Creator hath appointed times and seasons, as, e.g., to the. heavenly bodies for their rising and setting, (Psa_104:19) to plants for their growing and decaying (Gen_8:22; Num_13:20; Jud_1:15:1; Jer_1:16; Mar_11:13) and to animals for their instinctive actions (Job_39:1, Job_39:2; Jer_8:7) so in the human and spiritual world has he ordained the same (Act_17:26; Eph_1:10; Tit_1:3) and these times and seasons, both in the natural and in the spiritual world, hath God reserved to himself. (Act_1:7)
2. Unavoidable and unalterable by man. As no man can predict the day of his death (Gen_27:2; Mat_25:13) any more than know beforehand that of his birth, so neither can he fathom beforehand the incidents that shall happen, or the times when they shall fall out during the course of his life. (Pro_27:1) Nor by any precontriving can he change by so much as a hair"s breadth the place into which each incident is fitted, or the moment when it shall happen.
Learn:
1. The changefulness of human life, and the duty of preparing wisely to meet it.
2. The Divine order that pervades human life, and the propriety of accepting it with meekness.
3. The difficulty (from a human point of view) of living well, since no man can be quite certain that for anything he does he has found the right season.
4. The wisdom of seeking for one"s self the guidance of him in whose hands are times and seasons. (Act_1:7)
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS Vers. 1-8.
The manifold interests and occupations of life.
There is nothing so interesting to man as human life. The material creation engages the attention and absorbs the inquiring activities of the student of physical science; but unless it is regarded as the expression of the Divine ideas, the vehicle of thought and purpose, its interest is limited and cold. But what men are and think and do is a matter of concern to every observant and reflecting mind. The ordinary observer contemplates human life with curiosity; the politician, with interested motives; the historian, hoping to find the key to the actions of nations and kings and statesmen; the poet, with the aim of finding material and inspiration for his verse; and the religious thinker, that he may trace the operation of God"s providence, of Divine wisdom and love. He who looks below the surface will not fail to find, in the events and incidents of human existence, the tokens of the appointments and dispositions of an all-wise Ruler of the world. The manifold interests of our life are not regulated by chance; for "to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
I LIFE"S PERIODS (ITS BEGINNING AND CLOSE) ARE APPOINTED BY GOD. The sacredness of birth and death are brought before us, as we are assured that "there is a time to be born, and a time to die." The believer in God cannot doubt that the Divine Omniscience observes, as the Divine Omnipotence virtually effects, the introduction into this world, and the removal from it, of every human being, Men are born, to show that God will use his own instruments for carrying on the manifold work of the world; they die, to show that he is limited by no human agencies. They are born just when they are wanted, and they die just when it is well that their places should be taken by their successors. "Man is immortal till his work is done.
II LIFE"S OCCUPATIONS ARE DIVINELY ORDERED. The reader of this passage is forcibly reminded of the substantial identity of man"s life in the different ages of the world. Thousands of years have passed since these words were penned, yet to how large an extent does this description apply to human existence in our own day! Organic activities, industrial avocations, social services, are common to every age of man"s history. If men withdraw themselves from practical work, and from the duties of the family and the state, without sufficient justification, they are violating the ordinances of the Creator. He has given to every man a place to fill, a work to do, a service of helpfulness to render to his fellow-creatures.
III THE EMOTIONS PROPER TO HUMAN LIFE ARE OF DIVINE APPOINTMENT. These are natural to man. The mere feelings of pleasure and pain, the mere impulses of desire and aversion, man shares with brutes. But those emotions which are man"s glory and man"s shame are both special to him, and have a great share in giving character to his moral life. Some, like envy, are altogether bad; some, like hatred, are bad. or good according as they are directed; some, like love, are always good. The Preacher of Jerusalem refers to joy and sorrow, when he speaks of "a time to laugh, and a time to weep;" to love and hate, for both of which he declares there is occasion in our human existence. There has been no change in these human experiences with the lapse of time; they are permanent factors in our life. Used aright, they become means of moral development, and aid in forming a noble and pious character.
IV THE OPERATION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS APPARENT IN THE VARIED FORTUNES OF HUMANITY. This passage tells of accumulation and consequent prosperity, of loss and consequent adversity. The mutability of human affairs, the disparities of the human lot, were as remarkable and as perplexing in the days of the Hebrew sage as in our own. And they were regarded by him, as by rational and religious observers in our own time, as instances of the working of physical and social laws imposed by the Author of nature himself. In the exercise of divinely entrusted powers, men gather together possessions and disperse them abroad. The rich and the poor exist side by side; and the wealthy are every day impoverished, whilst the indigent are raised to opulence. These are the lights and shades upon the landscape of life, the shifting scenes in life"s unfolding drama. Variety and change are evidently parts of the Divine intention, and are never absent from the world of our humanity.
V THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL ISSUES OF HUMAN LIFE BEAR MARKS OF DIVINE WISDOM AND ORDER. It cannot be the case that all the phases and processes of our human existence are to be apprehended simply in themselves, as if they contained their own meaning, and had no ulterior significance. Life is not a kaleidoscope, but a picture; not the promiscuous sounds heard when the instrumentalists are "tuning up," but an oratorio; not a chronicle, but a history. There is a unity and an aim in life; but this is not merely artistic, it is moral. We do not work and rest, enjoy and suffer, hope and fear, with no purpose to be achieved by the experiences through which we pass. He who has appointed "a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven," designs that we should, by toil and endurance, by fellowship and solitude, by gain and loss, make progress in the course of moral and spiritual discipline, should grow in the favor and in the likeness of God himself. T.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Vers. 1-10.
Opportunity; opportuneness; ordination.
This view of life embraces
I OPPORTUNITY, OR THE WISDOM OF WAITING. Everything comes in its turn; if we weep today, we shall laugh to-morrow; if we have to be silent for the present, we shall have the opportunity of speech further on; if we must strive now, the time of peace will return. Human life is neither unshadowed brightness nor unbroken gloom. "Shadow and shine is life flower and thorn." Let no man be seriously discouraged, much less hopelessly disheartened: what he is now suffering from will not always remain; it will pass and give place to that which is better. Let us only patiently wait our time, and our turn will come. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning at any rate, and at the furthest,. In the morning of eternity. Only let us wait in patience and in prayerful hope, doing all that we can do in the paths of duty and of service, and the hour of opportunity will arrive... with succeeding turns God tempers all, That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.
II OPPORTUNENESS. The words of the text may suggest to us, though the thought may not have been in the writer"s mind, that some things are good or otherwise according to their timeliness. There is a time to speak in the way of rebuking, or of jesting, or of contending, and, when well-timed, such words may be right and wise in a very high degree; but, if ill-timed, they would be wrong and foolish, and much to be condemned. The same thought is applicable to the demonstration of friendliness, or of any strong emotion (vers. 5, 7); to the exercise of severity or of leniency (ver. 3); to the manifestation of sorrow or of joy (ver. 4); to the action of economy or of generosity (ver. 6). Hard-and-fast rules will not cover the infinite particulars of human life. Whether we shall act or be passive, whether we shall speak or be silent, what shall be our demeanor and what the tone we shall take, this must depend upon particular circumstances and a number of new combinations; and every man must judge for himself, and must remember that there is great virtue in opportuneness.
III ORDINATION. There is a season, an "appointed time for every undertaking" (Cox). "What profit hath he that worketh," when all this" travail" with which "the sons of men" are exercised results in such fixed and inevitable changes? That is the spirit of the moralist here. We reply:
1. That it is indeed true that much is already appointed for us. We have no power, or but little, over the seasons and the elements of nature, and not very much (individually) over the institutions and customs of the land in which we live; we are compelled to conform our behavior to forces which are superior to our own.
2. But there is a very large remainder of freedom. Within the lines that are laid down by the ordination of Heaven or the powers that be" on the earth, there is ample scope for free, wise, life-giving choice of action. We are free to choose our own conduct, to form our own character, to determine the complexion and aspect of our life in the sight of God, to decide upon our destiny. C.
HOMILIES BY J. WILLCOCK Vers. 1-8.
Opportuneness.
Our author makes a fresh start. He drops the autobiographical style of the first two chapters, and casts his thoughts into the form of aphorisms, based not merely upon the reminiscences of his own life, but upon the experience of all men. He gives a long list of the events, actions, emotions, and feelings which go to make up human life, and asserts of them that they are governed by fixed laws above our knowledge, out of our control. The time of our entrance into the world, the condition of life in which we are placed, are determined for us by a higher will than our own, and the same sovereign power fixes the moment of our departure from life; and in like manner all that is done, enjoyed, and suffered between birth and death is governed by forces which we cannot bend or mould, or even fully understand. That there is a fixed order in the events of life is, to a certain extent, an instinctive belief which we all hold. The thought of an untimely birth or of an untimely death shocks us as something contrary to our sense of that which is fit and becoming, and those crimes by which either is caused are generally regarded as specially repulsive. Yet there is an appointed season for the other incidents of life, though less clearly manifest to us. Our wisdom lies, not in mere acquiescence in the events of life, but in knowing our duty for the time. The circumstances in which we are placed are so fluctuating, and the conditions in the midst of which we find ourselves are so varying, that a large space is left for us to exercise our discretion, to discern that which is opportune, and to do the right thing at the right time. The first class of events alluded to, the time of birth and the time of death, is that of those which are involuntary; they are events with which there can be no interference without the guilt of gross and exceptional wickedness. The actions and emotions that follow are voluntary, they are within our power, though the circumstances that call them forth at a precise time are not. The relations of life which are determined for us by a higher power give us the opportunity for playing our part, and we either succeed or fail according as we take advantage of the time or neglect it. The catalogue given of the events, actions, and emotions which make up life seems to be drawn up without any logical order; the various items are apparently taken capriciously as examples of those things that occupy men"s time and thoughts, and at first sight the teaching of our author does not seem to be of a distinctively spiritual character. To a superficial reader it might appear as if we had not in it much more than the commonplace prudence to be found in the maxims and proverbs current in every country: "Take time by the forelock;" "He that will not when he may, when he would he shall have nay;" "Time and tide wait for no man," etc. But we are taught by Christ himself that knowing how to act opportunely is a large part of that wisdom which is needed for our salvation. He himself came to earth in the "fullness of time", (Gal_4:4) when the Jewish people and the nations of the world were prepared by Divine discipline for his teaching and work (Act_17:30, Act_17:31; Luk_2:30, Luk_2:31) The purpose of the mission of John the Baptist, calculated as it was to lead men to godly sorrow for sin, was in harmony with the austerity of his life and the sternness of his exhortations. It was a time to mourn. (Mat_11:18) The purpose of Christ"s own mission was to reconcile the world to God and to manifest the Father to men, so that joy was becoming in his disciples. (Mar_2:18-20) He taught that there was a time to lose, when all possessions that would alienate the heart from him should be parted with; (Mar_10:21, 23) and that there would be a time of gain, when in heaven the accumulated treasures would become an abiding possession. (Mat_6:19, Mat_6:20) "That which the Preacher insists on is the thought that the circumstances and events of life form part of a Divine order, are not things that come at random, and that wisdom, and therefore such a measure of happiness as is attainable, lies in adapting ourselves to the order, and accepting the guidance of events in great things and small, while shame and confusion come from resisting it." But such teaching is applicable, as we have seen, to the conduct of our spiritual as well as of our secular concerns. The fact that there are great changes through which we must pass in order to be duly prepared for the heavenly state, that we may have to forfeit the temporal to secure the eternal, that the new life has new duties for the discernment and fulfillment of which all our powers and faculties need to be called into full exercise should make us earnestly desire to be filled with this wisdom that prompts to opportune action. "If any of you lack wisdom," says St. James, "let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him". (Jam_1:5) J.W.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22 To everything there is a season.
Ecc_3:1-8
To everything there is a season.
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Times and seasons in the Church
The principle which Solomon asserts, and which is of extreme importance in all matters connected with our practical life in this world, is also of equal importance in religious matters. It is true of religion as of all other things, that in it too there is a time for all things, a time to be merry and a time to be sad; and moreover that true wisdom consists in regulating these times, not in leaving them to take their chance (so to speak), but in fixing seasons and periods as aids to the various religious feelings. Let me then bring under your notice a few points illustrative of the method which the Church adopts, a method which is the carrying into religion the principle of the text, cutting out our time, allotting to each portion its proper work, and so economizing the whole and guarding against waste and misuse. The first instance I shall take will be that of our observance of the Sunday. I ask myself--why is this day set apart as it is? and looking upon it not merely as a day of animal rest, but as a day of religious service, the reply is ready, that although men ought to serve God every day, yet they are more likely to remember their duty if a special day be set apart for the purpose; the Sunday, in fact, is a great practical call to worship God; the most thoughtless person cannot fail to have the duty of worship brought before him; no man can by possibility live in this country, and not know that prayer and praise are a duty; few men can have failed to have heard of Christs Sacraments, however much they may have neglected them. The great truth also of the resurrection of the Lord, the great truth upon which all our own hopes of a resurrection depend, how completely and powerfully is that preached by this same institution! for Sunday is emphatically the feast of Christs Resurrection. It is in strict accordance with this principle that the Church has attached a peculiar solemnity to the Friday. As Easter Day throws a light of joy upon all the Sundays in the year, so is it deemed right that the awful event of Good Friday should throw a shade of sadness upon all other Fridays; accordingly you will find the Friday marked in the Prayer-book as a day of fasting and abstinence. Is this a vain rule, a relic of Popery, a remnant of the Dark Ages? I think that sober, thoughtful Christians will not say so; for indeed there is nothing which will tend so much to Christianize the mind, if I may so speak, as to meditate upon the Passion of the Lord Christ. On the same principle we have certain days set apart for the commemoration of saints. The first founders of the kingdom of Christ, those to whose zeal and faithfulness we owe the preservation of the precious deposit of faith, are men to be kept ever in our minds as the great champions of Gods noble army, whose faith we may well follow. It may be said that every Christian will have a grateful sense of the debt he owes to the apostles and martyrs of Christ; yea, but the question is whether the debt will not be discharged more punctually and more completely, if the work be arranged upon system, if a day be set apart for consideration of the character and works of this apostle, and another for that; in fact, if a person throws himself into the Church system and follows her mode of commemorating the saints, is it not to be expected that he will take a more complete view of the various characters and excellences of the apostles, than a man who acknowledged their excellence in general, but does not thus study them in detail? Take the Ember weeks as another example of the same principle. It is desirable that Gods blessing should be invoked by the Church at large upon those who are ordained to the ministry, and upon whose faith and pure conversation so much of the prosperity of the Church depends; how can this great end be best secured? by appointing to the work its proper time. Once more, take the round of great festivals, which, beginning with Advent, terminate in Trinity Sunday. You cannot have failed to observe the manner in which the round of feasts brings before us all the great Christian doctrines; how the Church, preparing at first for the advent of Christ, exhibits Him to us as a babe in swaddling-clothes, then carries us up to His betrayal and death, His burial, His rising again, His ascension into heaven, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and then exhibits to us the full mystery of Godhead, the incomprehensible Three Persons in One God. Lastly, I will take as an example of the Church system the season of Lent. Its meaning may be briefly stated thus, it is the season of penitence. Season of penitence? a person may say, ought not all seasons to be seasons of penitence? Truly; but as there is a time for all things, so has penitence its special time; and the Church requires of us that for forty days before the Passion of Christ, we should meditate upon and grieve over the sins which caused His death. I think I need not say much to convince you of the wisdom of this appointment; if you were perfect, like the angels, you would not require such a season; there is no change of season in heaven, because the blessed spirits around Gods throne have but one occupation, and that is to sing His praise; but in like manner there is no night there, because, being freed from the burden of the flesh, there is to them no weariness; and just as in this world night is necessary for us, which has no existence in heaven, so on earth we may find help to our souls from those aids to our infirmity, which the Church on earth requires, but which the Church triumphant knows not. (Bp. Harvey Goodwin.)
The realities of life
(with Ecc_3:10):--There are many falsehoods written over the ashes of the dead; but none more flagrant and profane than that inscribed on the monument erected in Westminster Abbey, by the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, to the memory of the poet Gay. It was written by Gay himself, and reads thus--
Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now I know it.
What a miserable estimate of the grand existence of man on earth! What a gross misrepresentation of the lessons taught by Gods works and ways! What a libel on the momentous revelations of the future world! What a noble answer to Gays wretched falsehood Longfellow supplies in his Psalm of Life! How many souls have been stirred to action by its trumpet-call! How many true and brave lives have been lived in response to its appeal!
I. The realities of life surround us all. There are the realities of your calling; the duties connected with it, which you feel must be discharged in the most efficient manner possible; the responsibilities attaching to it, which perhaps in several ways are heavy; the temptations to swerve from the line of rectitude, and practise that which is mean and sinful; the worry and anxiety arising out of the keenness of competition, the sharp dealing and fraud of your fellow-men, and the uncertainties of all secular life. We are not to be slothful in our secular pursuits; if we are, we may as well give them up altogether; yet, at the same time, we should see that we have them all in subordination to our spiritual interests, and the life to come. Often the realities of life thicken around men while they are destitute of all preparation. They have failed to exercise forethought-neglected to make provision for the future. All previous periods of life have seen them unfaithful to themselves, to their opportunities, to their calling. You can never redeem what you have lost; but you may avoid losing more. It is of no use bemoaning the past. Let the dead past bury its dead! At once embrace the opportunities of the living present. Forget the things which are behind, and reach towards the things which are before.
II. Hearken to the word of counsel, as to the way is which you should meet the realities of life and turn them to good account. Cultivate earnestness of character. History furnishes us with some rare instances of earnest purpose and endeavour--vigorous grappling with the realities of life, that should inspire us with enthusiasm. I am doing a great work, said Nehemiah, while rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, so that I cannot come down. This one thing I do, exclaims the Apostle Paul. Minutius Aldus, a famous printer at Venice in the sixteenth century, had this significant inscription placed over the door of his office--Whoever thou art, Aldus entreats thee again and again, if thou hast business with him, to conclude it briefly, and hasten thy departure: unless, like Hercules to the weary Atlas, thou come to put thy shoulder to the work, then will there ever he sufficient occupation for thee and all others who may come. In the diary of Dr. Chalmers, under the date of March 12th, 1812, there occurs this entry--I am reading the life of Dr. Doddridge, and am greatly struck with the quantity of business which he put through his hands. O God, impress upon me the value of time, and give regulation to all my thoughts and to all my movements. May I be strong in faith, instant in prayer, high in my sense of duty, and vigorous in the occupation of it! When I detect myself in unprofitable reverie, let me make an instant transition from dreaming to doing. I think it was Sir James Mackintosh who said that whenever he died, he should die with a host of unaccomplished purposes and unfinished plans in his brain. So every earnest man will leave behind him many a half-finished, and even many an unattempted work. Nevertheless, with a true and earnest heart we may complete some things--we may weave the threads of life into a fabric of varied use and beauty--and, like David of old, serve our generation by the will of God before we fall on sleep, and are laid among our fathers. Once more, nothing will so help you to deal with the realities of life as true religion. Do you possess it, and are you living under its influence? (W. Walters.)
The fall of the leaf
At no period of the year are the sunsets so varied and beautiful as in autumn. The many-coloured woods of the years eventide correspond to the many-coloured clouds of the sunset sky; and as the heavens burst into their brightest hues, and exhibit their loveliest transfigurations when the daylight is fading into the gloom of night, so the year unfolds its richest tints and its fairest charms when it is about to sink into the darkness and desolation of winter. The beauty of the autumnal tints is commonly supposed to be confined to the fading foliage of the trees. This is indeed the most obvious feature of the season--that which appeals to every eye, and reads its lesson to every heart. But nature here, as everywhere else, loves to reproduce in her smallest things the peculiarities of her greatest. It was a beautiful myth, created by the glowing imagination of the Greek poets, that the great god Pan, the impersonation of nature, wedded the nymph Echo; so that every note which he blew from his pipe of reeds awakened a harmonious response in her tender bosom. Most truly does this bright fancy represent the real design of nature, according to which we hear on every hand some curious reverberation of some familiar sound, and see all things delighting to wear each others robes. The fading frees pipe their many-coloured music aloft on the calm blue October air--for the chromatic scale is the harmonious counterpart of the musical--and the lowly plants that grow beneath their shadow dance to the music. The weeds by the wayside are gifted with a beauty in the decline of life equal to that of the proudest oaks and beeches. Each season partakes to some extent of the characteristics of all the other seasons, and shares in all the varied beauties of the year. Thus we find an autumn in each spring in the death of the primroses and lilies, and a harvest in each summer in the ripe hay-fields; and every one has noticed that the sky of September possesses much of the fickleness of spring in the rapid change of its clouds and the variableness of its weather. Very strikingly is this mutual repetition by the seasons of each others characteristic features seen in the resemblance between the tints of the woods in spring and in autumn. The first leaves of the oak expand from the bud in a pale tender crimson; the young leaves of the maple tree, and all the leaves that appear on a maple stump, are of a remarkable copper colour; the immature foliage of the hazel and alder is marked by a dark purple tinge, singularly rich and velvety-looking. Not more varied is the tinting of the autumnal woods than that of the spring woods. And it may be remarked that the colour into which any tree fades in autumn is the same as it wears when it bursts the cerements of spring, and unfolds to the sunny air. Its birth is a prophecy of its death, and its death of its birth. Natures cradles have not more of beginning in them than of ending; and natures graves have not more of ending in them than of beginning. No one can take a walk in the melancholy woodland in the calm October days without being deeply impressed by the thought of the great waste of beauty and creative skill seen in the faded leaves which rustle beneath his feet. Take up and examine one of these leaves attentively, and you are astonished at, the wealth of ingenuity displayed in it. It is a miracle of design, elaborately formed and richly coloured--in reality more precious than any jewel; and yet it is dropped off the bough as if it had no value, and rots away unheeded in the depths of the forest. Myriads of similar gems are heaped beneath the leafless trees, to moulder away in the rains of November. It saddens us to think of this continual lavish production and careless discarding of forms of beauty and wonder, which we see everywhere throughout nature. Could not the foliage be so contrived as to remain permanently on the trees, and only suffer such a periodical change as the evergreen ivy undergoes? Must the web of natures fairest embroidery be taken down every year, and every year woven back again to its old completeness and beauty? Is nature waiting for some great compensation, as Penelope of old waited for her absent husband, when she unravelled each evening the work of each day, and thus deluded her eager lovers with vain promises? Yes! she weaves and unweaves her web of loveliness each season--not in order to mock us with delusive hopes, but to wean us from all false loves, and teach us to wait and prepare for the true love of our souls, which is found, not in the passing things of earth, but in the abiding realities of heaven. This is the secret of all her lavish wastefulness. For this she perpetually sacrifices and perpetually renews her beauty; for this she counts all her most precious things but as dross. By the pathos of her autumn loveliness she is appealing to all that is deepest and truest in our spiritual nature; and through her fading flowers and her withering grass, and all her fleeting glories, she is speaking to us words of eternal life, whereby our souls may be enriched and beautified for ever. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
The clock of destiny
Destiny! What a word! Orthographically it is composed of seven parts, as if, in the use of the sacred number, seven, it was intended, by its very structure, to express, to all ages, its profound significance--viz, sufficiency, fulness, completion, perfection! Such, indeed, is the sweeping import of the word destiny. It means a state of things that is complete, perfect. It signifies that this world--with its empires that rise and fall--its marvellous incidents that are enacted by human wisdom, courage, strife and ambition--its generations that are born, that live and die--its joys and sorrows--its shifting seasons and rolling years: this earth, as it now exists, is under a management that is sufficient, perfect!--a management of which it can be said: A sparrow cannot fall to the ground without notice--that is, without permission and purpose! Destiny has a Clock--a huge timepiece which measures off the events in this fixed order of things. On its dial-plate is inscribed this world-wide truth: To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. By what Hand is this Clock of Destiny wound up and managed in all its complicated machinery? In other words: What is the superintending power of this fixed order of things? One answer says: Fatalism makes the pendulum oscillate, fitting cog to cog and wheel to wheel, controlling all the movements of the dial-gnomon. God is here given the go-by, while absolute necessity and fixed, cold, unconscious law are delegated with all power. Fatalism annihilates intelligence and free-will in the worlds government. It declares that Everything from a star to a thought; from the growth of a tree to a spasm of sorrow; from the coronation of a king to the falling of a sparrow is connected with and under the positive control of molecular force. In short, destinys timepiece is wound up and kept in running order by a hand tuner divine! The third chapter of Ecclesiastes was written in the interest of the Divine Hand managing the Clock of Destiny--in other words, to teach the glorious doctrine of special providence. O ye priests of science falsely so called, ye prophets of the Unknowable, ye wise men who make law supreme and deify force--let the Hebrew sage teach you a better creed! Yea, ye, doubters, ye of unbelief, as to the doctrine of special providence in things great and small--listen to this: God doeth! not fate. His acts shall be for ever, not of short duration but of eternal import. He is independent of all contingency--the wicked cannot frustrate the Almightys purposes: Nothing can be put to it and nothing can be taken from it. His government is for mans highest good--by each swing of the pendulum the Divine Father would move the race nearer to Himself: And God doeth it that they should fear before Him. He is never surprised--nothing is new to Him, nothing old. He acts in the eternal Now. All things--past, present, future--are ever under His all-seeing eye: That which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been. It is, however, impossible for us now to understand all about the management of this huge timepiece, which measures off the events great and small, in the fixed course of things. So says the author of my text in verse 11: No man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. But this shortsightedness, on our part, is no reason why we should question the wisdom of what is being done, or, in any way, withhold our confidence and love from God as a Father--who is ever doing for us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. And, now, in view of the fact that the Lord reigneth--that the Clock of Destiny is Gods machine, ever running in the interest of mans highest good--what should be our daily conduct and highest ambition? Let this third chapter of Ecclesiastes give us, in closing, an exhortation, as it has already imparted to us profound instruction. In verse 12 let us read that it is our mission here to do good--in verse 13, to enjoy the good of all our labour, seeing that this is the gift of God--in verses 16, 17, not to fret ourselves because of evil-doers, for God shall judge the righteous and the wicked--in verses 18-21, not to be disheartened or over-mournful because of death, for though that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts--all coming from and going to the same place--dust: yet there is a spirit in man that goeth upwards. He is immortal, and hence can say: O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Finally, verses 22, Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in all his works. Do good and rejoice in that good--this is mans duty! Scatter sunbeams to expel darkness--build up blazing fires to warm and cheer the cold, weary and worn! Be kind--be charitable--save your neighbour from tears, groans, heartaches! Swell the refrain of merry Christmas carols! Ring out the bells of New Year greeting! Rejoice ever-morel (A. H. Moment, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 The Quest Of The Chief Good In Devotion To…
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The Quest Of The Chief Good In Devotion To The Affairs Of Business
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Ecclesiastes 3:1 - Ecclesiastes 5:20
I. IF the true Good is not to be found in the School where Wisdom utters her voice, nor in the Garden in which Pleasure spreads her lures: may it not be found in the Market, in devotion to Business and Public Affairs? The Preacher will try this experiment also. He gives himself to study and consider it. But at the very outset he discovers that he is in the iron grip of immutable Divine ordinances, by which "seasons" are appointed for every undertaking under heaven (Ecc_3:1), ordinances which derange mans best-laid schemes, and "shape his ends, rough hew them how he will," that no one can do anything to purpose "apart from God," except by conforming to the ordinances, or laws, in which He has expressed His will. {comp. Ecc_2:24-26}
The Quest obstructed by Divine Ordinances. Ecc_3:1-15
The time of birth, for instance, and the time of death, are ordained by a Power over which men have no control; they begin to be, and they cease to be, at hours whose stroke they can neither hasten nor retard. The season for sowing and the season for reaping are fixed with any reference to their wish; they must plant and gather in when the unchangeable laws of nature will permit (Ecc_3:2). Even those violent deaths, and those narrow escapes from death, which seem most purely fortuitous, are predetermined; as are also the accidents which befall our abodes (Ecc_3:3). So, again, if only because determined by these accidents, are the feelings with which we regard them, our weeping and our laughter, our mourning and our rejoicing (Ecc_3:4). If we only clear a plot of ground from stones in order that we may cultivate it, or that we may fence it in with a wall; or if an enemy cast stones over our arable land to unfit it for uses of husbandry-a malignant act frequent in the East-and we have painfully to gather them out again: even this, which seems so purely within the scope of human free will, is also within the scope of the Divine decrees-as are the very embraces we bestow on those dear to us, or withhold from them (Ecc_3:5). The varying and unstable desires which prompt us to seek this object or that as earnestly as we afterwards carelessly cast it away, and the passions which impel us to rend our garments over our losses, and by and by to sew up the rents not without some little wonder that we should ever have been so deeply moved by that which now sits so lightly on us; these passions and desires, which at one time strike us dumb with grief and so soon after make us voluble with joy, with all our fleeting and easily-moved hates and loves, strifes and reconciliations, move within the circle of law, although they wear so lawless a look, and are obsequious to the fixed canons of Heaven (Ecc_3:6-8). They travel their cycles; they return in their appointed order. The uniformity of nature is reproduced in the uniform recurrence of the chances and changes of human life; for in this, as in that, God repeats Himself, recalling the past (Ecc_3:15). The thing that is is that which hath been, and that which will be. Social laws are as constant and as inflexible as natural laws. The social generalisations of modern science-as given, for instance, in Buckles "History"-are but a methodical elaboration of the conclusion at which the Preacher here arrives.
Of what use, then, was it for men to "kick against the goads," to attempt to modify immutable ordinances? "Whatever God hath ordained continueth forever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken from it" (Ecc_3:14). Nay, why should we care to alter or modify the social order? Everything is beautiful and appropriate in its season, from birth to death, from war to peace (Ecc_3:11). If we cannot find the satisfying Good in the events and affairs of life, that is not because we could devise a happier order for them, but because "God hath put eternity into our hearts" as well as time, and did not intend that we should be satisfied till we attain an eternal good. If only we "understood" that, if only we recognised Gods design for us "from beginning to end," and suffered eternity no less than time to have its due of us, we should not fret ourselves in vain endeavours to change the unchangeable, or to find an enduring good in that which is fugitive and perishable. We should rejoice and do ourselves good all our brief life (Ecc_3:12); we should eat and drink and take pleasure in our labours (Ecc_3:13); we should feel that this faculty for innocently enjoying simple pleasures and wholesome toils is "a gift of God": we should conclude that God had ordained that regular cycle and order of events which so often forestalls the wish and endeavour of the moment, in order that we should fear Him in place of relying on ourselves (Ecc_3:14), and trust our future to Him who so wisely and graciously recalls the past.
And by Human Injustice and Perversity. Ecc_3:16-22; Ecc_4:1-3
But not only are our endeavours to find the "good" of our labours thwarted by the gracious, inflexible laws of the just God; they are often baffled by the injustice of ungracious men. In the days of Coheleth, iniquity sat in the seat of justice, wresting all rules of equity to its base private ends (Ecc_3:16). Unjust judges and rapacious satraps put the fair rewards of labour and skill and integrity in jeopardy, insomuch that if a man by industry and thrift, by a wise observance of Divine laws and by taking occasions as they rose, had acquired affluence, he was too often, in the expressive Eastern phrase, but as a sponge which any petty despot might squeeze. The frightful oppressions of the time were a heavy burden to the Hebrew Preacher. He brooded over them, seeking for aids to faith and comfortable words wherewith to solace the oppressed. For a moment he thought he had lit on the true comfort, "Well, well," he said within himself, "God will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time for every thing and for every deed with Him" (Ecc_3:17). Could he have rested in this thought, it would have been "a sovereign balm" to him, or indeed to any other Hebrew; although to us, who have learned to desire the redemption rather than the punishment of the wicked, their redemption through their inevitable punishments, the true comfort would still have been wanting. But he could not rest in it, could not hold it fast, and confesses that he could not. He lays his heart bare before us. We are permitted to trace the fluctuating thoughts and emotions which swept across it. No sooner has he whispered to his heart that God, who is at leisure from Himself and has endless time at his command, will visit the oppressors and avenge the oppressed, than his thoughts take a new turn, and he adds: "And yet God may have sifted the children of men only to shew them that they are no better than the beasts" (Ecc_3:18): this may be his aim in all the wrongs by which they are tried. Repugnant as the thought is, it nevertheless fascinates him for the instant, and he yields to its wasting and degrading magic. He not only fears, suspects, thinks that man is no better than a beast; he is quite sure of it, and proceeds to argue it out. His argument is very sweeping, very sombre. "A mere chance is man, and the beast a mere chance." Both spring from a mere accident, no one can tell how, and have a blind hazard for a creator; and "both are subject to the same chance," or mischance, throughout their lives, all the decisions of their intelligence and will being overruled by the decrees of an inscrutable fate. Both perish under the same power of death, suffer the same pangs of dissolution, are taken at unawares by the same invisible yet resistless force. The bodies of both spring from the same dust, and moulder back into dust. Nay, "both have the same spirit"; and though vain man sometimes boasts that at death his spirit goeth upward, while that of the beast goeth downward, yet who can prove it? For himself, and in his present mood, Coheleth doubts, and even denies it. He is absolutely convinced that in origin and life and death, in body and spirit and final fate, man is as the beast is, and hath no advantage over the beast (Ecc_3:19-21). And therefore he falls back on his old conclusion, though now with a sadder heart than ever, that man will do wisely, that, being so blind and having so dark a prospect, he cannot do more wisely than to take what pleasure and enjoy what good he can amid his labours. If he is a beast, as he is a beast, let him at least learn of the beasts that simple, tranquil enjoyment of the good of the passing moment, untroubled by any vexing presage of what is to come, in which it must be allowed that they are greater proficients than he (Ecc_3:22).
Thus, after rising in the first fifteen verses of this Third Chapter, to an almost Christian height of patience, and resignation, and holy trust in the providence of God, Coheleth is smitten by the injustice and oppressions of man into the depths of a pessimistic materialism.
But now a new question arises. The Preachers survey of human life has shaken his faith even in the conclusion which he has announced from the first, viz., that there is nothing better for a man than a quiet content, a busy cheerfulness, a tranquil enjoyment of the fruit of his toils. This at least he has supposed to be possible: but is it? All the activities, industries, tranquillities of life are jeopardised, now by the inflexible ordinances of Heaven, and again by the capricious tyranny of man. To this tyranny his fellow countrymen are now exposed. They groan under its heaviest oppressions. As he turns and once more reflects {Ecc_4:1} on their unalleviated and unfriended misery, he doubts whether content, or even resignation, can be expected of them. With a tender sympathy that lingers on the details of their unhappy lot, and deepens into a passionate and despairing melancholy, he witnesses their sufferings and "counts the tears" of the oppressed. With the emphasis of a Hebrew and an Oriental, he marks and emphasises the fact that "they had no comforter," that though "their oppressors were violent, yet they had no comforter." For throughout the East, and among the Jews to this day, the manifestation of sympathy with those who suffer is far more common and ceremonious than it is with us. Neighbours and acquaintances are expected to pay long visits of condolence; friends and kinsfolk will travel long distances to pay them. Their respective places and duties in the house of mourning, their dress, words, bearing, precedence, are regulated by an ancient and elaborate etiquette. And, strange as it may seem to us, these visits are regarded not only as gratifying tokens of respect to the dead, but as a singular relief and comfort to the living. To the Preacher and his fellow captives, therefore, it would be a bitter aggravation of their grief that, while suffering under the most cruel oppressions of misfortune, they were compelled to forego the solace of these customary tokens of respect and sympathy. As be pondered their sad and unfriended condition, Coheleth-like Job, when his comforters failed him-is moved to curse his day. The dead, he affirms, are happier than the living, -even the dead who died so long ago that the fate most dreaded in the East had befallen them, and the very memory of them had perished from the earth: while happier than either the dead, who have had to suffer in their time, or than the living, whose doom had still to be borne, were those who had never seen the light, never been born into a world all disordered and out of course (Ecc_4:2-3).
It is rendered hopeless by the base origin of Human Industries. Ecc_4:4-8
This stinging sense of the miserable estate of his race has, however, diverted the Preacher from the conduct of the main argument he had in hand: to that he now returns (Ecc_4:4). And now he argues: You cannot hope to get good fruit from a bad root. But the several industries in which you are tempted to seek "the chief good and market of your time" have a most base and evil origin; they "spring from mans jealous rivalry with his neighbour" Every man tries to outdo and to outsell his neighbours; to secure a larger business, to surround himself with a more profuse luxury, or to amass an ampler hoard of gold. This business life of yours is utterly selfish, and therefore utterly base. You are not content with a sufficient provision for simple wants. You do not seek your neighbours good. You have no noble or patriotic aim. Your ruling intention is to enrich yourselves at the expense of neighbours who, in their turn, are your rivals rather than your neighbours, and who try to get the better of you just as you try to get the better of them. Can you hope to find the true Good in a life whose aims are so sordid, whose motives so selfish? The very sluggard who folds his hands in indolence so long as he has bread to eat is a wiser man than you; for he has at least his "handful of quiet," and knows some little enjoyment of life; while you, driven on by jealous competition and the eager cravings of insatiate desire, have neither leisure nor appetite for enjoyment: both your hands are full, indeed, but there is no quiet in them, only labour, labour, labour, with vexation of spirit (Ecc_4:5-6).
So intense and selfish was this rivalry, increase of appetite growing by what it fed upon, so keen grew the desire to amass, that the Preacher paints a portrait, for which no doubt many a Hebrew might have sat, of a man-nay, rather, of a miser-who, though solitary and kinless, with not even a son or a brother to inherit his wealth, nevertheless hoards up riches to the close of his life; there is no end to his labours; he never can be rich enough to allow himself any enjoyment of his gains (Ecc_4:7-8).
Yet these are capable of a nobler Motive and Mode. Ecc_4:9-16
Now a jealous rivalry culminating in mere avarice, -that surely is not the wisest or noblest spirit of which those are capable who devote themselves to affairs. Even "the idols of the market" may have a purer cult. Business, like wisdom or mirth, may neither be, nor contain, the supreme Good: still, like them, it is not in itself and of necessity an evil. There must be a better mode of devotion to it than this selfish and greedy one; and such a mode Coheleth, before he pursues his argument to a close, pauses to point out. As if anticipating a modern theory which grows in favour with the wiser sort of mercantile men, he suggests that cooperation-of course I use the word in its etymological rather than in its technical sense-should be substituted for competition. "Two are better than one," he argues; "union is better than isolation; conjoint labour brings the larger reward" (Ecc_4:9). To bring his suggestion home to the business bosom of men, he uses five illustrations, four of which have a strong Oriental colouring. The first is that of two pedestrians (Ecc_4:10); if one should fall-and, such an accident, owing to the bad roads and long cumbrous robes common in the East, was by no means infrequent-the other is ready to set him on his feet; while, if he is alone, the least that can befall him is that his robe will be trampled and bemired before he can gather himself up again. In the second illustration (Ecc_4:11), our two travellers, wearied by their journey, sleep together at its close. Now in Syria the nights are often keen and frosty, and the heat of the day makes men more susceptible to the cold. The sleeping chambers, moreover, have only unglazed lattices which let in the frosty air as well as the welcome light; the bed is commonly a simple mat, the bedclothes only the garments worn through the day. And therefore the natives huddle together for the sake of warmth. To lie alone was to lie shivering in the chill night air. The third illustration (Ecc_4:12) is also taken from the East. Our two travellers, lying snug and warm on their common mat, buried in slumber, that "dear repose for limbs with travel tired," were very likely to be disturbed by thieves who had dug a hole through the clay walls of the house, or crept under the tent, to carry off what they could. These thieves, always on the alert for travellers, are marvellously supple, rapid, and silent in their movements; but as the traveller, aware of his danger, commonly puts his "bag of needments" or valuables under his head, it does sometimes happen that the deftest thief will rouse him by withdrawing it. If one of our two wayfarers was thus aroused, he would call on his comrade for help, and between them the thief would stand a poor chance; but the solitary traveller, suddenly roused from sleep, with no helper at hand, might very easily stand a worse chance. than the thief. The fourth illustration (Ecc_4:12) is that of the threefold cord-three strands twisted into one, which, as we all know, English no less than Hebrew, is much more than three times as strong as any one of the separate strands.
But in the fifth and most elaborate illustration (Ecc_4:13-14), we are once more carried back to the East. The slightest acquaintance with Oriental history will teach us how uncertain is the tenure of royal power; how often it has happened that a prisoner has been led from a dungeon to a throne, and a prince suddenly deposed and reduced to impotence and penury. Coheleth supposes such a case. On the one hand, we have a king old, but not venerable, since, long as he has lived, he has not "even yet learned to accept admonition"; he has led a solitary selfish, suspicious life, secluded himself in his harem, surrounded himself with a troop of flattering courtiers and slaves. On the other hand, we have the poor but wise young man, "the affable youth," who has lived with all sorts and conditions of men, acquainted himself with their habits and wants and desires, and conciliated their regard. His growing popularity alarms the old despot and his minions. He is cast into prison. His wrongs and sufferings endear him to the wronged and suffering people. By a sudden outbreak of popular wrath, by a revolution such as often sweeps through Eastern states, he is set free, and led from the orison to the throne, although he was once so poor that none would do him reverence. This is the picture in the minds eye of the Preacher; and, as he contemplates it, he rises into a kind of prophetic rapture, and cries, "I see-I see all the living who walk under the sun flocking to the youth who stands up in the old kings stead; there is no end to the multitude of the people over whom he ruleth!" (Ecc_4:15).
By these graphic illustrations Coheleth sets forth the superiority of the sociable over the solitary and selfish temper, of union over isolation, of the neighbourly goodwill which leads men to combine for common ends over the jealous rivalry which prompts them to take advantage of each other, and to labour each for himself alone.
But even as he urges this better, happier temper on men occupied with business and public affairs, even as he contemplates its brightest illustration in the youthful prisoner whose winning and sociable qualities have lifted him to a throne, the old mood of melancholy comes back on him; there is the familiar pathetic break in his voice as he concludes (Ecc_4:16), that even this wise youth, who wins all hearts for a time, will soon be forgotten; that "even this," for all so hopeful as it looks, "is vanity and vexation of spirit."
A profound gloom rests on the second act of this Drama. It has already taught us that we are helpless in the grip of laws which we had no voice in making; that we often lie at the mercy of men whose mercy is but a caprice; that in our origin and end, in body and spirit, in faculty and prospect, in our lives and pleasures, we are no better than the beasts which perish: that the avocations into which we plunge, and amid which we seek to forget our sad estate, spring from our jealousy the one of the other, and tend to a lonely miserliness without use or charm. The Preachers familiar conclusion -"Be tranquil, be content, enjoy as much as you can"-has grown doubtful to him. He has seen the brightest promise come to nought. In a new and profounder sense, "all is vanity and vexation of spirit."
But, though passing through a great darkness, he sees, and reflects, some little light. Even when facts seem to contradict it, he holds fast to the conclusion that wisdom is better than folly, and kindness better than selfishness, and to do good, even though you lose by it, better than to do evil and gain by it. His faith wavers only for a moment; it never wholly loosens its hold. And, in the fifth chapter, the light grows, though even here the darkness does not altogether disappear. We are sensible that the twilight in which we stand is not that of evening, which will deepen into night, but that of morning, which will shine more and more until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in the calm heaven of patient tranquil hearts.
So also a happier and more effective Method of Worship is open to Men; Ecc_5:1-7
The men of affairs are led from the vocations of the Market and the intrigues of the Divan into the House of God. Our first glance at the worshippers is not hopeful or inspiriting. For here are men who offer sacrifices in lieu of obedience; and here are men whose prayers are a voluble repetition of phrases which run far in advance of their limping thoughts and desires: and there are men quick to make vows in moments of peril, but slow to redeem them when the peril is past. At first the House of God looks very like a House of Merchandise, in which brokers and traders drive a traffic as dishonest as any that disgraces the Exchange. But while the merchants and politicians stand criticising the conduct of the worshippers, the Preacher turns upon them and shows them that they are the worshippers whom they criticise; that he has held up a glass in which they see themselves as others see them; that it is they who vow and do not pay, they who hurry on their mouths to utter words which their hearts do not prompt, they who take the roundabout course of sinning and sacrificing for sin instead of that plain road of obedience which leads straight to God.
But what comfort for them is there in that? How should it help them, to be beguiled into condemning themselves? Truly there would not be much comfort in it did not the compassionate Preacher forthwith disclose the secret of this dishonest worship, and give them counsels of amendment. He discloses the secret in two verses (Ecc_5:3 and Ecc_5:7), which have much perplexed the readers of this book. He there explains that just as a mind harassed by much occupation and the many cares it breeds cannot rest even at night, but busies itself in framing wild disturbing dreams, so also is it with the foolish worshipper who, for want of thought and reverence, pours out before God a multitude of unsifted and unconsidered wishes in a multitude of words. In effect he says to them: "You men of affairs often get little help or comfort from the worship of God because you come to it with preoccupied hearts, just as a man gets little comfort from his bed because his brain, jaded and yet excited by many cares, will not suffer him to rest. Hence it is that you promise more than you perform, and utter prayers more devout than any honest expression of your desires would warrant, and offer sacrifices to avoid the charge and trouble of obedience to the Divine laws. And as I have shown you a more excellent way of transacting business than the selfish grasping mode to which you are addicted, so also I will show you a more excellent style of worship. Go to the House of God with a straight foot, a foot trained to walk in the path of obedience. Keep your heart, set a watch over it, lest it should be diverted from the simple and devout homage it should pay. Do not urge and press it to a false emotion, to a strained and insincere mood. Let your words be few and reverent when you speak to the Great King. Do not vow except under the compulsion of steadfast resolves, and pay your vows even to your own hurt when once they are made. Do not anger God, or the angel of God who, as you believe, presides over the altar, with idle unreal talk and idle half-meant resolves, making vows of which you afterwards repent and do not keep, pleading that you made them in error or infirmity. But in all the exercises of your worship show a holy fear of the Almighty; and then, under the worst oppressions of fortune and the heaviest calamities of time, you shall find the House of God a Sanctuary, and his worship a strength, a consolation, and a delight." This, surely, was very wholesome counsel for men of business in hard times.
And a more helpful and consolatory Trust in the Divine Providence. Ecc_5:8-17
Not content with this, however, the Preacher goes on to show how, when they returned from the House of God to the common round of life, and were once more exposed to its miseries and distractions, there were certain comfortable and sustaining thoughts on which they might stay their spirits. To the worship of the Sanctuary he would have them add a strengthening trust in the Providence of God. That Providence was expressed, as in other ordinances, so also in these two:
First; whatever oppressions and perversions of justice and equity there were in the land (Ecc_5:8), still the judges and satraps who oppressed them were not supreme; there was an official hierarchy in which superior watched over superior, and if justice were not to be had of the one, it might be had of another who was above him; if it were not to be had of any, no, not even of the king himself, there was this reassuring conviction that, in the last resort, even the king was "the servant of the field" (Ecc_5:9), i.e., was dependent on the wealth and produce of the land, and could not, therefore, be unjust with impunity, or push his oppressions too far lest he should decrease his revenue or depopulate his realm. This was "the advantage" the people had; and if it were in itself but a slight advantage to this man or that, clearly it was a great advantage to the body politic; while as an indication of the Providence of God, of the care with which He had arranged for the general well-being, it was full of consolation.
The second fact, or class of facts, in which they might recognise the gracious care of God Was this, -That the unjust judges and wealthy rapacious "lords" who oppressed them had very much less satisfaction in their fraudulent gains than they might suppose. God had so made men that injustice and selfishness defeated their own ends, and those who lived for wealth, and would do evil to acquire it, made but a poor bargain after all. "He that loveth silver is never satisfied with silver, nor he that clings to wealth with what it yields" (Ecc_5:10). "When riches increase, they increase that consume them"-dependents, parasites, slaves, flock around the man who rises to wealth and place. He cannot eat and drink more, or enjoy more, than when he was a man simply well-to-do in the world; the only advantage he has is that he sees others consume what he has acquired at so great a cost (Ecc_5:11). He cannot know the sweet refreshing sleep of husbandmen weary with toil (Ecc_5:12), for his heart is full of care and apprehension. Robbers may drive off his flocks, or "lift" his cattle; his investments may fail, or his secret hoard be plundered; he must trust much to servants, and they may be unfaithful to their trust; his official superiors may ruin him with the bribes they extort, or the prince himself may want a sponge to squeeze. If none of these evils befall him, he may apprehend, and have cause to apprehend, that his heir longs for his death, and will prove little better than a fool, wasting in wanton riot what he has amassed with much painful toil (Ecc_5:13-14). And, in any event, he cannot take his wealth with him on his last journey (Ecc_5:15-16). So that, naturally enough, he is much perturbed, and "hath great vexation and grief" (Ecc_5:17), cannot sleep for his apprehensive care for his "abundance"; and at last must go out of the world as bare and unprovided as he came into it. He "labours for the wind," and reaps what he has sown. Was such a life, mounting to such a close, a thing to long for and toil for? Was it worth while to hurl oneself against the adamantine laws of Heaven and risk the oppressions of earth, to injure ones neighbours, to sink into an insincere and distracted worship and a weakening distrust of the providence of God, in order to spend anxious toilsome days and sleepless nights, and at last to go out of the world naked of all but guilt, and rich in nothing but the memory of frauds and wrongs? Might not even a captive or a slave, whose sleep was sweetened by toil, and who, from his trust in God and the sacred delights of honest worship, gathered strength to endure all the oppressions of the time, and to enjoy whatever alleviations and innocent pleasures were vouchsafed him-might not even he be a wiser, happier man than the despot at whose caprice he stood?
The Conclusion. Ecc_5:18-20
For himself Coheleth has a very decided opinion on this point. He is quite sure that his first conclusion is sound, though for a moment he had questioned its soundness, and that a quiet, cheerful, and obedient heart is greater riches than the wealthiest estate. With all the emphasis of renewed and now immovable conviction he declares, Behold, that which I have said holds good; it is well for a man to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labours through the brief day of his life. And I have also said-and this too is true-that a man to whom God hath given riches and wealth-for even a rich man may be a good man and use his wealth wisely-if He hath also enabled him to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour-this too is a most Divine gift. He does not fret over the brevity of his life; it is not much, or often, or sadly in his thoughts: for he knows that the joy his heart takes in the toils and pleasures of life is approved by God, or even, as the phrase seems to mean, corresponds in some measure with the joy of God Himself; that his tranquil enjoyment is a reflection of the Divine peace.
II. There are not many Englishmen who devote themselves solely or mainly to the acquisition of Wisdom, and who, that they may teach the children of men that which is good, live laborious days, withdrawing from the general pursuit of wealth and scorning the lures of ease and self-indulgence; such men, indeed, are but a small minority in any age or land. Nor do those who give themselves exclusively to the pursuit of Pleasure constitute more than a small and miserable class, though most of us have wasted on it days that we could ill spare. But when the Hebrew Preacher, having followed his quest of the supreme Good in Pleasure and Wisdom, turns to the affairs of Business-and I use that term as including both commerce and politics-he enters a field of action and inquiry with which we are nearly all familiar, and can hardly fail to speak words which will touch us close home. For, whatever else we may or may not be, we are most of us among the worshippers of the great god Traffic-a god whose wholesome, benignant face too often lowers and darkens, or ever we are aware, into the sordid and malignant features of Mammon.
Now in dealing with this broad and momentous province of human life the Preacher exhibits the candour and the temperance which marked his treatment of Wisdom and Mirth. Just as he would not suffer us to think of Wisdom as in itself an evil, nor of Pleasure as an evil, so neither will be allow us to think of Business as essentially and of necessity an evil. This, like those, may be abused to our hurt; but none the less they may all be used, and were meant to be used, for our own and our neighbours good. Pursued in the right method, from the right motive, with the due moderation and reserve, Business, as he is careful to point out, besides bringing other great advantages, may be a new bond of union and brotherhood: it develops intercourse among men and races of men, and should develop sympathy, goodwill, and a mutual helpfulness. Nevertheless, thrift may degenerate into miserliness, and the honest industry of content into a dishonest eagerness for an excessive devotion to it. These degenerate undue gains, and a wise attention to business into tendencies had struck their roots deep into the Hebrew mind of his day, and brought forth many bitter fruits. The Preacher describes and denounces them; he lays an axe to the very roots of these evil growths: but it is only that he may clear a space for the fairer and more wholesome growths which sprang beside them, and of which they were the wild bastard offshoots.
Throughout this second section of the Book, his subject is excessive devotion to Business, and the correctives to it which his experience enables him to suggest.
1. His handling of the subject is very thorough and complete. Men of business might do worse than get the lessons he here teaches by heart. According to him, their excessive devotion to affairs springs from a "jealous rivalry": it tends to forth in them a grasping covetous temper which can never be satisfied, to produce a materialistic scepticism of all that is noble, spiritual, aspiring in thought and action, to render their worship formal and insincere, and, in general, to incapacitate them for any quiet happy enjoyment of their life. This is his diagnosis of their disease, or of that diseased tendency which, if it be for the most part latent in them, always threatens to become pronounced and to infect all healthy condtions of the soul.
Devotion to Business springs from Jealous Competition: Ecc_4:4
(a) Let us glance once more at the several symptoms we have already heard him discuss, and consider whether or not they accord with the results of our own observation and experience, is it true, then-or, rather, is it not true-that our devotion to business is becoming excessive and exhausting, and that this devotion springs mainly from our jealous rivalry and competition with each other? If, some two or three and twenty centuries ago, the Jews were bent every man on outdoing and outselling his neighbour; if his main ambition was to amass greater wealth or to secure a larger business than his competitors, or to make a handsomer show before the world; if in the urgent pursuit of this ambition he held his neighbours not as neighbours, but as unscrupulous rivals, keen for gain at his expense and to rise by his fall; if, to reach his end, he was willing to get up early and go late to rest, to force all his energies into an injurious activity and strain them close to the snapping point: if this were what a Jew of that time was like, might you not easily take it for a portrait of many an English merchant, manufacturer, lawyer, or politician? Is it not as accurate a delineation of our life as it could be of any ancient form of life? If it be, as I think it is, we have grave need to take the Preachers warning. We gravely need to remember that the stream cannot rise above its source, nor the fruit be better than the root from which it grows; that the business ardour which has its origin in a base and selfish motive can only be a base and selfish ardour. When men gather grapes from thorns and figs from thistles, then, but not before, we may look to find a satisfying good in "all the toil and all the dexterity in toil" which spring from this "jealous rivalry of the one with the other."
It tends to form a covetous Temper; Ecc_4:8
(b) Nor, in the face of facts patent to the most cursory observer, can we deny that this eager successful conduct of business and excessive devotion to it tends to produce a grasping, covetous temper which, however much it has gained, is forever seeking more. It is not only true that the stream cannot rise above its source; it is also true that the stream will run downward, and must inevitably contract many pollutions from the lower levels on which it declines. The ardour which impels men to devote themselves with eager intensity to the labours of the market may often have an origin as pure as that of the stream which bubbles up on the hills, amid grass and ferns, and runs tinkling along its clear and rocky channels, setting its labours to a happy music, singing its low sweet song to the sweet listening air. But as it runs on, if it swell in volume and power, it also sinks and grows foul. Bent at first on acquiring the means to support a widowed mother, or to justify him in taking a wife, or to provide for his children, or to win an honourable place in his neighbours eyes, or to achieve the chance of self-culture and self-development, or to serve some public and worthy end, the man of business and affairs too often suffers himself to become more and more absorbed in his pursuits. He conceives larger schemes, is drawn into more perilous enterprises, and advances through these to fresh openings and opportunities, until at last, long after his original ends are compassed and forgotten, he finds himself possessed by the mere craving to extend his labours, resources, influence, if not by the mere craving to amass-a craving which often "teareth" and "tormenteth" him, but which can only be exorcised by an exertion of spiritual force which would leave him half dead. "He has no one with him, not even a son or a brother": the dear mother or wife is long since dead; his children, to use his own detestable phrase, are "off his hands": the public good has slipped from his memory and aims: but still "there is no end to all his labours, neither are his eyes satisfied with riches." Coheleth speaks of one such man: alas, of how many such might we speak!
To produce a Materialistic Scepticism; Ecc_3:18-21
(c) The "speculation" in the eye of business men is not commonly of a philosophic cast, and therefore we do not look to find them arguing themselves into the materialism which infected the Hebrew Preacher as he contemplated them and their blind devotion to their idol. They are far, perhaps very far, from thinking that in the body and spirit, in origin and end, man is no better than the beast, a creature of the same accident and subject to "the same chance." But though they do not reason out a conclusion so sombre and depressing, do they not practically acquiesce in it? If it is far from their thoughts, do they not live in its close neighbourhood? Their mind, like the dyers hand, is subdued to that it works in. Accustomed to think mainly of material interests, their character is materialised. They are disposed to weigh all things-truth, righteousness, the motives and aims of nobler men-in the scales of the market, and can very hardly believe that they should attach any grave value to aught which will not lend itself to their coarse handling. In their judgment, mental culture, or the graces of moral character, or single-hearted devotion to lofty ends, are not worthy to be compared with a full purse or large possessions. They regard as little better than a fool, of whom it is very kind of them to take a little care, the man who has thrown away what they call "his chances," in order that he may learn wisdom or do good. Giving, perhaps, a cheerful and unforced accord to the current moral maxims and popular creed, they permit neither to rule their conduct. If they do not say, "Man is no better than a beast," they carry themselves as if he were no better, as though he had no instincts or interests above those of the thrifty ant, or the cunning beaver, or the military locust, or the insatiable leech-although they are both surprised and affronted when one is at the pains to translate their deeds into words. Judged by their deeds, they are sceptics and materialists, since they have no vital faith in that which is spiritual and unseen. They have found "the life of their hands," and they are content with it. Give them whatever furnishes the senses, whatever in them holds by sense, and they will cheerfully let all else go. But such a materialism as this is far more injurious, far more likely to be fatal, than that which reflects, and argues, and utters itself in words, and refutes itself by the very powers which it employs. With them the malady has struck inward, and is beyond the reach of cure save by the most searching and drastic remedies.
To make Worship Formal and Insincere. Ecc_5:1-7
(d) But now if, like Coheleth, we follow these men to the Temple, what is the scene that meets our eye? In the English Ternple, I fear, that which would first strike an unaccustomed observer would be the fact that very few men of business are there. They are "conspicuous by their absence," or, at best, noted for an only occasional attendance. The Hebrew Temple was crowded with men; in the English Temple it is the other sex which predominates. But glance at the men who are there? Do you detect no signs of weariness and perfunctoriness? Do you hear no vows which will never be paid. and which they do not intend to pay even when they make them? no prayers which go beyond any honest and candid expression of their desires? Do you not feel and know that many of them are making an unwilling sacrifice to the decencies and the proprieties, instead of worshipping God the Spirit in spirit and nerving themselves for the difficulties of obedience to the Divine law? Listen: they are saying, "Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we bless Thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for Thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory." But are these ineffable spiritual benefits "above all" else to them? Do they care for "the means of grace" as much even as for the state of the market, or for "the hope of glory" as much as for success or promotion? Which is most in their thoughts, their lives, their aspirations, for which will they take most pains and make most sacrifices-for what they mean by the beautiful phrase "all the blessings of this life," or for that sacred and crowning act of the Divine Mercy, "the redemption," in which God has once for all revealed His fatherly forgiving love?
What is it that makes their worship formal and insincere? It is the very cause which, as the Preacher tells us, produced the like evil effect upon the Jews. They come into the Temple with preoccupied hearts. Their thoughts are distracted by the cares of life even as they bend in worship. And hence even the most sacred words turn to "idle talk" on their lips, as remote from the true feeling of the moment as "the multitude of dreams" which haunt the night; they utter fervent prayers without any due sense of their meaning, or any hearty wish to have them granted.
And to take from Life its Quiet and Innocent Enjoyments. Ecc_5:10-17
(e) Now surely a life so thick with perils, so beset with temptations, should have a very large and certain reward to offer. But has it? For one, Coheleth thinks it has not. In his judgment, according to his experience, instead of making a man happier even in this present time, to which it limits his thoughts and aims, it robs him of all quiet and happy enjoyment of his life. And, mark, it is not the unsuccessful man of business, who might naturally feel sore and aggrieved, but the successful man, the man who has made a fortune and prospered in his schemes, whom the Preacher describes as having lost all faculty of enjoying his gains. Even the man who has wealth and abundance, so that his soul lacketh nothing of all that he desireth, is placed before us as the slave of unsatisfied desire and constant apprehension. Both his hands are so full of labour that he cannot lay hold on quiet. Though he loves silver so well, and has so much of it, he is not satisfied therewith; his riches yield him no certain and abiding delight. And how can he be in "happy plight" who is
"debarred the benefit of rest?
When days oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night, and night by day, oppressd?
And each, though enemies to eithers reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture him."
The sound sleep of humble contented labour is denied him. He is haunted by perpetual apprehensions that "there is some ill a-brewing to his rest," that evil in some dreaded shape will befall him. He doubts "the filching age will steal his treasure." He knows that when he is called hence he can carry away nothing in his hand; all his gains must be left to his heir, who may either turn out a wanton fool or be crushed and degraded by the burden and temptations of a wealth for which he has not laboured. And hence, amid all his toils and gains, even the most prosperous and successful man suspects that he has been "labouring for the wind" and may reap the whirlwind: "he is much perturbed, and hath vexation and grief."
Is the picture overdrawn? Is not the description as true to modern experience as to that of "the antique world"? Shakespeare, who is our great English authority on the facts of human experience, thought it quite as true. His Merchant of Venice has argosies on every sea; and two of his friends, hearing him confess that sadness makes such a want-wit of him that he has much ado to know himself, tell him that his "mind is tossing on the ocean" with his ships. They proceed to discuss the natural effects of having so many enterprises on hand. One says:
"Believe me, Sir, had I such venture forth, The better part of my affections would Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind: Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads: And every object that might make me fear Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt Would make me sad."
And the other adds:
"My wind, cooling my broth, Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great at sea might do. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, But I should think of shallows and of flats, And see my wealthy Andrew, dockd in sand, Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs To kiss her burial. Should I go to church"
"And see the holy edifice of stone, And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, Which, touching but my gentle vessels side, Would scatter all her spices in the stream: Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks: And, in a word, but even now worth this, And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought To think on this: and shall I lack the thought That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?"
"Abundance suffereth not the rich to sleep"; the thought that his "riches may perish in some unlucky adventure" rings a perpetual alarm in his ears: "all his days he eateth in darkness, and is much perturbed, and hath vexation and grief." These are the words of the Hebrew Preacher: are not our own great poets words an expressive commentary on them, an absolute confirmation of them, covering them point by point? And shall we envy the wealthy merchant whose two hands are thus "full of labour and vexation of spirit"? Is not "the husbandman whose sleep is sweet, whether he eat little or much," better off than he? Nay, has not even the sluggard who, so long as he hath meat, foldeth his hands in quiet, a truer enjoyment of his life?
Of course Coheleth does not mean to imply that every man of business degenerates into a miserly sceptic, whose worship is a formulated hypocrisy and whose life is haunted with saddening apprehensions of misfortune. No doubt there were then, as there are now, many men of business who were wise enough to "take pleasure in all their labours," to cast their burden of care on Him in whose care stand both tomorrow and today; men to whom worship was a calming and strengthening communion with the Father of their spirits, and who advanced, through toil, to worthy or even noble ends. He means simply that these are the perils to which all men of business are exposed, and into which they fall so soon as their devotion to its affairs grows excessive. "Make business, and success in business, your chief good, your ruling aim, and you will come to think of your neighbour, as selfish rivals; you will begin to look askance on the lofty spiritual qualities which refuse to bow to the yoke of Mammon; your worship will sink into an insecure formalism; your life will be vexed and saddened with fears which will strangle the very faculty of tranquil enjoyment": this is the warning of the Preacher; a warning of which our generation, in such urgent sinful haste to be rich, stands in very special need.
2. But what checks, what correctives, what remedies, would the Preacher have us apply to the diseased tendencies of the time? How shall. men of business save themselves from being absorbed in its interests and affairs?
The Correctives of this Devotion are a Sense of its Perils; Ecc_5:10-17
(a) Well, the very sense of danger to which they are exposed-a danger so insidious, so profound, so fatal-should surely induce caution and a wary self-control. The symptoms of the disease are described that we may judge whether or not we are infected by it; its dreadful issues that, if infected, we may study a cure. The man who loves riches is placed before us that we may learn what he is really like-that he is not the careless happy being we often assume him to be. We see him decline on the low bare levels of covetousness and materialism, hypocrisy and fear; and, as we look, the Preacher turns upon us with, "There, that is the slave of Mammon in his habit as he lives. Do you care to be like that? Will you break your heart unless you are allowed to assume his heavy and degrading burden?"
And the Conviction that it is opposed to the Will of God as expressed in the Ordinances of his Providence, Ecc_3:1-8
This is one help to a wise content with our lot; but he has many more at our service, and notably this, -that an undue devotion to the toils of business is contrary to the will, the design, the providence of God. God, he argues, has fixed a time for every undertaking under heaven, and has made each of them beautiful in its season, but only then. By his kindly ordinances He has sought to divert us from an injurious excess in toil. Our sowing and our reaping, our time of rest and our time for work, the time to save and the time to spend, the time to gain and the time to lose, -all these, with all the fluctuating feelings they excite in us: in short, our whole life, from the cradle to the grave, is under, or should be under, law to Him. It is only when we violate His gracious ordinances, -working when we should be at rest, waking when we should sleep, saving when we should spend, weeping over losses which are real gains, or laughing over gains which will prove to be losses, -that we run into excess, and break up the peaceful order and tranquil flow of the life which He designed for us.
In the Wrongs which He permits Men to inflict upon us; Ecc_3:16-22; Ecc_4:1-3
Because we will not be obsequious to the ordinances of His wisdom, He permits us to meet a new check in the caprice and injustice of man-making even these to praise Him by subserving our good. If we do not suffer the violent oppressions which drew tears from the Preachers fellow captives, we nevertheless stand very much at the mercy of our neighbours in so far as our outward haps are concerned. Unwise human laws or an unjust administration of them, or the selfish rapacity of individual men-brokers who rig the market; bankers whose long prayers are a pretence under cloak of which they rob widows and orphans, and sometimes make them; bankrupts for whose wounds the Gazette has a singular power of healing, since they come out of it "sounder" men than they went in: these are only some of the instruments by which the labours of the diligent are shorn of their due reward. And we are to take these checks as correctives, to find in the losses which men inflict the gifts of a gracious God. He permits us to suffer these and the like disasters lest our hearts should be overmuch set on getting gain. He graciously permits us to suffer them that, seeing how often the wicked thrive (in a way and for a time) on the decay of the upright, we may learn that there is something better than wealth, more enduring, more satisfying, and may seek that higher good.
But above all, in the immortal Cravings which He has quickened in the Soul. Ecc_3:11
Nay, going to the very root of the matter and expounding its whole philosophy, the Preacher teaches us that wealth, however great and greatly used, cannot satisfy men, since God has "put eternity into their hearts" as well as time: and how should all the kingdoms of a world that must soon pass content those who are to live forever? This saying, "God has put eternity into their hearts," is one of the most profound in the whole book, and one of the most beautiful and suggestive. What it means is that, even if a man would confine his aims and desires within "the bounds and coasts of Time," he cannot do it. The very structure of his nature forbids it. For time, with all that it inherits, sweeps by him like a torrent, so that, if he would secure any lasting good, he must lay hold of that which is eternal. We may well call this world, for all so solid as it looks, "a perishing world"; for, like our own bodies, it is in a perpetual flux, perishing every moment that it may live a little longer, and must soon come to an end. But we, in our true selves, we who dwell inside the body and use its members as the workman uses his tools, how can we find a satisfying good whether in the body or in the world which is akin to it? We want a good as lasting as ourselves. Nothing short of that can be our chief good, or inspire us with a true content.
"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end:
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend"
And we might as well think to build a stable habitation on the waves which break upon the pebbled shore as to find an enduring good in the sequent minutes which carry us down the stream of time. It is only because we do not understand this "work of God" in putting eternity into our hearts and therefore making it impossible for us to be content with anything less than an eternal good; it is because, plunged in the flesh and its cares and delights, we forget the grandeur of our nature, and are tempted to sell our immortal birthright for a mess of pottage which, however much we enjoy it today, will leave us hungry tomorrow: it is only, I say, because we fail to understand this work of God "from beginning to end," that we ever delude ourselves with the hope of finding in aught the earth yields a good in which we can rest.
Practical Maxims deduced from this View of the Business life.
(b) A noble philosophy this, and pregnant with practical counsels of great value. For if, as we close our study of this Section of the Book, we ask, "What good advice does the Preacher offer that we can take and act upon?" we shall find that he gives us at least three serviceable maxims.
A Maxim on Cooperation. Ecc_4:9-16
To all men of business conscious of their special dangers and anxious to avoid them, he says, first: Replace the competition which springs from your jealous and selfish rivalry, with the cooperation which is born of sympathy and breeds goodwill. "Two are better than one. Union is better than isolation. Conjoint labour has the greater reward." Instead of seeking to take advantage of your neighbours, try to help them. Instead of standing alone, associate with your fellows. Instead of aiming at purely selfish ends, pursue your ends in common. Indeed the wise Hebrew Preacher anticipates the Golden Rule to a remarkable extent, and, in effect, bids us love our neighbour as our self, look on his things as well as our own, and do to all men as we would that they should do to us.
A Maxim on Worship. Ecc_5:1-7
His second maxim is: Replace the formality of your worship with a reverent and steadfast sincerity. Keep your foot when you go to the House of God. Put obedience before sacrifice. Do not hurry on your mouth to the utterance of words which transcend the desires of your heart. Be not one of those who
"Words for virtue take,
As though mere wood a shrine would make."
Do not come into the Temple with a preoccupied spirit, a spirit distracted with thoughts that travel different ways. Realise the presence of the Great King, and speak to Him with the reverence due to a King. Keep the vows you have made in His house after you have left it. Seek and serve Him with all your hearts, and ye shall find rest to your souls.
A Maxim on Trust in God Ecc_5:8-17
And his last maxim is: Replace your grasping self-sufficiency with a constant trust in the fatherly providence of God. If you see oppression or suffer wrong, if your schemes are thwarted and your enterprises fail, you need not therefore lose the quiet repose and settled peace which spring from a sense of duty discharged and the undisturbed possession of the main good of life. God is over all, and rules all the undertakings of man, giving each its season and place, and causing all to work together for the good of the loving and trustful heart. Trust in Him, and you shall feel, even though you cannot prove,
"That every cloud that spreads above,
And veileth love, itself is love."
Trust in Him and you shall find that
"The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good,
The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill
And all good things from evil,"
as they strike on the great horologe of Time, are set to a growing music by the hand of God; a music which rises and falls as we listen, but which nevertheless swells through all its saddest cadences and dying falls toward that harmonious close, that "undisturbed concent," in which all discords will be drowned.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 9, 12, 16, 19 Ecc_3:1. Season-time.] Season signifies a certain period or term;…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecc_3:1. Season-time.] Season signifies a certain period or term; time denotes a division of time in general.
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Ecc_3:2. A time to plant, &c.] Used in O. T. as a metaphor to describe the founding and destruction of cities.
Ecc_3:7. A time to rend and a time sew.] The rending of garments on hearing sad tidings, and sewing them when the season of grief is past.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Ecc_3:1-8
THE SUPREMACY OF THE DIVINE CONTROL
Man forms designs for his own happiness, gives free scope to his powers, and traces out the course of his life. Yet there is over him a higher system of things, a stern and terrible Power by which he is overmastered and subdued. He is made, after all, to fulfil the designs of heaven. The Divine control over every domain of creation is supreme over all other sovereignties. This is evident from the following facts:
I. The Divine Control is exerted throughout all time. Human history is inserted between the two eternities. In the infinite solitudes of the past, before the birth of time, the mind has not whereon to rest, nor can the eye pierce beyond the present order of things into the immense future. Between these there is a range of time, forming the platform upon which human history is erected. Here the mind can rest, and survey the rule of the Supreme.
1. God made time for us by giving a peculiar direction to His power. Before time was, or ever any creature was made, He dwelt in that eternity which knows no periods. No voice could be heard in that vast solitude but His own. Yet He was not content to remain thus solitary, but surrounded Himself with those intelligencies upon whom He might pour the illustrations of His wisdom and benevolence. Thus the Divine power directed by goodness has created time for us wherein all the circumstances and issues of all creatures are displayed.
2. God rules over the whole course of time which He has made. Origination gives a natural title to possession. God has exerted His power and wisdom both in time and space, and therefore has an undisputed claim to reign supreme over each realm.
3. God’s Supreme Control is to be observed chiefly in the events of time. Events take place at certain seasons, and a season is a portion cut off from time. They are its joints, or articulations—critical periods of time. What has been ripening slowly through long years comes to the birth at a moment in the grand decisive events of history. Thus the Deluge, the giving of the Law, the establishment of Judaism, the founding of Christianity, the invention of Printing, the Reformation, are some of the great births of time. They are seasons when it is most of all observed that there is a wise and Infinite Power above, directing the great issues of time. These are the joints that connect and strengthen the whole frame of human history. The smooth course of affairs often fails to excite attention, but great events startle men into surprise, and invite contemplation. The thoughtless world is thus roused to behold the mighty hand of the great Ruler of all.
II. The Divine control is marked by an unchangeable order. The times and seasons in which every purpose comes to full ripeness are predetermined by God. With Him there is no disordered mixture of things—no wild confusion. Infinite wisdom cannot be taken by surprise, or plunged of a sudden into perplexity. All the events of time arise from a fixed order of things. They are determined by a plan, dimly seen by us, but traced in stern and clear lines by a steady hand, and with the precision and confidence of infinite skill. We call this regular order of things law, for so it is as seen from our point of view; but on God’s side it is the exercise of will; not indeed of an uncertain and capricious nature, but following method—the will of the Father of Lights—a clear and illumined will. This is unchangeable by us, or by any other power.
1. Infinite wisdom and power lead to such a result. God has no need to make experiments to try some doubtful issue. He has no mistakes to repair, nor can any reason arise to oblige Him to retouch and modify His plan. In His vast design no element, however small, is omitted or overlooked. He has power to carry all His purposes into effect; hence such a Being has no cause or reason to oblige Him to depart from a fixed order.
2. The study of nature teaches us that there must be such an order in human events. There is such a fixed order in the physical world, in the great orbs that roll above us. The laws of nature are regular, severe, exact. We can depend upon them in their inflexible constancy. All things in the universe are ordered by number, weight, and measure. Are we to suppose that the regular plan of the Divine government is only concerned with lifeless matter, and does not also extend with equal accuracy and completeness to souls? Is man alone to be made the sport of blind chance, when all movements and changes of created things are governed by a rigid law? Man, with all the events of time that concern him, reveals an infinite complication, yet surely the boundless wisdom of God is equal to the task of governing him according to a regular plan? The most slippery elements of human affairs are held by the Divine hand.
3. The Bible is full of this doctrine. What reason teaches us to expect, the Bible reveals as a fact. The added light of Revelation enlarges our prospect, and strengthens our sight of the wide realms over which God rules. What is the Gospel itself but the kingdom of God, implying authority, law, and order? The more we look into God’s latest Revelation, the more are we persuaded that there is nothing that concerns human nature which is left out by the Divine plan. The teaching of the Bible is that man, as an inhabitant of this world, and as a candidate for immortality, is completely under the control of the Supreme.
III. The Divine control is illustrated by the whole course of human affairs. The hand of God in history can be clearly perceived by every one whose attention is at all awake. The proudest is brought, sooner or later, to confess that God has “beset him, behind and before.” The kings of the earth who have” taken counsel together against the Lord and His Anointed “have either been tamed to submission, or in mad rebellion have broken themselves against the bars of destiny. History is but a revelation of the fixed principles of Providence. A survey of this scene of man will give abundant illustration of the completeness of the Divine control throughout the whole extent of human history.
1. It is illustrated in the individual life.
(1.) The boundaries of that life are determined. Birth and death are the extreme limits between which each single life receives a manifestation. Life is purely a gift. We sought it not: it was thrust upon us. Though flowing to us through human channels, it rises from the Fountain of Life. We were summoned into His presence. The time of our public appearance here was appointed by Providence, and we must accept it for good or evil. We are here, called from the abyss of nothing by the Almighty power. The time of our departure hence is also determined. Though that time is to us unknown, yet where our journey of life shall end is known fully to the Great Disposer of all things. He has already drawn the circle which we must fill, nor can we by all our skill and care enlarge it, nor enclose a greater area from the territory of life allotted to us.
(2.) The discipline of that life is determined. We pass through various changes of fortune, and these are employed by Divine Providence as a means of spiritual education. We are planted, and again plucked up—we enter upon new modes of life, and old scenes pass away from us, never to return. Structures which we had raised in confidence and hope are broken down, and with a sadder heart and dearly-bought experience we build again as best we may. We are stunned by disease, as if killed by the terrible blow; and then healed again to receive what awaits us in life. In the merchandise of life, we experience the excitement of loss and gain; and what we have secured by energy and kept with care we may be obliged, in the emergencies of fortune, to cast away.
(3.) The emotions of our life are determined. We have no command over our joys or our sorrows. They arise from the constitution of our nature, acted upon by the various changes in the world around us. There are times when sorrow lifts the sluices of our tears, and we cannot intercept their flow; again the season of joy comes and shakes our countenance into ripples of laughter. There are times too of excessive emotion, when to mourn or to dance seems to be the only fit expression of the great force with which both grief and pleasure possess our frame.
(4.) The seasons of special duty are also determined. War and peace, silence and speech, are here selected as the type of many. In a world of conflicting interests and passions, there are times when even the most peaceful disposition is dragged into a contest, and then the season comes when the conditions of peace ought to be cheerfully accepted. There are times when silence is the highest duty, lest we should pluck the unripe fruit of wisdom, or speak words out of season to some heavy heart. Then the moment comes when we should hold no longer from speaking, but give utterance to the thought within us to instruct, to comfort, and to bless. The seasons both of silence and speech are forced upon us, when the most sullen is compelled to utterance, and the most noisy tongue is silenced.
2. It is illustrated in the life of nations. The history of nations is analogous to that of individuals, but it is drawn to a larger scale. It is developed through greater measures of time. Nations, like individuals, have peculiarities of character, and special elements of strength and weakness. As the moral determinations of a man’s early life change the whole course of his subsequent history, so it is with nations. By great moral crises they rise to superior influence and grandeur, or date from them the first symptoms of decline. History shows that the Divine control over the life of nations is complete.
(1.) They have their allotted span of life. For them, too, there is a “time to be born and a time to die.” They rise, flourish, and decay, and run through a strange and eventful course between the cradle and the grave. One nation after another has passed away. We have but the poor remains of their glory embalmed in history. Rome and Carthage, and mighty Babylon—where are they? The mighty past is full of the graves of empires. Divine Providence calls a people to be a nation, and when their course is run they go down into the dust of time. They were “planted” and then “plucked up,” they were gathered and then dispersed by weakness, and completely undone.
(2.) They have times of severe Providential visitations. They are wounded as by the thrusts and stabs of some terrible fortune; they are healed again, recover strength, and live to complete their history.
(3.) They pass through the varied changes of public feeling. In times of great public calamity they are constrained to weep and mourn; and in some great national excitement of joy they assume the proper circumstances of mirth and rapture.
(4.) They have the alternations both of prosperity and adversity. They have their times “to get,” and “to lose,” “to gather,” and to “cast away.”
(5.) They have times of special duty. Now, by the pressure of circumstances, or by a sense of propriety, they are forced to silence; and again, the time comes for self assertion. Hence, love and hatred, peace and war.
3. It is illustrated in the life of Churches. The life of the Church itself, as the Kingdom of God, survives the destruction of States and all the changes of the world; the seed of the Kingdom is imperishable. But separate Churches have histories as strange and eventful as those of the individual.
(1.) They have a fixed period of existence. They are founded, endowed with spiritual life; and after flourishing, it may be through centuries, they die out. They are “planted” and “plucked up;” gathered as stones for a building, and, like the Temple at Jerusalem, they are scattered. Where are the Seven Churches of Asia now? Where those flourishing African Churches of the early centuries? Infidelity and superstition grow rank over the ruins of once famous Churches. Ecclesiastical systems change; they have no natural immortality. Each system will have its day. There is no miracle wrought to preserve the garments of religious thought and Church order from waxing old, and decaying through the wilderness of history.
(2.) They have seasons of manifest Divine Visitation. There are times when God, in His dealings with His Church, compels attention. There are manifest visitations of God to His people both of anger and love. By the corruption of doctrine, and the influence of the world, by neglecting her true mission, and by prosperity, the Church is corrupted, and Divine judgments threaten, and at length fall upon her. Then is the season to weep and mourn and to rend the garments. Providence often resorts to terrible means, as if the Lord would slay His people. Then there are times of blessed visitation, when the Church is increased and prosperous; the sharp wound is healed, the season of joy and exultation has come.
(3.) They have seasons of special duty. There are times when Churches can afford to be silent and regard the cavils and opposition of others with a lofty indifference. It is often best to maintain peace, and to allow the fury without to spend its own violence and utterly exhaust itself. But the fit time for self-assertion arrives, and the Church must carry the war into the enemies’ camp. The Christian Religion itself has been the occasion of terrible conflicts, and men have kindled the flame of fierce passions upon the altar of God. The temper of the world towards the Churches of different periods varies. It is fickle and inconstant like human affection. There is for the Church, in regard to her relations with the world, a “time to love, and a time to hate.” For the Church of every age there are “times and seasons which the Father hath put into His own power.” They are all a portion of the eternal plan.
THE CLOCK OF DESTINY
MORTALITY is a huge time-piece wound up by the Almighty Maker; and after he has set it a-going nothing can stop it till the Angel swears that time shall be no longer. But here it ever vibrates and ever advances—ticking one child of Adam into existence, and ticking another out. Now it gives the whirr of warning, and the world may look out for some great event; and presently it fulfils its warning, and rings in a noisy revolution. But there! as its index travels on so resolute and tranquil, what tears and raptures attend its progress! It was only another wag of the sleepless pendulum: but it was fraught with destiny, and a fortune was made—a heart was broken—an empire fell. We cannot read the writing on the mystic cogs as they are coming slowly up; but each of them is coming on God’s errand, and carries in its graven brass a Divine decree. Now, however—now, that the moment is past, we know; and in the fulfilment we can read the flat. This instant was to say to Solomon, “Be born!” this other was to say to Solomon in all his glory, “Die!” That instant was to “plant” Israel in Palestine; that other was to “pluck him up.” And thus inevitable, inexorable, the great clock of human destiny moves on, till a mighty hand shall grasp its heart and hush for ever its pulse of iron [Dr. J. Hamilton].
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecc_3:1. In all the afflictions of the good, it is an element of consolation that the severe season will have an end, and in the great future a brighter one will arise. It is the highest prudence to await in patience God’s time.
The fact that there is a Divine plan to be observed amidst all the seeming disorder of human things, is the charter of our liberty, the very foundation of our hope. Under the dominion of a wild and reckless chance, we could not walk sure-footedly in this life, nor cherish a deathless hope of better things awaiting us in the life to come.
There are atmospheres that support, and others that extinguish flame. There are beliefs that have a like effect upon the soul. Without the recognition of a superior power controlling all things, the torch of hope cannot burn.
The plan of God must be distinguished from fate and destiny. Some ancient philosophers taught that God Himself was subjected to an iron necessity, that the resistless walls of fate constrained even the Highest. We know that God is above His plan; that it is framed by Infinite Wisdom, maintained by Infinite Power, and pervaded by the Spirit of Infinite Love.
The plan of God results not from mere will, supported by a terrible and uncertain power. His will is not wilfulness, or caprice. We know what we are to expect from one who is wise and good.
The view of the machinery of the Divine Government, constructed with such infinite skill, and moved on by a terrible power, would of itself oppress and overwhelm our soul. Human nature must languish even under the contemplation of the highest regularity and order. But there is an infinite tenderness above all, and within the awful circles of wisdom and power there is a Divine bosom on which weary souls can repose, and where they are safe from fear.
Even Christ Himself became subject to the plan of God. He waited for His “baptism” and His “hour.” His greatest enemies could not prevail against Him till the appointed season had come.
“Time”—“Season.”
1. Consolation for the righteous in the day of trouble. They know that there will be a period to their sorrow, and that comfort and rest await them.
2. Assurance of the triumph of truth and right. He who has formed the plan of nature’s vast year is the Holy One, and in the upshot of all things He will vindicate His own character. He will make the cause of the right and the true to triumph.
3. The condemnation of the false and wrong. The most rebellious will be forced at last to submission; and he who has enjoyed his fancied liberty, because judgment appeared to linger, will find that he is overtaken at last.
There is no wandering out of the reach of God’s perfect knowledge, no slipping through the hands of Omnipotence. God’s hand is as steady as His eye; and certainly thus to reduce contingencies to method, instability and chance itself to an unfailing rule and order, argues such a mind as is fit to govern the world [South].
Nothing can come from the most carefully constructed of human schemes till the pre-determined hour has struck, even if all men on earth were to put forth the most violent efforts. God will not suffer the hands of His great clock to be pointed by the kings and princes and lords of the earth [Luther].
The things “under heaven” have but a time—a brief season. There is awaiting the good and the true the calm and untroubled flow of the ages of eternity.
Ecc_3:2. There is “a time to be born,” and however much a man may dislike the era on which his existence is cast, he cannot help himself: that time is his, and he must make the most of it. Milton need not complain that his lot is fallen on evil days; for these are his days, and he can have no other. Roger Bacon and Galileo need not grudge their precocious being, that they have been prematurely launched into the age of inquisitors and knowledge-quenching monks—for this age was made to make them. And so with the time to die. Voltaire need not offer half his fortune to buy six weeks’ reprieve; for if the appointed moment has arrived it cannot pass into eternity without taking the sceptic with it. And even good Hezekiah—his tears and prayers would not have turned the shadow backward, had that moment of threatened death been the moment of God’s intention [Dr. J. Hamilton].
How immense is the difference between the circumstances of one human being and another!—and yet this is made by, what seems to us, the mere accident of birth. “This babe to be hail’d and woo’d as a Lord, and that to be shunn’d like a leper!” Thus the Supreme Power determines the “bounds of our habitation” by appointing the time and place where we shall make our entrance upon life.
Each human soul born into the world is an entirely new product. It never existed before. Matter continues the same through all changes and evolutions, but souls are strictly new. The observation of this common fact prepares the mind to accept the great mystery of creation.
To be born is—
1. To enter upon scenes of life already prepared for us. The world was made ready for our habitation, and the circumstances of society were prepared for us long before we came.
2. To incur the obligation of duty. The fact that we are created by a higher Power implies a certain relation to that Power, and therefore corresponding duties.
3. To take our part in the system of Providence. We become, at birth, a part of the established order of things; we must take our place and accept our condition.
4. To enter upon a state of probation. There is another great event awaiting us, determined by the Divine decree—death. Life is the season in which the character is to be fitted for the next scene of things to which God shall call us.
The gift of Life.—
1. It is a Divine gift. God alone can impart it. The breathing marble is but a figure of speech. The Spirit of God, the primal force of the universe, is “sent forth, and they are created.”
2. It is a blessed gift. Our creation is the foundation of all the blessings that we can enjoy in any world. All the riches and advancement belonging to thought and feeling from hence take their rise.
3. It is an awful gift. Existence is a terrible responsibility, for we may make it an evil and a curse.
Believers and Christians know that no tyrant’s sword can kill or destroy them, and that before their hour comes no creature whatever can harm them. Hence they do not trouble and worry themselves much about death, but when it comes they die unto the will of God as He pleases, like lambs and young children [Luther].
The busiest of mortals must find a time to die. Death has been described as “the land without any order,” and, as it seems to us, without any order the King of Terrors carries off his victims. But Providence observes a fixed order. There is for every mortal course a fixed hour to close.
The time and manner of our death are to us unknown. This uncertainty is beneficial—
1. On social grounds. Man, by this provision, does not end his labours till the last moment in which he can be useful to society.
2. On religious grounds. The motives for seeking God are strengthened by the uncertainty of life.
But above all, believe it, the sweetest Canticle is Nunc dimittis. where a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy [Bacon].
The time of death is one—
1. Of parting from all the associations of life. Those scenes of nature and of man which had become endeared to us are rudely torn from our heart. There is a complete loss of the world.
2. Of an oppressive sense of loneliness. There is no human breast on which the parting soul can rely. The dread journey must be attempted alone, as far as human supports are concerned.
3. Of the dread of the unknown and untried. The unknown is ever the terrible.
And so there is “a time to plant.” The impulse comes upon a man of fortune, and he lays out his spacious lawn, and studs it with massive trees; and he plants his garden, and in the soil imbeds the richest and rarest flowers. And that impulse fades away, and in the fickleness of sated opulence the whole is rooted up, and converted into a wilderness again. Or by his own or a successor’s fall, the region is doomed to destruction; and when strangling nettles have choked the geraniums and the lilies, and, crowded into atrophy, the lean plantations grow tall and branchless, the axe of an enterprising purchaser clears away the dark thickets, and his plough-share turns up the weedy parterre [Dr. J. Hamilton].
God has often plucked up the heathen and planted His own people. The Church is a cleared enclosure in the midst of the wilderness of the world.
The Heavenly Husbandman will pluck up every plant that is unfit for His garden.
The growths of sin and error can only flourish for a time. No advantage of situation can give them a title to continuance. The season for plucking up will come, for God must remove them out of His sight.
Ecc_3:3. God often resorts to terrible means in order to purify His Church.
Affliction is sometimes sharp, and seems to be the prelude to death; but it is not in itself an end. God only ordains death as a passage to life. He is the Heavenly Physician who wounds but to heal.
The hurt comes before the healing, and affliction before the fruition of blessedness.
The miracles of healing performed by Our Lord contain a prophecy of what He will do as the Restorer of Paradise. He will heal all the wounds of His people, and give them life to enjoy in its best condition.
Times of healing, whether of bleeding and sick nations, of rent and distempered Churches, or wounded spirits, are in God’s hand; and, till His time come, all essays of other physicians for healing are in vain; and therefore He is to be humbly employed and depended upon for that end, considering that however times of healing be fixed with Him, yet the importunity of penitents is ordinarily a comfortable forerunner of their being healed [Nisbet].
The most famous and enduring of works have been destroyed, and the glories of each succeeding age are often built upon the ruins of the past.
No worldly fortune so great but God can break it down, as He will for every man at death. All the works of man are doomed. Those structures alone shall abide that are raised upon the everlasting foundations.
When this life is past, there will be, for the good, an end of the succession of breaking down and building up. For them there is prepared the city which shall never be spoiled by the invader.
God builds again the walls of the Church when He grants great spiritual prosperity and increase.
In the Church’s lowest condition the faithful few need not despair; the “time to build up” will come.
The progress of all human things is towards final and complete ruin. But upon these ruins God will raise everlasting habitations.
In the midst of failure and destruction, the wise may hope and take courage. Their ruined structures shall be built again. We must fail here; but if we are one with God, we shall find all re-constructed for us on a larger plan, and with more refined elegance.
Ecc_3:4. We cannot fix the seasons of sorrow or of joy; they are forced upon us by the decrees of Providence.
With the good, joy always comes last. Their history is a transcript of the history of Christ. He suffered first, and then entered into His glory.
The weeping of the world is but tears shed over the grave of hope; it is the anguish of despair. But the righteous weep with a sadness which takes comfort. Their darkest prospect is rounded by the glory of unfading hope.
There are seasons when the Church must hang her harp upon the willows and weep the tears of memory and long regrets; but the night of weeping shall be followed by the morning of joy.
It is best to yield to the feeling of the time, for this is the design of Providence. The children of this world try to force themselves to laughter when they ought to weep—there is a deep misery underlying their loudest joy.
Tears are, as it were, the blood of the wounds of the soul, which manifest the greatness of them; and so the light skipping of the body in dancing is but the shadow of the light and lofty flying of the mind in joy [Jermin].
The Lord hath His own times fixed wherein He will fill the mouths of His people with laughter, and turn their mourning into dancing by making them see the performance of those promises which they could hardly believe, healing their spiritual distempers, guarding their hearts against the vexation of affliction, giving them such sweet foretastes of their future happiness that they cannot but skip for joy, even in the midst of the worst that men can do to them. And when His time for making His people laugh and dance cometh, the world cannot hinder it [Nisbet].
No one can fix a date and say, I shall spend that day merrily, or I must spend it mournfully. The day fixed for the wedding may prove the day for the funeral; and the ship which was to bring back the absent brother, may only bring his coffin. On the other hand, the day we had destined for mourning, God may turn to dancing, and may gird it with irresistible gladness [Dr. J. Hamilton].
There are extremes of joy and sorrow which must receive a corresponding expression. From their very nature, they must be of brief duration. There is an average healthy pulse for the spiritual as well as for the natural man. The soul must not be dissolved in rapture so as to give no heed to the claims of duty.
The extreme forms of human emotion show that this world is not our place of rest. Ours is not that calm and untroubled joy which the righteous look for beyond life. The Fountain of Life above is no intermittent spring.
Ecc_3:5. Destruction and re-building—These words describe all history.—
1. The history of material and social progress. This is mainly a breaking-up of institutions which have been proved a failure—no longer able to accompany the soul into higher latitudes; or it is the substitution of new methods because they are better and more potent than the old—as in skilful inventions and contrivances.
2. The history of thought. Old fashions of thinking have passed away, and new systems have been built up. And so it will be to the end, as long as the constitution of the mind is unchanged.
Human monuments cannot endure for ever. They are broken down, to be replaced by other works of taste and skill. The material progress of man requires such renewal. A like necessity exists in intellectual progress. Each age requires a new embodiment of the truth. Hence the necessity of current literature.
Christ said to the Jews, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” It was God’s house no longer. When the Church has reached this stage of corruption, the time for scattering her stones is not far off. But God cherishes the purpose of building in the midst of this work of undoing. The glorious Christian Temple was raised upon the ruins of Judaism.
“There is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” There is a time when the fondness of friendship bestows its caresses, and receives them in return with reciprocal sincerity and delight: and a time when the ardour cools; when professions fail; when the friend of our bosom’s love proves false and hollow-hearted, and the sight of him produces only the sigh and tear of bitter recollection. We refrain from embracing because our embrace is not returned [Wardlaw].
The love of God to His Church is unchangeable, but the special expressions of His love—i.e., His favour, varies. The souls of the righteous are sometimes cast down as if God did not permit them always to enjoy His closest and most retired affection.
Providence has ordained it that not even in religion itself shall we have a constant rapture of delight. In the most entrancing music of the soul, there must be pauses of silence.
Ecc_3:6. There is a time when every enterprise succeeds; when, as if he were a Midas, whatsoever the prosperous merchant touches is instantly gold. Then comes a time when all is adverse—when flotillas sink, when ports are closed, and each fine opening only proves another and a tantalising failure. And so there is “a time to keep and a time to cast away.” There is a time when in the cutting blast the traveller is fain to wrap his cloak more closely around him; a time when in the torrid beam he is thankful to be rid of it. There is a time when we cannot keep too carefully the scrip or satchel which contains the provision for our journey; a time when, to outrun the pursuing assassin, or to bribe the red-armed robber, we fling it down without a scruple. It was a time to keep when the sea was smooth, and Rome’s ready market was waiting for the corn of Egypt; but it was a time to cast the wheat into the sea when the angry ocean clamoured for the lives of thrice a hundred passengers [Dr. J. Hamilton].
We have here—
1. A recognition of the duty of industry. There is “a time to get.” Providence calls men to active diligence in the sober pursuit of this world’s good.
2. The vicissitudes of fortune. No human power can contrive that our fortunes shall be constant and unbroken. They may be undermined by the merest accident; or we may be deprived of the power to enjoy them.
3. The prudence proper in extremity. It is right carefully to preserve the results of our labour, but there are emergencies when, to serve some higher purpose, we must part with our most cherished earthly good.
That which is subject to such violent changes, and which we must be prepared to lose, cannot be our chief good. It is no part of our real selves, no lasting inheritance of the soul.
Even our life, the dearest treasure we possess, must be rendered up at the high demands of duty.
The treasures of the mind and soul are alone exempt from this inexorable law. Capricious fortune cannot force us to resign immortal wealth.
We must not attach our hearts to that which we may lose so soon.
Ecc_3:7. There is a time when calamity threatens or grief has come, and we feel constrained to rend our apparel and betoken our inward woe; a time when the peril has withdrawn, or the fast is succeeded by a festival, when it is equally congruous to remove the symbols of sorrow. There is “a time to keep silence”—a time when we see that our neighbour’s grief is great, and we will not sing songs to a heavy heart; a time when, in the abatement of anguish, a word of sympathy may prove a word in season; a time when to remonstrate with the transgressor would be to reprove a madman, or, like the pouring of vinegar on nitre, would be to excite a fiery explosion; but a time will come when, in the dawn of repentance, or the sobering down of passion, he will feel that faithful are the wounds of a friend [Dr. J. Hamilton].
Providence has ordained that great and violent griefs shall not be perpetual. The rents of sorrow are healed by time; wherefore time has been called “the comforter.”
There are seasons when man must pay his tribute to nature, and assume the proper circumstances of woe. Again the season arrives when it is seemly to remove the ensigns of sorrow.
Silence should go before speech, for only in the silence of meditation can speech be wisely framed.
Silence is the proper attitude of the soul.—
1. Before a great sorrow. The small griefs of men are noisy and demonstrative, but the greatest griefs are silent. They choke the utterance.
2. Before a great mystery. When words fail to give to the vast and infinite shape and outline, we can only stand and wonder and adore. In the inner shrine of religious thought we must cover our faces.
O the strong buckler of a circumspect defence, silence! O the most faithful foundation of stability! For many being well settled with a stable heart, yet unawares have fallen by the error of a wandering tongue [St. Ambrose].
There are some seasons wherein the Lord’s people are to refrain from speaking even that which is in itself good, and might prove so to others. As
1. When we are called to learn from others (Job_32:7);
2. When men turn brutish, and declare themselves incapable of profiting, and the more they are spoken to are the more enraged in their wickedness (Mat_7:6), and so incorrigible that others can neither have access to deal with them, nor with God for them (Amo_5:13); and,
3. When the truth hath been often before sufficiently asserted and cleared even to their conviction (Mat_27:14) [Nisbet].
God broke the long silence which reigned before the world was made by saying, “Let there be light.” We should only break silence to speak words of quiet power, rich in the purity of truth and goodness, and tending to diffuse peace and joy.
The resulting force of one body acting upon another depends upon the angle at which it is struck. Words spoken in proper season strike the mind directly with full effective force, while those which are ill-timed can only strike with diminished power.
Seasons for speaking.
1. To give testimony for the truth.
2. To rebuke sin.
3. To comfort the afflicted.
4. To vindicate the innocent.
5. To instruct.
Providence has supreme control over those actions which seem to lie most within our own power. The most refractory under Heaven’s government must accept the seasons of silence and speech with the same helpless resignation as they must accept the natural seasons of the year.
Ecc_3:8. We have no complete command over our love and hatred, for they depend upon causes beyond ourselves. They are the opposite poles of human emotion, and, like the magnetic needle, they obey the forces of attraction and repulsion.
There is a period when, from identity of pursuit, or from the spell of some peculiar attraction, a friend is our all in all, and our idolatrous spirits live and move and have their being in him; but with riper years or changing character, the spell dissolves, and we marvel at ourselves that we could ever find zest in insipidity, or fascination in vulgarity. And just as individuals cannot control their hatred and their love, so nations cannot regulate their pacifications and their conflicts. But just at the moment when they are pledging a perpetual alliance, an apple of discord is thrown in, and to avenge an insulted flag, or settle a disputed boundary, or maintain the tottering balance of power, wager of battle is forthwith joined [Dr. J. Hamilton].
God has both the mild and the stormy passions of human nature entirely under His command.
The changes of our hearts’ emotion are determined by Providence working slowly through time.
The system of Divine Providence is made up of antagonistic elements, of which each one in turn will have its brief season. If we accept the facts of human nature as they are, we cannot expect otherwise than that wars and commotions will arise. History is but the development of the possibilities latent in man.
In the recital of the chief examples of the Divine Control, the series is concluded by the mention of peace, for this is the goal and Sabbath of all God’s ways with man. The end of all the strife and agitation of this troubled year of existence is to secure eternal peace.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Ecc 3:1-15
Ecc 3:1-15
I. Not only has God made everything, but there is a beauty in this arrangement where all is fortuitous to us, but all is fixed by Him. "He hath made everything beautiful in its time," and that season must be beautiful which to infinite love and wisdom seems the best. "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the creation;" and, so to speak, each day that dawns, though its dawning include an earthquake, a battle, or a deluge—each day that dawns, however many it surprises, is no surprise to Him who sees the end from the beginning, and who in each evolving incident but sees the fulfilment of His "determined counsel"—the translation into fact of one other omniscient picture of the future.
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II. The works of God are distinguished by opportuneness of development and precision of purpose. There is a season for each of them, and each comes in its season. All of them have a function to fulfil, and they fulfil it. To which (Ecc 3:14) the Preacher adds that they are all of their kind consummate, so perfect that no improvement can be made; and left to themselves, they will be perpetual. How true is this regarding God’s greatest work: redemption! In doing it, He has done it "for ever."
III. There is a uniformity in the Divine procedure (Ecc 3:15). There are certain great principles from which infinite wisdom never deviates. Through all the operations of nature, providence, and grace "that which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past."
J. Hamilton, The Royal Preacher, Lecture VIII.
Reference: Ecc 3:1-8.—Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 3rd series, p. 334.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-5:20
A profound gloom rests on the second act or section of this drama. It teaches us that we are helpless in the iron grip of laws which we had no voice in making; that we often lie at the mercy of men whose mercy is but a caprice; that in our origin and end, in body and spirit, in faculty and prospect, in our lives and pleasures, we are no better than the beasts that perish; that the avocations into which we plunge, amid which we seek to forget our sad estate, spring from our jealousy the one of the other, and tend to a lonely miserliness, without a use or a charm.
I. The Preacher’s handling of this subject is very thorough and complete. According to him, men’s excessive devotion to affairs springs from "a jealous rivalry the one with the other;" it tends to form in them a grasping, covetous temper which can never be satisfied, to produce a materialistic scepticism of all that is noble and spiritual in thought and action, to render their worship formal and insincere, and in general to incapacitate them for any quiet, happy enjoyment of their life. This is his diagnosis of their disease.
II. But what checks, what correctives, what remedies, would the Preacher have us apply to the diseased tendencies of the time? How shall men of business save themselves from that excessive devotion to its affairs which breeds so many portentous evils? (1) The very sense of the danger to which they are exposed—a danger so insidious, so profound, so fatal—should surely induce caution and a wary self-control. (2) The Preacher gives us at least three serviceable maxims. To all men of business conscious of their special dangers and anxious to avoid them he says, (a) Replace the competition which springs from your jealous rivalry with the co-operation which is born of sympathy and breeds goodwill. (b) Replace the formality of your worship with a reverent and steadfast sincerity. (c) Replace your grasping self-sufficiency with a constant holy trust in the fatherly providence of God.
S. Cox, The Quest of the Chief Good, p. 140.
References: Ecc 3:2.—G. Dawson, Sermons on Daily Life and Duty, p. 277; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. i., p. 57. Ecc 3:4.—J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iv., p. 334; W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 81; G. Rogers, Ibid., vol. xxviii., p. 91. Ecc 3:6.—S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 107. Ecc 3:7.—A. A. Bonar, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. i., p. 123. Ecc 3:9-22.—R. Buchanan, Ecclesiastes: its Meaning and Lessons, p. 107.
Ecc 3:11
I. This truth becomes more manifestly true in things in proportion as their nature rises. Everything in the world must be in its true place and time, or it is not beautiful. That is true from the lowest to the highest, only with the lowest it is not easy to discover it. It does not seem to matter where the pebble lies, on this side of the road or on the other. It may indeed do sad mischief out of its place, but its place is a wide one. The things of higher nature are more fastidious in their demands. This law holds between different kinds of men. The highest natures are most dependent upon timeliness and fitness. They must act at the right moment. When the great feast was ready at Jerusalem, and the brethren of Jesus were going up from Nazareth, as they went every year, they urged Jesus to go with them; and His answer was, "My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready." There was something so sad and so noble in His words. They, with no recognised mission, might go when and where they would. They, with no burden on their shoulders, might walk freely over the whole earth. But He, with His task, His duty—His Father’s name to glorify, His brethren’s souls to save, the kingdom of heaven to set up—He must wait till the door opened. He could walk only where the way was wide enough for Him to pass with His burden.
II. All the events of. life, all of God’s dispensations, get their real beauty, or ugliness from the times in which they come to us or in which we come to them.
III. There are continual applications of our truth in the religious life. Each experience of Christian life is good and comely in its true place, when it comes in the orderly sequences of Christian growth, and only there, not beautiful when it comes artificially forced in where it does not belong.
IV. This truth is at the bottom of any clear notion about the character of sin. We say that we are sinful, but really we are always passing over the essential sinfulness into the things around us. It is these wicked things that make us wicked. But here comes up our truth that there are no wicked things; that wickedness is not in things, but in the displacement and misuse of things: and there is nothing which, kept in its true place and put to its true use, is not beautiful and good.
Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons, p. 244.
I. The difference between the splendid world of vegetation, with its myriad colours and its ever-changing life, between the animal world, with its studied gradations of form and of development, and man, is this: God hath set eternity in our hearts. All creation around us is satisfied with its sustenance; we alone have a thirst and a hunger for which the circumstances of our life have no meat and drink. In the burning noonday of life’s labour man sits—as the Son of man once sat—by well-sides weary, and, while others can slake their thirst with that water, he needs a living water; while others go into cities to buy meat, he has need of and finds a sustenance that they know not of.
II. The truer and the nobler man is, the more certainly he feels all this, the more keenly he realises eternity in his heart. There are none of us, however, who do not feel it sometimes. Try to crush it with the weight of mere worldly care; try to destroy it with the enervating influences of passion or of pleasure; try to benumb it with the cold, calculating spirit of greed: you cannot kill it. God hath set eternity in our hearts. He has given us a hunger which can be satisfied only with the Bread of Life, a thirst which can be quenched only by the living water from the Rock of Ages.
III. Eternity is in our hearts; and there is a strange contrast between it and the world in which we all are, for which alone some of us are living. To do our duty here, to trust calmly in a future with God, where all our higher cravings shall be satisfied—that was the conclusion at which the Preacher arrived as the sustaining power amid the wrongs, and weariness, and inequalities of life. We stand with that great teacher in the twilight, but our faces are turned towards the rising Sun. God hath set eternity in our hearts. Are we living worthy of it? The only way of doing so is by clinging close to Him, by dying with Him to all that He died to save us from and living worthy of that life and immortality which He hath brought from out of the mists of speculation unto the light of truth by His Gospel.
T. Teignmouth Shore, The Life of the World to Come, p. 23.
Ecc 3:11
The word rendered "world" is a very frequent one in the Old Testament, and never has but one meaning; and that meaning is eternity. "He hath set eternity in their heart." Here are two antagonistic facts. There are transient things, a vicissitude which moves within natural limits, temporary events which are beautiful in their season; but there is also the contrasted fact that the man who is thus tossed about, as by some great battledore, wielded by giant powers in mockery, from one changing thing to another, has relations to something more lasting than the transient. He lives in a world of fleeting change, but he has "eternity" in his heart.
I. Consider eternity set in every human heart. This may be either a declaration of the immortality of the soul, or it may mean, as I rather suppose it to do, the consciousness of eternity which is part of human nature. We are the only beings on this earth who can think the thought, or speak the word, eternity. Other creatures are happy while immersed in time; we have another nature, and are undisturbed by a thought which shines high above the roaring sea of circumstance in which we float. The thought is in us all, a presentiment and a consciousness; and that universal presentiment itself goes far to establish the reality of the unseen order of things to which it is directed. By the make of our spirits, by the possibilities that dawn dim before us, by the thoughts "whose very sweetness yieldeth proof that they were born for immortality "—by all these and a thousand other signs and facts in every human life, we say, "God has set eternity in their hearts."
II. The disproportion between this our nature and the world in which we dwell. Man, with eternity in his heart, with the hunger in his spirit after an unchanging whole, an absolute good, an ideal perfectness, an immortal being, is condemned to the treadmill of transitory revolution. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof." It is limited; it is changeful; it slips from under us as we stand upon it: and therefore mystery and perplexity stoop down upon the providence of God, and misery and loneliness enter into the heart of man. These changeful things—they do not meet our ideal; they do not satisfy our wants; they do not last even our duration.
III. These thoughts lead us to consider the possible satisfying of our souls. The Preacher in his day learned that it was possible to satisfy the hunger for eternity, which had once seemed to him a questionable blessing. He learned that it was a loving Providence which had made man’s home so little fit for him, that he might seek "the city which hath foundations." And we, who have a further word from God, may have a fuller and yet more blessed conviction, built upon our own happy experience, if we choose, that it is possible for us to have that deep thirst slaked, that longing appeased. Love Christ, and then the eternity in the heart will not be a great aching void, but will be filled with the everlasting life which Christ gives and is.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 209.
References: Ecc 3:11.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 426; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Waterside Mission Sermons, 1st series, p. 38; W. Park, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 259; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 184.
Ecc 3:12-13
Even in the days of his vanity, Solomon saw that there would be more happiness if there were less hankering. Are the cases not numberless where, for all purposes of enjoyment, labour is lost because coupled with the constant lust of farther acquirement, or because of a strange oblivion of his own felicity on the part of the favoured possessor?
I. One great source of our prevailing joylessness is our inadvertency. We need to meditate on our human happiness. There is for our meditation, daily, hourly, lifelong, God’s chief mercy—that largess of unprecedented love which is not the envied distinction of some far-off world, but is God’s gift unspeakable to you, to me.
II. Another source of depression is distrustfulness. Let us rejoice in the present, and let us trust for the future. Let us pray and strive till our frame of mind is more in unison with the Lord’s kindness; and in every gracious providence and in every spiritual mercy bestowed on ourselves or others dear to us let us recognise the merciful kindness of the Lord, and let us acknowledge what we recognise.
J. Hamilton, The Royal Preacher, p. 206.
Ecc 3:14
It is a thought worthy of Almighty God that everything He touches partakes of His own immortality; that He cannot lay to His hand in vain; that what has once lain in His counsels must one day, sooner or later, stand out into the light, and that which once has taken form under His power must go on for ever and ever.
I. The heavens which God made at the first and the earth which God made at the first—they were and they are eternal. This world, or at least part of it, was made a paradise. Think you that man’s rebellion has put God away from His first design? Nay, it has confirmed it; it has secured it. The sin brought the Cross, the Cross brought the throne of Jesus, and the throne of Jesus shall restore, and restore ten-thousandfold, the forfeited Eden.
II. From time to time God has opened His mouth and made known to man the future. And so it comes to pass that we have the "sure word of prophecy." And what is a prophecy? A thing for ever, with manifold intent. And the whole Bible—what is the Bible but one mind once revealed? And yet all the things which are transacted upon this globe—all that men say, and think, and do, all joys and sorrows, all good and evil—are only verifications and transcripts of that book; and constantly we meet God’s word in our everyday life. And as I trace that strange harmony, that response between God’s word and God’s world, "I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever."
III. These curious bodies of ours—they are God’s masterpiece. And when these bodies, spiritual, but the same, come up like the flower from the seed, what is this but "I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever "? And if so with the body, how much more with the soul. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1868, p. 44.
Ecc 3:15
I. God requireth the past throughout the universe. What are our sciences but memories of the past? Astronomy is the memory of the universe; geology is the memory of the earth; history is the memory of the human race. There is nothing forgotten or left behind. The past is brought forward into the present, and out of the past the future grows. The reproduction of long-overpassed forms, the striking lack of varieties, and the recurrence of hybrids into the mother-species are all familiar illustrations of the persistency of memory in the organic world. Nature never forgets. Nothing perishes without leaving a record of it behind. The past history of the universe is not only preserved in the memory of God, but is also inscribed upon its own tablets.
II. God requireth the past for our present consolation. He takes up all we have left behind in the plenitude of His existence. The friends who have gone from us live in Him; the days that are no more are revived in Him. The successive periods of our existence, like lights and shadows on a sunny hill, have not perished in the using; their fleeting moments and impressions have been laid up for ever in the storehouse of the infinite mind. In converse with Him in whom thus all our life is hid, upon whose mind the whole picture of our existence is mirrored, we feel that, though lonely, we are not alone; though the perishing creatures of a day, we are living even now in eternity.
III. God requireth the past for its restoration. As the context indicates, it is a law of the Divine manifestation, a mode of the Divine working in every department, that the past should be brought forward into the present, the old reproduced in the new. God never wearies of repeating the old familiar things. He keeps age after age, generation after generation, year after year, the same old home-feeling in His earth for us. And is not this a strong argument that He will keep the old home-feeling for us in heaven; that we shall find ourselves beyond the river of death in the midst of all the former familiar things of our life, just as when we get out of the winter gloom and desolation of any year we find ourselves in the midst of all that made the former springs and summers so sweet and precious to us?
IV. God requireth the past for judgment. It is an awful thought that the indictment of the impenitent sinner at the bar of Divine justice has been carried about with him unconsciously all his life in his own bosom, that he himself is the strongest witness against himself. "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked and slothful servant."
H. Macmillan, Two Worlds are Ours, p. 286.
Ecc 3:19-21
Has man, then, no real pre-eminence over the beast? Apparently, if we grant the assumption of the Epicurean, this is the conclusion to which we must come. If man have merely an animal existence, if he have no relations to a spiritual world, if when he dies he perishes, then in what respects is he better than the beasts?
I. To this it may be replied by pointing to man’s intellectual and moral endowments as conferring upon him an undeniable superiority over the brutes. There is no need to deny or question the worth and preciousness of the qualities which man thus possesses. But the more costly a machine is, so much the more is it an evil if it fail of the end for which it has been constructed. In such a case we are ready to mourn over the useless expenditure, the misapplied ingenuity, the worse than wasted power, which such a splendid failure exhibits, and are constrained to say, Whatever may be the apparent superiority of this structure over the humbler structures by its side, in which no such deficiency or failure appears, in reality the latter is to be preferred to the former; the latter, to all intents and purposes, is better than the former. It is just to such a conclusion that we shall be forced to come concerning man if we leave out of view his spiritual relations, his relations to God and to a future state of being. If we confine our view of man to his mere earthly state and animal being, what can we make of it but that he is a great mistake, a contrivance that cannot obey its master-power without frustrating the very end for which that power was placed in mastery over it? so that it would seem as if it would have been better for him to have been made as the sheep or the ox, that have no understanding, than to be endowed as he is only to be less happy and less orderly than they.
II. From so gloomy and so revolting a conclusion there seems to be but one way of escape, and that is by assuming that man’s earthly being is not his whole being or the most important part of it. Man’s real dignity and supremacy lies in this, that he is made for immortality; that he is capacious of the Divine; that he has relations to the infinite and the eternal; that his present state is but the vestibule of his being; and that when his journey through this toilsome and hazardous waste of earth shall have been accomplished he shall, provided he have worthily achieved his probation, reach the proper home and resting-place of his spirit in heaven.
W. Lindsay Alexander, Sermons, p. 238.
References: Ecc 3:16-22.—T. C. Finlayson, A Practical Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 87. Ecc 3:18 -iv. 4.—J. H. Cooke, The Preacher’s Pilgrimage, p. 44. Ecc 3:22.—J. F. Stevenson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 296. 3—C. Bridges, An Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 48; G. G. Bradley, Lectures on Ecclesiastes, p. 66.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv2, 11
Ecclesiastes
‘A TIME TO PLANT’
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Ecc 3:2.
The writer enumerates in this context a number of opposite courses of conduct arranged in pairs, each of which is right at the right time. The view thus presented seems to him to be depressing, and to make life difficult to understand, and aimless. We always appear to be building up with one hand and pulling down with the other. The ship never heads for two miles together in the same direction. The history of human affairs appears to be as purposeless as the play of the wind on the desert sands, which it sometimes piles into huge mounds and then scatters.
So he concludes that only God, who appoints the seasons that demand opposite courses of conduct, can understand what it all means. The engine-driver knows why he reverses his engine, and not the wheels that are running in opposite directions in consecutive moments according to his will.
Now that is a one-sided view, of course, for it is to be remembered that the Book of Ecclesiastes is the logbook of a voyager after truth, and tells us all the wanderings and errors of his thinking until he has arrived at the haven of the conclusion that he announces in the final word: ‘Hear the sum of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.’
I have nothing to do just now with the conclusion which he arrives at, but the facts from which he starts are significant and important. There are things in life, God has so arranged it, which can only be done fittingly, and for the most part of all, at certain seasons; and the secret of success is the discernment of present duty, and the prompt performance of it.
And this is especially true about your time of life, my young friends. There are things, very important things, which, unless you do them now, the overwhelming probability is that you will never do at all; and the certainty is that you will not do them half as well. And so I want to ask you to look at these words, which, by a legitimate extension of the writer’s meaning, and taking them in a kind of parabolic way, may sum up for us the whole of the special duties of youth. ‘A time to plant.’
I. Now, my first remark is this: that you are now in the planting time of your lives.
No wise forester will try to shift shrubs or to put them into his gardens or woods, except in late autumn or early spring. And our lives are as really under the dominion of the law of seasons as the green world of the forest and the fields. Speaking generally, and admitting the existence of many exceptions, the years between childhood and, say, two or three-and-twenty, for a young man or woman, for the most part settle the main outline of their character, and thereby determine their history, which, after all, is mainly the outcome of their character.
You have wide possibilities before you, of moulding your characters into beauty, and purity, holiness, and strength.
For one thing, you have got no past, or next to none written all over, which it is hard to erase. You have substantially a clean sheet on which to write what you like. Your stage of life predisposes you in favour of novelty. New things are glad things to you, whereas to us older people a new thought coming into some of our brains is like a new bit of furniture coming into a crowded room. All the other pieces need to be arranged, and it is more of a trouble than anything else. You are flexible and plastic as yet, like the iron running out of the blast furnace in a molten stream, which in half an hour’s time will be a rigid bar that no man can bend.
You have all these things in your favour, and so, dear young friends, whether you think of it or not, whether voluntarily or not, I want you to remember that this awful process is going on inevitably and constantly in every one of you. You are planting, whether you recognise the fact or no. What are you planting?
Well, for one thing, you are making habits, which are but actions hardened, like the juice that exudes from the pine-tree, liquid, or all but liquid, when it comes out, and when exposed to the air, is solidified and tenacious. The old legend of the man in the tower who got a slim thread up to his window, to which was attached one thicker and then thicker, and so on ever increasing until he hauled in a cable, is a true parable of what goes on in every human life. Some one deed, a thin film like a spider’s thread, draws after it a thicker, by that inevitable law that a thing done once tends to be done twice, and that the second time it is easier than the first time. A man makes a track with great difficulty across the snow in a morning, but every time that he travels it, it is a little harder, and the track is a little broader, and it is easier walking. You play with the tiger’s whelp of some pleasant, questionable enjoyment, and you think that it will always keep so innocent, with its budding claws not able to draw blood, but it grows-it grows. And it grows according to its kind, and what was a plaything one day is a full-grown and ravening wild beast in a while. You are making habits, whatever else you are making, and you are planting in your hearts seeds that will spring and bear fruit according to their kind.
Then remember, you are planting belief.-Most of us, I am afraid, get our opinions by haphazard; like the child in the well-known story, whose only account of herself was that ‘she expected she growed.’ That is the way by which most of you come to what you dignify by the name of your opinions. They come in upon you, you do not know how. Youth is receptive of anything new. You can learn a vast deal more easily than many of us older people can. Set down a man who has never learned the alphabet, to learn his letters, and see what a task it is for him. Or if he takes a pen in his hand for the first time, look how difficult the stiff wrist and thick knuckles find it to bend. Yours is the time for forming your opinions, for forming some rational and intelligent account of yourself and the world about you. See to it, that you plant truth in your hearts, under which you may live sheltered for many days.
Then again, you are planting character, which is not only habit, but something more. You are making yourselves, whatever else you are making. You begin with almost boundless possibilities, and these narrow and narrow and narrow, according to your actions, until you have laid the rails on which you travel-one narrow line that you cannot get off. A man’s character is, if I may use a chemical term, a ‘precipitate’ from his actions. Why, it takes acres of roses to make a flask of perfume; and all the long life of a man is represented in his ultimate character. Character is formed like those chalk cliffs in the south, built up eight hundred feet, beetling above the stormy sea; and all made up of the relics of microscopic animals. So you build up a great solid structure-yourself-out of all your deeds. You are making your character, your habits, your opinions.-And you are making your reputation too. And you will not be able to get rid of that. This is the time for you to make a good record or a bad one, in other people’s opinions.
And so, young men and women, boys and girls, I want you to remember the permanent effects of your most fleeting acts. Nothing ever dies that a man does. Nothing! You go into a museum, and you will see standing there a slab of red sandstone, and little dints and dimples upon it. What are they? Marks made by a flying shower that lasted for five minutes, nobody knows how many millenniums ago. And there they are, and there they will be until the world is burned up. So our fleeting deeds are all recorded here, in our permanent character. Everything that we have done is laid up there in the testimony of the rocks:-
‘Through our soul the echoes roll,
And grow for ever and for ever.’
You are now living in ‘a time to plant.’
II. Notice, in the next place, that as surely as now is the time to plant, then will be a time to reap.
I do not know whether the writer of my text meant the harvest, when he put in antithesis to my text the other clause, ‘and a time to pluck up that which is planted.’ Probably, as most of the other pairs are opposites, here, too, we are to see an opposite rather than a result; the destructive action of plucking up, and not the preservative action of gathering a harvest. But, however that may be, let me remind you that there stands, irrefragable, for every human soul and every human deed, this great solemn law of retribution.
Now what lies in that law? Two things-that the results are similar in kind, and more in number. The law of likeness, and the law of increase, both of them belong to the working of the law of retribution. And so, be sure that you will find out that all your past lives on into your present; and that the present, in fact, is very little more than the outcome of the past. What you plant as a youth you will reap as a man. This mysterious life of ours is all sowing and reaping intermingled, right away on to the very end. Each action is in turn the child of all the preceding and the parent of all that follows. But still, though that be true, your time of life is predominantly the time of sowing; and my time of life, for instance, is predominantly the time of reaping. There are a great many things that I could not do now if I wished. There are a great many things in our past that I, and men of my age, would fain alter; but there they stand, and nothing can do away the marks of that which once has been. We have to reap, and so will you some day.
And I will tell you what you will have to reap, as sure as you are sitting in those pews. You will have the enlarged growth of your present characteristics. A man takes a photograph upon a sensitive plate, half the size of the palm of my hand; and then he enlarges it to any size he pleases. And that is what life does for all of us. The pictures, drawn small on the young man’s imagination, on the young woman’s dreaming heart, be they of angels or of beasts, are permanent; and they will get bigger and bigger and bigger, as get older. You do not reap only as much as you sowed, but ‘some sixty fold, and some an hundred fold.’
And you will reap the increased dominion of your early habits. There is a grim verse in the Book of Proverbs that speaks about a man being tied and bound by the chains of his sins. And that is just saying that the things which you chose to do when you were a boy, many of them you will have to do when you are a man; because you have lost the power, though sometimes not the will, of doing anything else. There be men that sow the wind, and they do not reap the wind, but the law of increase comes in and they reap the whirlwind. There be men who, according to the old Greek legend, sow dragon’s teeth and they reap armed soldiers. There are some of you that are sowing to the flesh, and as sure as God lives, you will ‘of the flesh reap corruption.’ ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that,’ even here, ‘shall he also reap.’
And let me remind you that that law of inheriting the fruit of our doings is by no means exhausted by the experience of life. Whenever conscience is awakened it at once testifies not only of a broken law, but of a living Law-giver; and not only of retribution here, but of retribution hereafter. And I for my part believe that the modern form of Christianity and the tendencies of the modern pulpit, influenced by some theological discussions, about details in the notion of retribution that have been going on of late years, have operated to make ministers of the Gospel too chary of preaching, and hearers indisposed to accept, the message of ‘the terror of the Lord.’ My dear friends! retribution cannot stop on this side of the grave, and if you are going yonder you are carrying with you the necessity in yourself for inheriting the results of your life here. I beseech you, do not put away such thoughts as this, with the notion that I am brandishing before you some antiquated doctrine, fit only to frighten old women and children. The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes was no weak-minded, superstitious fanatic. He was far more disposed to scepticism than to fanaticism. But for all that, with all his sympathy for young men’s breadth and liberality, with his tolerance for all sorts and ways of living, with all his doubts and questionings, he came to this, and this was his teaching to the young men whom in idea he had gathered round his chair,-’Rejoice, oh young man, in thy youth. And let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes.’ By all means, God has put you into a fair world, and meant you to get all the good out of it. ‘But,’ and that not as a kill-joy, ‘know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment,’ and shape your characters accordingly.
III. Still further, let me say, these things being so, you especially need to ponder them.
That is so, because you especially are in danger of forgetting them. It is meant that young people should live by impulse much more than by reflection.
‘If nature put not forth her power
About the opening of the flower,
Who is there that could live an hour?’
The days of calculation will come soon enough; and I do not want to hurry them. I do not want to put old heads upon young shoulders. I would rather see the young ones, a great deal. But I want you not to go down to the level of the beast, living only by instinct and by impulse. You have got brains, you are meant to use them. You have the great divine gift of reason, that looks before and after, and though you have not much experience yet, you can, if you will, reflect upon such things as I have just been saying to you, and take them into your hearts, and live accordingly. My dear young friend! enjoy yourself, live buoyantly, yield to your impulses, be glad for the beautiful life that is unfolding around you, and the strong nature that is blossoming within you. And then take this other lesson, ‘Ponder the path of thy feet,’ and remember that all the while you dance along the flowery path, you are planting what you will have to reap.
Then, still further, it is especially needful for you that you should ponder these things, because unless you do you will certainly go wrong. If you do not plant good, somebody else will plant evil. An untilled field is not a field that nothing grows in, but it is a field full of weeds; and the world and the flesh and the devil, the temptations round about you and the evil tendencies in you, unless they are well kept down and kept off, are sure to fill your souls full of all manner of seeds that will spring up to bitterness, and poison, and death. Oh! think, think! for it is the only chance of keeping your hearts from being full of wickedness-think what you are sowing, and think what will the harvest be. There are some of you, as I said, sowing to the flesh, young men living impure and wicked lives, and ‘their bones are full of the sins of their youth.’ There are some of you letting every wind bring the thistledown of vanities, and scatter them all across your hearts, that they may spring up prickly, and gifted with a fatal power of self-multiplication. There are some of you, young men, and young women too, whose lives are divided between Manchester business and that ignoble thirst for mere amusement which is eating all the dignity and the earnestness out of the young men of this city. I beseech you, do not slide into habits of frivolity, licentiousness, and sin, for want of looking after yourselves. Remember, if you do not ponder the path of your feet, you are sure to take the turn to the left.
Again, it is needful for you to ponder these things, for if you waste this time, it will never come back to you any more. It is useless to sow corn in August. There are things in this world that a man can only get when he is young, such as sound education, for instance; business habits, habits of industry, of application, of concentration, of self-control, a reputation which may avail in the future. If you do not begin to get these before you are five-and-twenty, you will never get them.
And although the certainty is not so absolute in regard to spiritual and religious things, the dice are frightfully weighted, and the chances are terribly small that a young man who, like some of you, has passed his early years in church or chapel, in weekly contact with earnest preaching, and has not accepted the Saviour, will do it when he grows old. He may; he may. But it is a great deal more likely that he will not.
IV. The conclusion of the whole matter is, Begin on the spot, to trust and to serve Jesus Christ.
These are the best things to plant-simple reliance upon His death for your forgiveness, upon His power to make you pure and clean; simple submission to His commandment. Oh! dear young friend; if you have these in your hearts everything will come right. You will get habit on your side, and that is much; and you will be saved from a great deal of misery which would be yours if you went wrong first, and then came right.
If you will plant a cutting of the tree of life in your heart it will yield everything to you when it grows. The people in the South Seas, if they have a palm-tree, can get out of it bread and drink, food, clothing, shelter, light, materials for books, cordage for their boats, needles to sew with, and everything. If you will take Jesus Christ, and plant Him in your hearts, everything will come out of that. That Tree ‘bears twelve manners of fruits, and yields His fruit every month.’ With Christ in your heart all other fair things will be planted there; and with Him in your heart, all evil things which you may already have planted there, will be rooted out. Just as when some strong exotic is carried to some distant land and there takes root, it exterminates the feebler vegetation of the place to which it comes; so with Christ in my heart the sins, the evil habits, the passions, the lusts, and all other foul spawn and offspring, will die and disappear. Take Him, then, dear friend! by simple faith, for your Saviour. He will plant the good seed in your spirit, and ‘instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle.’ Your lives will become fruitful of goodness and of joy, according to that ancient promise: ‘The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Practical Ideal. Acceptance of the Universal Scheme
The Practical Ideal. Acceptance of the Universal Scheme
1-15. God is a God of order. The problem which the writer has set himself is not yet solved. He has found that wisdom, culture, pleasure, are all good, though, even if we combine them, there is still something lacking, and they will not explain the mystery of existence. In continuing to seek for a rule of life that shall lead him to the highest good, he reminds himself that God is a God of order, and wisdom lies in adapting ourselves to that order. It is at a time appointed by the Creator that the individual life begins and ends, and the same is true for all the events intermediate between birth and death which make up the sum of human existence. All our undertakings are thus subject to His unchangeable decrees.
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2. To plant.. to pluck up] i.e. to begin and end a career.
3. To kill] perhaps, to make war or peace. To break down] e.g. to make a way for what shall better meet the needs, secular or spiritual, of a new generation.
5. To cast away stones] Probably the whole v. means peace and war, the former expressed by leisure to clear away stones from a vineyard (cp. Isa_5:2), and to indulge in family joys, the latter by the action of a hostile force spreading stones over fertile lands (cp. 2Ki_3:19), and by the claims of military service.
6. To get.. to lose] to add to, and to forego gains.
7. To rend.. to sew] to act in a way that involves the sundering of friendship.. to knit hearts together again.
9-14. Man's work, ignorant though he be, is fulfilling God's design. Let him aim at pleasure and uprightness, while the whole scheme of things from first to last is in the hands of God.
9. What profit] how can he be sure that he has found the right season?
11. The world] rather, as RM, 'eternity.' Though man's powers are bounded, he is capable of recognising the grand and immeasurable scope of God's ordering of all things. His mind reflects the universe. This is better than, taking AV, to explain it as referring to man's natural love of living in the world. So that] RV 'yet.. so that.'
12. No good.. a man] RV 'nothing better for them than.'
14. That men should fear] God's unchanging ordinances are for the purpose of calling forth man's reverence. We must trust Him with our future.
15. Requireth] RV 'seeketh again,' bringeth back in an unchanging sequence: cp. Ecc_1:9.
16-22. M en wrest judgment; but God shall right all wrongs, though how, is beyond our ken.
16, 17. The judges of his time troubled the writer. Yet in God's purposes, either here or in the future, unrighteous decisions shall be reversed.
18. Manifest] RV 'prove,' i.e. sift or test whether they will be upright, in spite of the knowledge that death comes to them no less than to the beasts. Beasts] RV 'but as beasts.'
19. That which befalleth.. them] RM 'The sons of men are a chance, and the beasts are a chance.' They are the sport of hazard alike in birth and in death.
20. All are of.. again] 'Nature the womb and tomb of all' (Lucretius).
21. That goeth] RV 'whether it goeth upward.. downward,' thus neither denying nor affirming that there is an intrinsic difference in the soul of man. Christ had not yet come to bring 'life and immortality to light.' Yet contrast the brighter hope of Ecc_12:7.
22. There is nothing better] If man is no better off than a beast, let him at least learn, like them, to enjoy the present. Bring him] RV 'bring him back,' to see the results of his work.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v14 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
fear
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 2. Further Results of the Search
2. Further Results of the Search
CHAPTER 3
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1. The times of man under the sun (Ecc 3:1-11)
2. When then is the good? (Ecc 3:12-15)
3. Concerning judgment and the future (Ecc 3:16-22)
Ecc 3:1-11. There is a time for everything. Twenty-eight “times” are mentioned, beginning with the time of birth and ending with the time for peace. Everything has a fixed time: Life-death; seeding-harvesting; killing-healing; breaking-down building-up; weeping-laughing; mourning-dancing, etc. These are the times of the entire race; that is what human life is. All moves and changes; all appears unto him profitless. “What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth? What is the gain of it, to be born and to die, to plant and to pull up, to weep and to laugh, to mourn and to dance, to get and to lose, to love and to hate?” But he advanced a step. He recognizeth that all this travail must be of God, who has produced these never ceasing changes, so that men’s hearts might be exercised thereby. “I have seen the travail which God has given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.” Yeah, there is something which is in man. “God hath set the world in their heart,” the correct rendering is, “God hath set eternity in their heart” (Ecc 3:11). Man has the sense of the infinite in his heart.
All that time offers, all these changes cannot satisfy, nor can man with eternity in his heart find out the truth about it by himself. He may feel but cannot understand.
Ecc 3:12-15. What then is the good? To what can man in such condition, with such constant changes, and with an unsatisfied feeling of the infinite in his heart resort to? The searcher gives his results. Let man rejoice and do good in his life. Let him eat and drink and enjoy the food of all his labor. But let him also do so fearing God in view of God’s judgment, for “God requireth that which is past.” This is about as far as the natural man can see.
Ecc 3:16-22. The thought of judgment expressed in verse 15 is now more fully taken up. It seems as if a ray of light now breaks in. There must be from the side of God’s judgment. Under the sun he saw in the place of judgment wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there also. Then he said in his heart, “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.” He draws the conclusion that the present injustice must be dealt with by God. But here he stops short. He may surmise, but certainly he has not. Instead of advancing in his searchings as a natural man he comes back to his old wail of vanity. “I said in mine heart, it is because of the sons of men that God may prove them, and that they may see they themselves are but as beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; and man hath no pre-eminence above the beasts: for all is vanity.” It shows that as far as life beyond the present is concerned all is darkness for man. He may have “eternity set in his heart”, but he has no light. Death comes alike to man and beast; they die and are gone, hence the conclusion, “man hath no pre-eminence above the beast.” But man has, as the revelation of God teacheth. But here we do not listen to God’s revelation but to the searchings and observations of man only. The natural man knows, “all” men and beasts “go to one place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Then there is just a faint suggestion of something which might be beyond the grave. The correct rendering of Ecc 3:21 is, “who knoweth whether the spirit of man goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth?” Man and beast share the same being, draw breath in the same way, spring from the dust, return to the dust, but who can give assurance that the spirit of man really goeth upward? Who knoweth if this is really true. Who has come back and told us the truth about it? Who knoweth? Such is still the cry of the natural man with all his boasted discoveries and research. Finally he reacheth the same goal as Koheleth--all is vanity. Oh! blessed truth as given by revelation and above all in the person of our Lord and His precious gospel! Man indeed has the pre-eminence and is not like the beast that perisheth. Redeemed by Him who became man, to die for our sins, not only the spirit of the redeemed goeth upward but in its time the body will leave the dust and be changed like unto the glorious body of Him, who as glorified man sits at the right hand of God.
Returning to the wise king with his search, in view of all this, which he has brought forth in this chapter he gives his counsel as to what man is to do under these harassing circumstances. “Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man (the natural man) should rejoice in his own works, for that is his portion; for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?” (See also Ecc 6:12).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 12 The Dependence of Man Upon the Course of NatuRev.…
The Dependence of Man Upon the Course of NatuRev. 1. To everything, all that men undertake or do on earth, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, under the government and providence of God:
v. 2. a time to be born, literally, "to bear," and a time to die, as the Lord has arranged; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted, these seasons being beyond the control of men;
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v. 3. a time to kill, by inflicting mortal wounds, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
v. 4. a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, on account of some grief or bereavement, and a time to dance, to leap for joy;
v. 5. a time to cast away stones, where they encumber the ground, and a time to gather stones together, as for building purposes; a time to embrace, to show one’s love and affection, and a time to refrain from embracing, for to show affection to excess is surfeiting;
v. 6. a time to get, to obtain possession of, and a time to lose, deliberately to dispose of some object for some special reason, or cheerfully to give it up as the will of God indicates; a time to keep, and a time to cast away, without any care for the future;
v. 7. a time to rend, as when garments were torn under the influence of great grief, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, not only in the silence of mourning, but on general principles, and a time to speak, for its omission may amount to a denial of the truth;
v. 8. a time to love, this being the summary of the Law, and a time to hate; a time of war, when men think it necessary to shed blood in such a manner, and a time of peace. All these activities are carried out by men in the course of their lives, they occupy a certain period of time; not as though the Lord looked upon them all with approbation, but that He knows of them and uses all events for the furtherance of His will. It is not blind chance which rules the world, but "there’s a Divinity that shapes our ends," and we Christians gladly submit to His guidance.
v. 9. What profit hath he that worketh, being engaged in the one or the other of the activities enumerated above, in that wherein he laboreth? There is no lasting happiness and satisfaction to be found on this earth.
v. 10. I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it, the misery which is the lot of all human beings.
v. 11. He hath made everything beautiful In his time, for the enjoyment of men during the short period of their lives, in the proper season; also He hath set the world In their heart, so that they might understand it as reflecting the wisdom and goodness of God, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end, this being the restriction which is placed upon man’s knowledge, the inability to gain a correct and adequate insight into the divine plan of the world and the unsearchable essence of God.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21 General Information:
General Information:
The writer uses merisms to describe various aspects of life from one extreme to the other. (See: Merism)
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For everything there is an appointed time, and a season for every purpose
These two phrases mean basically the same thing and are combined for emphasis. (See: Parallelism)
under heaven
This refers to things that are done on earth. See how you translated this in Ecclesiastes 1:3. AT: "on the earth" (See: Idiom)
a time to pull up plants
Possible meanings are 1) "a time to harvest" or 2) "a time to uproot."
translationWords
appoint
time
heaven
cure
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22 3:1-8 For everything there is a season, a time…
3:1-8 For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven: Wisdom recognizes that everything has its own season—in human activities as in the realm of nature (see 1:3-7). A wise person will determine the appropriate time to pursue any activity (8:5). The opportunity is fleeting (Eph 5:16; Col 4:5).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.