ECCLESIASTES 3

Ecclesiastes 3. As the Bible says:

Content of the Chapter

The changes in human affairs. (1-10) Divine counsels are immutable. (11-15) The vanity of worldly power (16-22). Ecclesiastes says there is a season for everything, and he lists seven pairs of opposites, saying that each has its time.

There is a “time to kill, a time to heal” and “a time to love, a time to hate. Each pair he gives is like this: a positive combined with a negative. There is a little bit of Yin-Yang atmosphere. Then Ecclesiastes goes back to discussing work or labor. He says that God has given everyone the proper time for it to happen, and he put the idea of “Eternity” or “the world” into people’s minds.

He means that God has put it in people’s minds that there is something so totally beyond them, an unlimited future and an unlimited past, that they simply cannot understand it. Time keeps turning, he says, and the same things keep happening. It’s a bit like Groundhog Day. But God is above it all.

Ecclesiastes complains that there is little justice in the world. Wicked people are in the places that good people should be, and they act without justice, corrupting the things that should be just.

Although Ecclesiastes says he does not know if there is life after death, although he believes in God, he says that good and evil will somehow be rewarded or punished. He is not sure how this will happen, but he says it will. Unlike other parts of the Bible, Ecclesiastes does not believe that humans are better than animals.

He says that humans and animals die and return to the dust from which God made them. He also says that they are fed by the same breath, the same spirit. Regarding this spirit, Ecclesiastes says he does not know if it ascends back to God after death, or if it simply dissolves. We suppose that it is not the ultimate authority on everything, then.

Again, go back to the subject of trying to enjoy the work you have while there is still time. He is not saying that he is a holist of the work, just to find something creative to do to fill the time he has, which has already been established by God.

Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3: 1-10

To expect immutable happiness in a changing world, it must end in disappointment. To bring us to our state in life is our duty and wisdom in this world. God’s entire plan for world government will be completely wise, just, and good. Then let us seize the favorable opportunity for every good purpose and work.

Time of death is fast approaching. Thus work and sorrow fill the world. This is given to us so that we will always have something to do; no one was sent into the world to be inactive.

Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3: 11-15

Everything is as God made it; not as it seems to us. We have so much of the world in our hearts, we are so busy with the thoughts and concerns of worldly things, that we have neither time nor spirit to see the hand of God in them.

The world has not only taken hold of the heart, but has formed thoughts against the beauty of God’s works. We are wrong if we think that we were born for ourselves; no, it is our business to do good in this life, which is short and uncertain; we have little time to do good, therefore we must redeem time.

Satisfaction with the Divine Providence is to have faith that all things work together for the sake of those who love it. God makes everything so that men may fear before Him. The world, as it has been, is and shall be. No change has occurred and no temptation has taken us, but what is common to men.

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