Ecclesiastes 3:5

Verse 1 states the truth that the poem fills out, and it uses two words for time. Zᵉmân, “season”, comes from a root meaning to appoint. It names an appointed or fixed time, a set occasion for something to happen. The other word, ʻêth, translated “time”, is the broader of the two. It is used of time in general and often of a particular moment that is right or due, so that elsewhere it can mean “now”, “when” or “season”. Set together, they say that each thing has its moment and that the moment has been appointed. The word ʻêth then stands before every item of the poem, four times in each verse from 2 to 8.

The thing that has its time is a “purpose”, chêphets. The word means pleasure, delight, desire or wish, and it also means a matter or purpose, which is its sense here: every matter and undertaking that people set their hands to. The closing phrase, “under the heaven”, uses shâmayim, the sky and the heavens above the earth. “Under the heaven”, tachath hashshamayim, is the Preacher’s other way of saying “under the sun”, tachath hashshemesh (Ecclesiastes 1:3). Both mean life on earth as we live it and see it, so “every thing” takes in the whole of human life, its pleasant and its painful parts alike, as the pairs that follow show.

The poem names the times before it names who sets them, and the verses after it make that plain. God has given the travail of verse 10, and “he hath made every thing beautiful in his time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The seasons of verse 1 are his appointments, made by the same Lord of whom Proverbs says, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). His thoughts and ways are higher than ours as the heavens are higher than the earth (Isaiah 55:8–9), so his timing will often differ from what we would have chosen, and it is always wise.

The book calls its writer “the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 1:1). Believers differ on who he was. It has long been held to be Solomon, and some hold that a later wise man of Israel wrote it, perhaps in the Persian or Greek period. On either view Ecclesiastes belongs to Israel’s wisdom writings, which take up the questions every person asks about purpose and meaning, and it is God’s word to us.

The poem begins where every life begins and ends. The verb yâlad means to bear or beget, and in the form used here it means to be born. The two great events of a life, its entrance and its exit, have their appointed times, and both lie outside our own choosing. Moses’ psalm counts the span between them: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten” (Psalm 90:10). Death stands in the same order as birth, an appointed end that comes to everyone under the sun.

The second pair comes from the farm. “To plant” is nâṭaʻ, and “to pluck up that which is planted” is the other end of the farming year, uprooting the crop or clearing the field. Israel lived from the land, and every family knew the round of sowing and reaping and knew it depended on God, who “causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man” (Psalm 104:14). Planting means working now for a harvest that comes in a later season, which is why Paul writes, “in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9). The farmer’s pair also pictures every beginning and ending of the work we set our hands to.

Hârag is the ordinary verb to kill or slay. Râphâʼ, to heal, means to mend or cure, and Scripture uses it both of God’s healing and of human physicians. The second pair turns from bodies to buildings. Pârats, to break down, means to break out, make a breach or tear down, and bânâh, to build, is used of building in the literal sense and in the figurative one.

Israel knew all four. Cities were besieged, breached and built again, and death came through war, through the punishment of crimes and through the killing of animals for food. God gave Jeremiah a calling that covers the same range, “to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10). When the breaking comes from God’s own hand, his heart is set on mercy: “But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:32–33).

Bâkâh means to weep, to bemoan and to lament, and in Scripture weeping is an outward thing, tears and loud grief. Mourning in Israel was public and shared, with its own rites and often a set length of time. On the other side, laughter leads into râqad, to dance, a word that means to stamp, spring about, leap or skip. The people danced at harvests, at victories and at feasts such as the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:33–43).

Both belong to a life lived before God. Lament has its place in the life of faith beside praise, and the psalms of lament give it words: “How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD?” (Psalm 13). Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord alway” (Philippians 4:4). The times also follow one another, for “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). People ask whether this means we should accept sorrow passively and stop reaching for joy. The poem itself answers, because the time to mourn is matched by a time to dance and the time to kill by a time to heal, so seeking comfort and healing in their season is right. Since the people around us are often in a different season from ours, Paul gives the fitting response: “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Romans 12:15).

“Cast away” is shâlak, to throw or hurl, often with some sense of rejecting what is thrown. “Gather” is kânaç, to collect or bring together. Stones were part of daily work in Israel. Farmers cleared them from the fields before planting, and builders gathered them for houses, walls, altars and monuments, as when Jacob set up the stone he had slept on as a pillar at Bethel (Genesis 28:18). Stones were also cast to punish and in war, as in Israel’s campaign against Moab (2 Kings 3:25). So the first pair speaks of clearing and pulling down on one side and of building on the other.

“To embrace” is châbaq, to clasp someone in one’s arms, the closeness of family and friends. “A friend loveth at all times” (Proverbs 17:17). “To refrain from embracing” uses râchaq, to be far off or keep at a distance. There are good reasons for that distance: a time of mourning, the laws of purity, or a closeness that would be unwise in the circumstances. Paul allows husband and wife to abstain from each other for a time by consent, to give themselves to prayer (1 Corinthians 7:5). People ask whether this line makes intimacy less than good. The embrace and the refraining are both good in their seasons, and wisdom knows which season it is. Love itself is always owed, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another” (Romans 13:8), and wisdom chooses how to show it.

“Get” translates bâqash, which means to search out or seek, so the line could be read “a time to seek, and a time to lose”. ʼÂbad, “lose”, means to wander away or be lost, and by implication to perish. It is the word used when the asses of Saul’s father were lost (1 Samuel 9:3). “Keep” is shâmar, to guard, preserve or watch over, and “cast away” is shâlak again, the verb of verse 5, to throw out.

In Israel wealth and children were often taken as signs of God’s blessing, as the blessings of Deuteronomy 28 set out, and the Preacher shows that even these good gifts are held for a season. Job said it when everything was taken from him: “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). The rich fool of Jesus’ parable kept everything and lost his soul in one night (Luke 12:16–21), while Paul learned to be content “in whatsoever state I am” (Philippians 4:11–13).

People ask whether “a time to get” means we should always be seeking more wealth. The Preacher has already called the chase after possessions as an end in itself “vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). When a season of gain comes, it comes from God, and we hold what it brings as stewards who will one day let it go. Casting away has its practical side too: things we no longer need, things that have become idols, grudges and habits that weigh us down, as Hebrews says, “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us” (Hebrews 12:1). Paul tells believers, “Set your affection on things above” (Colossians 3:1–4), where what we have can never be lost.

Qâraʻ, “rend”, means to tear, and it is the verb for tearing one’s clothes, Israel’s outward sign of grief, distress or outrage. Jacob rent his clothes when he believed Joseph was dead (Genesis 37:34), and David rent his when he heard that Saul had fallen (2 Samuel 1:11). Tâphar, “sew”, is its opposite. The torn garment is sewn up again when the time of mourning ends and life resumes. Joel takes the outward sign inward: “rend your heart, and not your garments” (Joel 2:13).

The second pair moves from the hands to the tongue. Châshâh, “keep silence”, means to hush, keep quiet or hold one’s peace. Dâbar, “speak”, is the common verb to speak, mention or tell. Silence has its time in grief, as when Job’s friends sat with him seven days and “none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great” (Job 2:13). It has its time in wisdom, since “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise” (Proverbs 17:28), and James tells us to be “swift to hear, slow to speak” (James 1:19). It has its time in worship too: “the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him” (Habakkuk 2:20). And there is a time when silence would be wrong, as Peter and John told the council, “we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). Truth must be told, comfort given and the gospel proclaimed.

ʼÂhab, “love”, means to love or have affection for a person, a thing or a practice. Hate is its opposite. The last pair moves from what one person feels to what whole peoples go through, war and peace. Shâlôwm, “peace”, names a state of completeness, soundness, welfare and safety, the whole well-being of a people at rest. With these two pairs the poem ends on its largest scale.

God sets the times, and we choose and act within them, and Scripture holds both truths together. “A time to plant” needs a farmer who decides to plant, and “a time to speak” leaves each of us to speak wisely or foolishly, truthfully or falsely. Paul puts the two side by side: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13). The poem calls us to discern the season God has given and to act rightly in it, and we answer to him for what we do.

“Every thing” also takes in the painful seasons: death, weeping, loss and war. The Preacher sets them inside God’s order alongside the glad ones. God remains blameless for the sins of men, and he rules over a fallen world and works through all of it toward his purposes. Paul says that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28), and Lamentations has already shown us that he takes no pleasure in afflicting anyone.

After the poem comes the question. It repeats the question the Preacher began with, “What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?” (1:3). Yithrôwn, “profit”, comes from the root yāthar, to be left over, and means what remains after the work is done, a surplus or lasting advantage. It is one of the book’s key words, appearing ten times in Ecclesiastes. “Worketh” is ʻâsâh, the broad verb to do or make, and “laboureth” is ʻâmêl, which describes someone toiling, a labourer, and figuratively one in misery. The two verbs together press the point that the worker toils.

The poem has just shown why the question is hard. Every work in it is matched by its undoing: planting by plucking up, building by breaking down, getting by losing, sewing by rending. If that is so, toil by itself leaves nothing that lasts under the sun. The Preacher had already said that he hated his labour because he must leave it to the man after him (Ecclesiastes 2:18–23). Yet work itself is good. God put the man in the garden “to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15), and Proverbs says, “In all labour there is profit” (Proverbs 14:23). The Preacher questions work as an end in itself, and he points to the God who gives it meaning: “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it” (Psalm 127:1–2). A few verses later he says that to eat, drink and “enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God” (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13).

The New Testament carries the answer to its end. Jesus calls, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28–30). Work done “heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23) is work done for him, and the inheritance he has won for us is “incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 1:4). That inheritance is the lasting gain the Preacher’s question looks for.

Verse 10 begins with “I have seen”, râʼâh, the Preacher’s word for what he has watched for himself. What he has seen is the “travail”, ʻinyân, the business, occupation or task that keeps people busy, with the trouble that so often comes with it. It is given by God, ʼĕlôhîym, the usual name for God in this book, plural in form and read as a plural of majesty, with its verbs usually singular. The verb “given”, nâthan, is the everyday word to give, used very widely (to put, to set, to yield), and here it says that this business comes from God’s hand. It is given “to the sons of men”, bên ʼâdâm, the sons of Adam, all people everywhere. The last phrase, “to be exercised in it”, uses ʻânâh, which in this verse means to be occupied or busy with something. The Preacher uses the same verb for the same thought in Ecclesiastes 1:13.

So the work and busyness of life, with all the times of the poem, is God’s appointment for the whole human race. Since the fall it has been hard: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:17–19). God also uses hard things to shape his people. He humbled Israel in the wilderness to teach them “that man doth not live by bread only” (Deuteronomy 8:3). Paul writes that “tribulation worketh patience” (Romans 5:3–5), and James that “the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1:2–4). God is shaping his children to be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29), and Paul calls our affliction light and “but for a moment” beside the “eternal weight of glory” it is working for us (2 Corinthians 4:16–18).

People ask whether this makes us puppets. The verse puts our toil in God’s hands and leaves us fully engaged in it, as the Preacher himself says: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). Paul laboured “according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Colossians 1:29). The next verse completes the thought, telling us that God has made every thing beautiful in its time.

The times of this poem come to their centre in Jesus Christ. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Galatians 4:4), and Jesus began his preaching with “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). He lived by his Father’s timing. At the wedding in Cana, where he shared the feast and turned water into wine, he said “mine hour is not yet come” (John 2:1–11). Before the Passover “Jesus knew that his hour was come” (John 13:1), and he prayed, “Father, the hour is come” (John 17:1). His death was the appointed time to die, for he was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), and “in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). His resurrection made him “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20), the first of a harvest still to come.

The pairs of the poem meet in him. He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), put to death so that we might be healed, “by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). He “is our peace”, and he has broken down the wall that divided Jew from Gentile (Ephesians 2:14). He spoke out against the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:13–36), and he builds: “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18), a kingdom which cannot be moved (Hebrews 12:28).

He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35), and in Gethsemane he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38). He also “rejoiced in spirit” (Luke 10:21), and after he rose and ascended his disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (Luke 24:52–53). He took the children “up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them” (Mark 10:16), and he also “withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed” (Luke 5:16). He kept his Father’s commandments (John 15:10), he cast away the kingdoms of the world when Satan offered them (Matthew 4:8–10), and he laid aside his glory to take the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6–8) and “give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Before his accusers he kept silence, “as a sheep before her shearers is dumb” (Isaiah 53:7), and before Pilate “he answered him to never a word” (Matthew 27:12–14). When the time came to speak, he taught with authority, as in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). His love is the greatest of all: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). He said that he came “not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34), because his truth divides those who receive him from those who refuse him, and he is also “The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). “By him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17), every season of this poem included, and he will bring the day when “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4).

This passage gives us a way to see our own days. Each one comes in its time from God, whether it brings a birth or a grave, laughter or tears, building or loss. He rules every season, and his mercies run through all of them, for “his compassions fail not. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

The poem makes room for the whole of a believer’s life. Grief has its time and is right in its time, and joy has its time and may be enjoyed with a whole heart. Wisdom is knowing which season has come and what it asks of us, whether that is a word or silence, holding on or letting go. The Preacher’s question about profit is answered in the God who gives the work and gives the joy in it, and in Christ, in whom our “labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). The God who set the times of this poem also sent his Son in the fulness of the time, and our seasons are safe in his hands.