Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

The poem in Ecclesiastes 3 may be the most well known poem in the Bible and it’s theme and quotability extends into popular culture. From the 60’s song “Turn, Turn, Turn” by the Byrds, to Hemingway’s “The sun also rises” and John Grisham’s “A time to kill”, it’s also referenced in speeches and countless Facebook posts usually in reference to a season of life or some major event happening as it does pretty much cover everything in the human experience under heaven. But the real message of this poem is much deeper and rooted in the sovereignty of God, which is usually and conveniently omitted from most of the pop culture references. If you just read verses 1-8 as a stand alone poem you can see how it could be interpreted as describing the cyclical nature of the human life, the ebb an flow of everything, life gives and life takes away. But we don’t read scripture in a vacuum, we don’t pull one part or one verse out of the whole without considering what came before and what is said after. In chapters one and two Solomon lays out the plain unfiltered truth of life in a fallen world, without God in view, and comes to the conclusion, even before giving us his whole tale he give away his conclusion in chapter 1 verse 1, that it is all vanity and striving after wind. It is temporary, brief, and death comes for the rich as well as the poor, the wise as well as the fool. And nature seemingly never ends and man has no control over it, the sun rises in the east travels overhead and sets in the west, just to rise again in the east the next morning, the winds blow from north to south, wrap around the earth and blow again from the north. The rivers flow into the seas but never run out of water and the seas never get any deeper. Then at the end of chapter 2 when the conclusion of this temporary cyclical life hits rock bottom in verses 22 and 23 in chapter 2, Ecclesiastes 2:22–23 “What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.” Then in the very next verses we get a “but God” moment at the end of chapter 2 right before Solomon gives us his poem about a time for everything. Ecclesiastes 2:24–26 “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.” Everything is from the hand of God, God is sovereign over all and everything that happens in His creation is known about and ordained from God, and everything that is done is done on God’s timetable. Then looking forward after the poem verse 9 rephrases and asks the question from chapter 2 verse 22 again, “What gain has the worker from his toil?” Then in verses 10-15 we get Solomon’s answer to the question, and it is all about God, his sovereignty, his time table, and his plan. While God is not mentioned at all in verses 1-9, he is mentioned either by name, Elo-him, or by He/His, nine times.

This poem does describe the ebb and flow of the human life, and the cyclical nature of the fallen world, Bobby Jamison says in his book “Everything is never enough” subtitle “Ecclesiastes’ surprising path to resilient happiness” that this poem describes life in a fallen world as zero sum goal. “Given enough time, time will take back all it gives. Given enough line, time will reel back all it cast your way. Every blessing time brings will eventually make way for a burden. Time runs in only one direction, but it gives and takes equally. All its gifts are loans. Each of time’s goods gets shoved off the shelf by its opposite. In all time’s changes, the constant is the balance sheet’s relentless homing in on zero. No profit stays put for long. Every action will sometime meet is equal and opposite. Once time finishes you, your final balance will perfectly match the zero you started with.”

This does accurately describe the nature of the human life in its fallenness, the first gain you have in this life is your birth and it is the last to be taken away from you when you die, and nothing can be taken with you. But as Solomon says in verse 11 God has also put eternity into man’s heart, we were created by God in their triune image with an eternal soul. And as verse 14 says, “whatever God does endures forever”. This poem does describe the fallen nature of life, but it also and more importantly shows God’s sovereignty in that He is the giver of gifts and the orchestrator of all things, through Adam sin, and our continual sin, our physical bodies will come and go, be born and die, and this world also fell because of us, so it also must pass away when God’s plan for redemption is fulfilled and complete but what God has made eternal will either be reunited with God for all eternity, all of the elect from all human history, or will be separated from God in Hell for all eternity.

1

Ecclesiastes 3:1 “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:”

This introduction sums up the poem as a whole, everything happens in its appropriate time and there is a time for everything. What it does not say directly we can infer from the verses that come before the poem and the verses that come after the poem, for everything there is a season and a time for everything as guided by and directed directly by the hand of God. Time is mentioned once here in verse 1 then 28 more times in the next 7 verses. 7 verses, each with two parts, each part mentions time twice, 7 times 2 times 2. The meter and flow of the poem is steady and repetitive with each verse either starting with a “plus” or “give” then following it with a “negative” or “take, or the “negative” first then the “plus” second. And if you interpret the second part of verse 7 to be like the first part, “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” to be the same minus/plus as “a time to tear, and a time to sew” then the 14 seasons are split evenly, seven plus-minus and seven minus-plus, with only verse 8 having the pattern of plus-minus then minus-plus.

2

Ecclesiastes 3:2 “a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;”

Season 1 birth and death, those who interpret this poem as the life and choices of man in this fallen world throughout their lives hit a stumbling block right at the outset of the beginning of the poem. We do not control or have any say in when we are born, and we should not try and control, and ultimately do not have control over when we die, God is the one who ordains all of our life, including and especially our birth and death. Right at the start Solomon sums up our whole lives on earth right here, we are born and then we die, the rest of the poem are the seasons that lay in between the beginning and the ending of this season.

Season 2 planting and reaping, we may think that we choose when to plant our crops and when to harvest, but God has created the world to have seasons, winter, spring, summer, and fall. He shaped the world and made it spin and tilt just so, so that there would be seasons. The world is not perfectly perpendicular to the sun so that every latitude always has the same weather, God tilted the world a bit and made it wobble back and forth so that we could have seasons and times that the land produces bountifully and times when it is dormant and resting. We can also interpret planting and plucking up metaphorically, as in there will be times when we plant the word of God into the unbeliever not knowing if it will take hold in their heart, and there are times when we see the fruit of ours and other faithful Christians plantings and see a new believer plucked up from the fires of hell to new life in Christ. There will be times and seasons of casting out the seeds and times and seasons of gathering in the fruit.

3

Ecclesiastes 3:3 “a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;”

Season 3 killing and healing, for those who may say that there should not be any time to kill another person, I would say read your bible. Genesis 9:6 ““Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Exodus 22:20 ““Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction.” 1 Samuel 15:2–3 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ”” There are times and situations that God as commanded a life or lives to be taken, in fact we are all under this judgement, Genesis 2:16–17 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” But also through God’s grace and in his sovereignty there are times of healing. God sent Jesus into the world to be the only way to heal our broken relationship with God, also the majority of Jesus’ miracles were of healing.

Season 4 breaking down and building up, sometimes there is a need for things to be torn down, like an old building that is condemned and a hazard, to make way for new growth and other purposes. We see this with God as well, he tore down the walls of Jericho so that his chosen people could take the city. He also built up and established David as the King so that through his line there would be a forever eternal King in Jesus Christ. We can also take this as there are times when the stony wall surrounding our hearts should be broken down, a time to reconcile with arguing family members or friends and a time to build up barriers between others for our own physical and spiritual protection. Like we discussed in Jude 23b “to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” We are to show mercy to all but sometimes barriers are necessary for our protection.

4

Ecclesiastes 3:4 “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;”

Season 5 and 6 weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, these two seasons are closely related and describe the emotional roller coaster that is life, joy and sorrow, loss and gain. Throughout our lives there will be many times of sorrow, weeping, and mourning, losing a loved one, or any great tragedy in our life. Even Jesus wept, he wept mourned over the loss of a loved one, Lazarus, even though he knew that he was about to raise him up from death to life in a miracle to display his divinity, John 11:34–36 “And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”” He also wept over Jerusalem, the city that was about to crucify him, Luke 19:41–44 “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”” But this life is not all weeping and morning, there are times of great joy, laughter, and dancing. When friends gather in fellowship and enjoyment, the birth of a child, and celebrating the greatness God. God has given all gifts in this world and happiness, laughter, and dancing is a good gift. Genesis 21:5–7 “Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”” Exodus 15:20 “Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.” 2 Samuel 6:14 “And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod.”

One of Jesus’ beatitudes mirrors the season of weeping and laughing, Luke 6:21b ““Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” and at the end of the beatitudes Jesus tells us to rejoice and leap for joy when we are being reviled for being Christians, Luke 6:23 “Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”

5

Ecclesiastes 3:5 “a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;”

Season 7 casting away stones and gathering stones together.

Season 8 embracing and refrain from embracing.

6

Ecclesiastes 3:6 “a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;”

Season 9 seeking and losing.

Season 10 keeping and casting away.

7

Ecclesiastes 3:7 “a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;”

8

Ecclesiastes 3:8 “a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”

9

Ecclesiastes 3:9 “What gain has the worker from his toil?”

10

Ecclesiastes 3:10 “I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.”

11

Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

“Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart,”

“yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

12

Ecclesiastes 3:12 “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live;”

13

Ecclesiastes 3:13 “also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.”

14

Ecclesiastes 3:14 “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever;”

“nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.”

15

Ecclesiastes 3:15 “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.”