Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verses 1 – 8

A lot of things, seasons, events, opposites, it’s very poetic, and it really is Solomon defining the dash. That little dash between your birthday and your last day. Time. The most precious resource we all have and yet the one we think we have so much of… But no one really knows…

Time is repeated 29 times in the first eight verses as Solomon steps us through this list. That for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton’s third law of motion). That causally and connection exists across almost all things. If one is born, then one will die. If something is broken down, it will need to be built again. If something is torn, it’s going to soon be time to sew, and so on… 

How would we know love unless we contemplated hate? How would we know the depth of joy of laughing unless we knew the depth of sorrow in mourning? All of the things of life intricately connected and all somehow under the watchful ultimate plan and control of heaven as he says in verse 1…

He says in verse 3, a time to kill. That is not the word used in Exodus chapter 20, in the 10 commandments. Exodus 20:13 reads, “You shall not kill,” and that word in the Hebrew is rasah, meaning to slay or to murder with premeditation. The word Solomon uses here is harag, meaning to destroy the threatening enemy as in war. He repeats this concept in verse 8.

A time to weep and a time to laugh. No one wants to weep however there is a time for that. We avoid sorrow almost to all costs. I see it all the time. Sorrow in the form of work, serving, exhaustion, inconvenience, I mean, the mantra of the world is, “If it feels good, do it!” So quite naturally we also hear and walk in, “If it doesn’t make me feel good, don’t do it!” 

However, remember, discipline is not discipline unless it doesn’t feel good. Feelings are important but they aren’t everything. Feelings and comfort and convenience and the incessant demand for pleasure drives so many problems in life. When enduring sorrow, hardship, grief, carrying a load, always results in riches, some sort of internal, hidden, secret, gain… Which, check this out, leads to a sustained joy.

So, there is a time for sorrow. Endure. Develop. Grow stronger. Do something that is better for them and not better for you…, and find the version of yourself that is as balanced and steady as Solomon’s list…

He says a time to keep silent and a time to speak. Sometimes more can be said by saying nothing than by saying everything. Sometimes it’s better not to be heard than to be heard. Again, feelings are important, emotions are important, but they are not everything and they certainly are not primary.

He says there is a time to love and a time hate. And in this one perhaps we begin to glimpse what Solomon in his wisdom was discerning. That to everything there is a season and without every season there is no year, there is no completion, there is nothing. Wow, that sounds to poetic. 

That each one of these and each opposite of life, is a part of it’s counter. To life, there is death. Or life is not life. To planting, there is plucking, because without plucking the soil, there is no place to plant in the first place, or again. To destruction, there is healing, for without destruction there would be no healing. To love, there must be hate. Because love is so strong it must protect and identify that which is against in order to give all and love. It’s an interesting observation that Solomin is seeing. That life is a pattern of all things under heaven, fitting intricately and perfectly together as one, almost like it was somehow designed that way…

And not all of these things are good. They’re not sinful, but so many are as a result of sin. For example, death. Death just happens, not a sin in and of itself, but a product of sin, a product of the fall. So even in the darkness of that which has come about by sin, God has His perfect hand of design somehow connected to it, and will provide and provision you through it… It’s all part of life, man… And God said that He would be with us until the end. Through it all…

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verses 9 – 13

Solomon oversaw the building of the first temple. Men so much less than his life and yet daily grinding. Motivated somehow as he looked on and wondered how they did what they did day in and day out and he found that there is an internal motivation that leads to satisfaction when coupled with diligence and effort.

Concluding that it was a sense of eternity in the hearts of men. To keep progressing, keep moving forward, to finish the task, to be good at what one does, and Solomon saw that their content of heart exceeded his own. Nothing is better he wrote in verse 12…

This also speaks to the fact that nothing will ultimately satisfy a heart that someone has, contains eternity…, than the Eternal One Himself.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verses 14 – 15

The immutable wisdom and glory of an all mighty God! That He knows the end from the beginning. No one can teach Him nor counsel Him. Nothing surprising. Nothing exists that He is not aware. And folks ascribe responsibility to Him for this reason. 

But Solomon lays it out here entirely perfectly as he says, “God requires an account of what is past.” Clearly articulating the responsibility of those that make the personal choices and decisions that bring about the reality and circumstance that He foreknew. 

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verses 16 – 17

Solomon sees a general lack of judgement and righteousness in the world. That in the place of these things, wickedness and sin are there instead of judgement and righteousness. But this could also mean not that judgement and righteousness don’t exist, but where they do exist, in their place where they are, there is also the presence of wrong.

And this is the state of this world. No judgement of any person is perfect and no righteousness of any system, group or whatever is complete. There is imperfection and it is pervasive. And we wrestle with that. It’s discouraging, infuriating, exhausting…, and, Solomon spoke truth to his heart, that God will one day bring perfect and complete judgement and all wickedness will one day be gone.

We place our hope there. Not here. It doesn’t exist here. Life is not fair… And yet as we travel through this time, there is purpose in the oppression of our faith. James 1:2-4 says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” The implication is that the testing of my faith is the key to lacking nothing…

2 Peter 1:5-11, “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things, you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verses 18 – 20

Solomon is not saying that we are no better than animals or that we are animals at all. The point being made here is that this life, common amongst the living, will end. All that is in it, will end. And all that will matter is what was built, what was done, and what was endured in faith towards God. 

Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

We can send so much ahead. We can send so much worship, so much earned, so much profit, so many treasures to heaven. But that means we don’t get the treasure now (in a way). There is great benefit to serving the Lord in this life, but there is also great suffering that comes along with it! We are to endure the present suffering in faith knowing that all labor in the Lord is not in vain. 

Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” 1 Corinthians 15:58 says, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” 

Jesus said in Matthew 5:11-12, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” 

There’s an element of treasure in heaven that we don’t get here. That’s the faith part. And knowing our own mortality, that his life is temporal and finite, but that the life to come is forever and eternal, ignites a hope in us that fuels faith. This is the point being made here concerning the animalistic similarity of the life of all men.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verse 21

Man is made in the image of God. A living soul and spirit that is able to be born of the Holy Spirit and live unto the Lord in faith through the power of the Holy Spirit. Animals have something similar but not the same. Animals are made each one according to its kind, not according to the image of God. 

On the fifth day, God created every living thing that moves in the sea and on the sixth day God, He said in Genesis 1:24 – 25, “Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”

But after that when He made man it was something different and new…, Genesis 1:26-27, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

This was different than the creation of the animals. We are given one additional important detail in Genesis 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” The breath of life was given to man, not to animals. Life was created in them just like life created in mankind, but the breath of life signifying some sort of something more from God was given to man. This is the breath of eternal life…

So, this verse is somewhat authoritative. That when the spirit of man departs from the physical body, the breath of life, life remains in the spirit of man. When the spirit of the animal departs from the physical body, the life given, for this earth, also ends. The spirit of the sons of men goes on, upwards, the spirit of the animal returns to the earth from which it was formed.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verse 22

True and not complete. He returns here to his “under the sun” thinking and loses his hope as he looks downward. We are to look up! Living in faith, fueled by hope, founded by truth, and matured by perseverance.