Ecclesiastes 3 explained

The chapter that opens with "a time for every purpose" (3:1) says the same Hebrew words again when the Preacher sees wickedness in the place of justice: "God will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work" (3:17). In the Preacher's words, God's judging has its time too.

The chapter opens, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven" (3:1) (tap season, time, purpose). Then comes the list. Every verse of 3:2-8 sets times side by side in pairs, from "a time to be born, and a time to die" (3:2) to "a time for war, and a time for peace" (3:8). In between are planting and plucking up (3:2), killing and healing, breaking down and building up (3:3), weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing (3:4), casting away stones and gathering them, embracing and refraining (3:5), seeking and losing, keeping and casting away (3:6), tearing and sewing, keeping silence and speaking (3:7), loving and hating (3:8). In Hebrew time is et. Ecclesiastes has it 40 times, and 31 of them are in this chapter: once in 3:1, four times in every verse from 3:2 to 3:8, and then twice more, in 3:11 and 3:17. Here is what almost everyone misses: straight after the list comes a question close to the book's first. "What does man gain from all his labor in which he labors under the sun?" (1:3), the Preacher asked; now, "What profit has he who works in that in which he labors?" (3:9). In Hebrew gain in 1:3 and profit in 3:9 are one word, yitron. The list doesn't say when each time comes, or who sets them; the next verses turn to God (3:10-11).

The chapter opens with "a time for every purpose under heaven" (3:1). When the Preacher sees wickedness in the place of justice (3:16), he says in his heart, "God will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work" (3:17). In Hebrew a time for every purpose is the same three words in both verses (tap time, purpose).

Ecclesiastes 3:1 · Ecclesiastes 3:16-17

Ecclesiastes 3:17→leads toMatthew 13:30

The Preacher says what he saw and what he said in his heart: "Moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there" (Ecclesiastes 3:16), and "God will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work" (Ecclesiastes 3:17). Jesus "set another parable before them" (Matthew 13:24), of a man whose enemy sowed darnel weeds among his wheat (Matthew 13:25). When his servants asked whether to gather the weeds up (Matthew 13:28), the man said, "Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the harvest time I will tell the reapers" (Matthew 13:30): the darnel weeds would be gathered first and burned, and the wheat gathered "into my barn" (Matthew 13:30). When his disciples asked him to explain the parable (Matthew 13:36), he said, "The harvest is the end of the age" (Matthew 13:39). Jesus doesn't cite Ecclesiastes, so setting the two together is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, not on the shared English word time: in 3:17 the Preacher himself names God's judging and says it has its time, and in the parable the separating waits for its time, the harvest. This line names no one, then or now, as wheat or weeds, and doesn't make the wickedness of 3:16 the darnel. One reading hears in Jesus' parable of the harvest what 3:17 says of the time God has for judging. Another reads 3:17 on its own, of God's judgment at its time, with nothing said of Jesus, and hears the parable as Jesus' own teaching on the Kingdom of Heaven, with no look back to Ecclesiastes.

עֵתetsay AYT

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "time". Strong's: "time, especially (adverb with preposition) now, when, etc.". "For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven" (3:1). Ecclesiastes has it 40 times in Hebrew, and 31 of them are in this chapter: once in 3:1, four times in every verse from 3:2 to 3:8, then in "He has made everything beautiful in its time" (3:11) and "for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work" (3:17). The notes on Psalm 31 set 3:1 beside "My times are in your hand" (Psalm 31:15), with the same word.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven" (3:1). Which line of 3:2-8 comes closest to the season you are in, and what helps you in it?