Reflections on Ecclesiastes 3

 Ecclesiastes 03 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Everything on earth has its own time and its own season.
   
2. There is a time for birth and death, planting and reaping,
   
3. for killing and healing, destroying and building,
   
4. for crying and laughing, weeping and dancing,
   
5. for throwing stones and gathering stones, embracing and parting.
   
6. There is a time for finding and losing, keeping and giving,
   
7. for tearing and sewing, listening and speaking.
   
8. There is also a time for love and hate, for war and peace.
   
9. What do we gain by all of our hard work?
   
10. I have seen what difficult things God demands of us.
    
11. God makes everything happen at the right time. Yet none of us can ever fully understand all he has done, and he puts questions in our minds about the past and the future.
    
12. I know the best thing we can do is to always enjoy life,
    
13. because God's gift to us is the happiness we get from our food and drink and from the work we do.
    
14. Everything God has done will last forever; nothing he does can ever be changed. God has done all this, so that we will worship him.
    
15. Everything that happens has happened before, and all that will be has already been-- God does everything over and over again.
    
16. Everywhere on earth I saw violence and injustice instead of fairness and justice.
    
17. So I told myself that God has set a time and a place for everything. He will judge everyone, both the wicked and the good.
    
18. I know that God is testing us to show us that we are merely animals.
    
19. Like animals we breathe and die, and we are no better off than they are. It just doesn't make sense.
    
20. All living creatures go to the same place. We are made from earth, and we return to the earth.
    
21. Who really knows if our spirits go up and the spirits of animals go down into the earth?
    
22. We were meant to enjoy our work, and that's the best thing we can do. We can never know the future.

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Two verses in Eccelsiastes 3 are key to the argument Solomon makes: 3:1 - "There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven." And 3:11 - "He has made everything appropriate in its time." His premise is that there is an occasion for everything and if our pursuits are within those boundaries they will be appropriate. However, outside those boundaries they become inappropriate and a source of trouble.

After stating that there is an occasion for everything, Solomon gives a list of opposite activities, implying a completeness of all activities. Nothing happens that does not have its place. But he seems to give an exception to this later, in verse 16, when he speaks of injustice. This, he seems to say, does not have its place. It is an activity which operates outside the appointed time of things.

Man has eternity in his heart and desires for something beyond this life. But he cannot discover what God has beyond life. All he knows is what he can observe. He need not think he can add to or take away from life's experiences for he cannot come up with anything that God has not already thought of. There is nothing man can think of that has not already occurred.

Though man does not know what follows this life on earth, he does know that death is inevitable. In this respect he is no different than the animals. All die. Therefore, man may as well reach out for what he knows to be available to him which is the fruit of his labor. This is appointed to man and he should enjoy it.