Ecclesiastes 3:1 HCSB  There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven:

An occasion for…a time for…God ultimately controls what happens and when (#:11, 14-15; 6:10; 8:6; 9:1 cp Proverbs 16:1-9). Does this argue for determinism and against human free will? Not at all. God allows us free will and refuses to overcome that free will even though it means we will destroy ourselves and He doesn’t desire this (Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 2 Peter 3:9). Qoheleth simply acknowledges that Hashem’s superior knowledge (Isaiah 55:8-9) allows Him to take our decisions and still manage to get His good, pleasing, and perfect will (Romans 12:2) done. Furthermore, once someone has decided to reject God and do what is wrong, He has no qualms about manipulating their remaining decisions in order to accomplish the mission (Revelation 17:17). I call this principle “crossing Pharaoh’s line” (God predicted it would happen - Exodus 3:19; 4:21; 7:3; Pharaoh freely hardened his heart – 7:13, 22; 8:15, 32; 9:7, 35-26; so God began hardening his heart 9:12;  10:1, 20, 27; 11:9-10; 14:4, 8, 17)

The use of contrasts is very common in both Ecclesiastes and Proverbs (something that should inform our opinion as to the identity of the author). Other than this series of pairs, other similar contrasts can be found throughout the book (i.e. 4:13-14) much as Solomon compared the rashaim and the tzaddikim in Proverbs.

Qoheleth uses the contrasting pairs in such a way as to suggest his prevailing theme, i.e. one effectively cancels out the other, leaving no point to either unless it has held meaning with God. It provides us with the sobering thought that for every good thing there is a potential darkness. However, it also gives us the encouraging knowledge that for every problem there is an equal solution. The resulting attitude should be, in my view, equanimity. We shouldn’t get tremendously excited about “good” things, knowing they will pass and that there is likely an inherent danger to be watched for. We should not despair over “bad” things knowing that they will pass and there is undoubtedly some advantage or lesson to be had from the experience.

The fact that there are seven pairs of contrasts is interesting. According to many, seven stood for completeness or perfection in ancient times. So, perhaps Qoheleth was indicating that the seven sets of opposites represent completeness of experience in some manner.

Ecclesiastes 3:2 HCSB  a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot;

A time to give birth. Life is both a blessed and an awful gift. It is a great blessing because all other gifts of knowledge, wisdom, love, and kingdom building depend on this first great gift of God. It is an awful gift because some will use the gift of birth to maim, pillage, and destroy resulting in their own eternal damnation.

One thing that comes to mind with this passage is also the issue of overpopulation. This world already has seven billion people on it. More than 127,000 children need to be adopted annually in the US.[1]

A time to die. We Adonaists know that until it is our time to die, nothing and no one can kill us. Once it is our time, then no one may keep us alive. So, we don’t worry much about it. We focus on what we are to do each day and allow far-seeing God to worry about the “times and seasons” (Matthew 24:36; Acts 1:7).

It doesn’t matter how busy you are. Everyone must set time aside to die. The difficulty is that we never know when that’s scheduled. Therefore, living each day as if it were our last, speaking and demonstrating love to our friends and family, and keeping short accounts with God would seem to be the wisest option.

A time to plant and…uproot. All living things have a lifespan. Where are the notable African churches that dominated the Christian world in the second through the fourth century? Where is the great church of Jerusalem that had thousands joining daily? We must plant and work the fields that God assigns to us but we must keep in mind that even our greatest works will sooner or later pass from the scene. As a practical nod to this principle, our church has written its permission to our spiritual descendents to sell all property and discard everything we’ve built, should it no longer be serving God in an appropriate manner. We don’t want the weight of time and tradition to hold our descendents back from doing what is right and best for the kingdom of God. 
 
[1] www.childwelfare.gov  

Ecclesiastes 3:3 HCSB  a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build;

A time to kill and heal. God has often resorted to painful means to purify His people and to bring them back to good health. He has at times killed thousands of us – but always to the betterment of the nation. He always leaves a remnant and what He has broken He mends. He is like a husbandmen who is willing to brutally prune for the sake of the health of the plant. Unfortunately, American theology is such that it has no tolerance for the idea of “a time to kill”. It cannot imagine a time when it is inappropriate to forgive and excuse and pander to even the greatest of sins. Cultural Christianity fails to address the major issues of injustice and sin, even within the walls of the church and as a consequence is left with a stinking morass of a religious garden.

Others, of the more fundamental stripe, swing too far to the “time to kill” side and never see a time when healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation is possible. As a consequence, they are left with ever splitting churches, shattered into ineffective, bitter, and cantankerous spiritual ghettos. Either of these two extremes is wrong.

A time to tear down and…build. This is something that the Marines are quite good at. They understand the need to break the person down before building them back up again. The Marine must come to the realization that all his previous assumptions no longer apply to the field of combat. They break the person down both physically and mentally then, under tremendous pressure, create a whole new person – a warrior who is able to endure and thrive in war.

When we come face to face with God, our self-image and our preconceptions must first be destroyed before we can create the “new man” conformed to the image of the Son. The difficulty with Cultural Christianity is that it often does not confront the person with their sin. They are told “come as you are! God loves you as you are. God just wants to help you succeed; to be a better you!” This produces weak, maudlin, fickle people.

As a church, we must allow the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to confront us, break us down, and tear out all the old worldly ways. Then each of us should encourage one another to good works and to bring every thought into captivity to Christ so that we may build a new, stronger, better slave for God’s use.

When the Messiah said to Jerusalem, 

• Matthew 23:38 HCSB  See, your house is left to you desolate.
  

It was because it was no longer God’s house and thus was ready to be given over to the destroyer Titus in AD 70. When a church reaches this stage of corruption, it is time to tear it down and start over.

Ecclesiastes 3:4 HCSB  a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;

A time to weep and…laugh. We are to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). We must be a tough but empathetic people.

A time to mourn and…dance. We shouldn’t be too quick to tell those who mourn “you should be over it by now.” We should teach our people the advantages of sitting shiva and deliberately building in time to mourn our losses. However, it is wrong to remain forever grieving over our dead as though God has done us some great wrong. Everything dies. Everyone dies. It is the way of things. To allow that to bring us to a standstill is to become ineffective. It is the sin the wicked slave in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:18, 24-30) committed: the sin of doing nothing. 

We must be willing to dance for our brother’s sake when a blessing comes his way. We must be willing to dance as David did (2 Samuel 6:14) when he worshipped the Lord as was His due. We are often too staid, too placid, too filled with pride and unwilling to be fools for God’s sake. We hold back in our worship and do not dance for the Lord. In fact, most will shy from even lifting their hands or closing their eyes or kneeling or clapping! What a shameful thing, to not know that there is a time to dance!

Ecclesiastes 3:5 HCSB  a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing;

A time to throw stones and…to gather. This is the history of the world. Men have gathered people, villages, and kingdoms and then at a later time another was brought to scatter all that work and start over. This is the history of social progress. Feudalism had to be scattered so that nation building could begin. Aristocracy had to be scattered so that representative democracy could be attempted. This is the history of human thought. Old concepts of a flat earth or of a geocentric universe had to be set aside so that our globe could be explored and our heliocentric solar system could be understood.

A time to embrace and..avoid embracing. We are to embrace those who seek God and want to serve Him. We are to put out those who claim Christ but bring shame to His name because of their sin (1 Corinthians 5:11-13; 2 John 1:9-11)

Ecclesiastes 3:6 HCSB  a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away;

A time to search and a time to count as lost. We live in a day when “seeker sensitivity” is paramount in churches. We have come to a point when we will even remove all vestiges of Christianity from the walls and platform of the church lest we offend some sinner and they quit attending. We should seek the lost, but we must have a place to take them and that place must be substantially different from the world or there is simply no point to it. We should seek the lost but not to the point where we lose sight of the Shepherd!

We should love those who sin and pray for them. We should do our best to live at peace with all men, but there comes a time when each must decide “who is on the Lord’s side?”

A time to keep and a time to throw away. Techniques that may have been perfectly good and valid in the 1950s may no longer apply in the 2000s. If we set aside some ways, some programs, or some methods, it is not because we believe they were wrong but because they may be wrong for this age and time. The Gospel cannot change. How we bring the Gospel to bear on human hearts can and must change. 

Another issue that we should consider is the throw-away society we’ve become. We have been brain-washed into thinking that we should only use things until they’re no longer shiny, toss them on the trash pile, and go buy the newest, latest thing. We no longer value the old. This has gotten to the point that we even treat our elderly this way. As long as they’re producing money, we tolerate them, but as soon as they are too old to work and begin making increasing demands on our time, we put them away somewhere. We need to hone our sense of when to throw away and when to keep. 

Ecclesiastes 3:7 HCSB  a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak;

A time to tear and a time to sew. It is perfectly appropriate to tear one’s clothes in grief and it would be incongruent to insist on maintaining the semblance of normalcy in such a time. However, feasting must at some point follow fasting, and sewing must inevitably follow tearing or we are not following the Shepherd to new, higher, grassier grounds.

A time to be silent and a time to speak. Timeliness! What a critical but difficult lesson to learn. There are times when if I interfere as an elder I will exacerbate the situation. Yet, if I fail to step in soon enough and “nip things in the bud” so to speak, the issue grows and “a little yeast leavens the whole loaf” (1 Corinthians 5:6)! A wise man keeps some things to himself (Proverbs 12:23) but speaks out boldly where others fear to tread. This is probably one of the most difficult of Qoheleth’s examples to follow but then, “if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a mature man who is also able to control his whole body.” (James 3:2)

Ecclesiastes 3:8 HCSB  a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.

Time to love. That we should love is not questioned by most. That there is an appropriate time for love, which implies there are times when love is inappropriate is less understood. It is appropriate to love my wife. It is inappropriate to love yours in the same manner. I may love her, but not in the same way. I may love a serial killer, but once I discover his sins, I must be willing to suspend my love for him in favor of my love for society and be willing to see him executed for his crimes. The difficulty most people have is in identifying with or empathizing with someone too much. They have (as it is sometimes called) a man-pleasing spirit. They don’t have an off button for their desire to please or be liked and this keeps them from being able to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason for the most people.

Time to hate. This sounds very strange to the modern’s ear but stands as a clear teaching throughout the Scripture. Just as we do with love, God’s children should determine what God hates and hate it with Him. We should hate injustice. We should hate sin. Why should we hate these things? Because they damage God’s creation. The obvious difficulty is hating the sin without hating the sinner; hating injustice without allowing that hate to transfer to the one practicing it. The best way I’ve found to do this so far is to consider sin a terminal (Genesis 2:17; Romans 6:23) disease (Isaiah 53:4, 10) and the sinner to be subject to an attack. We’ve ALL been infected, so I should have a certain empathy with the sinner. Nevertheless, when someone is suffering an attack of sin, I must fight that sin tooth and nail, in order to hopefully improve the lot of the person subject to it. At the very least, I must contain the sin and minimize the contamination (1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9)!

Time for war. There are some things that are worth fighting for. Those who would argue for total pacifism are trying to be holier than the Bible. A good war must be for a just cause, must be proportional, and must have a clear exit strategy that keeps the minimization of the damage on both sides firmly in mind.

Ecclesiastes 3:9 HCSB  What does the worker gain from his struggles?

Gain. This is yitron, a word used often by Qoheleth and yet by no other (1:3; 2:11, 13 [along with ך מ ]; 5:8, 15; 7:12; 10:10-11). It can be translated “value, advantage, or profit” but is usually used in the negative sense. Therefore, whenever we see yitron we understand that the object’s value is questionable. 

Ecclesiastes 3:10 HCSB  I have seen the task that God has given people to keep them occupied.

To keep them occupied. We are eternal spirits. Whether we are in the Lake of Fire or in Heaven, we will never cease to exist. Imagine going through eternity with nothing to do, with nothing to occupy our minds. We need to regard every job within the boundaries of its inherent limitations. No task, no employment will be intrinsically satisfying since we were created to gain our sense of d’vekut in God.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 HCSB  He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end.

Appropriate in its time. God’s omniscience seems to make Him exquisitely attuned to issues of timeliness. This appears to be particularly true of His immanent aspect, Yeshua. (Matthew 24:45; 26:18, 45; Mark 1:15; 13:33; 14:41, 72; Luke 12:42, 56; 13:35; 19:44; Luke 21:8; John 7:6, 8, 33; 16:4, 25; Acts 1:6-7 and cf Galatians 6:4) Even demonic forces are aware of the importance of chronological order (Matthew 8:29).

With age and experience, though I’ve not always succeeded at practicing it, I’ve learned to value good timing. The one who can do the right thing for the right reason at the right time…that one is truly blessed! We should not allow doubt or fear to cause us to lag behind God’s perfect timing but we should also not allow ignorance or arrogance to cause us to get ahead of Him either!

Put eternity in their hearts. The word here is "olam" and is notoriously difficult to translate. Some render it “questions”, others “ignorance”. Here in the HCSB the translators chose to use the denotation “eternity”. They may feel that the immediate context of Qoheleth’s concern over olam habah vs. olam hazeh (1:4; 2:16; 3:14; 9:6; 12:5) justifies the usage. Regardless of how the various translations run, the point is that deep within the heart of humanity there is a nagging sense of eternal things that leave them restless and searching until they find their answers in God. For proof of this simply consider whether there has ever been, in any society, on any continent, in any time, or at any level of technology, a group of people who have not believed in life after death, that what we do in olam habah effects olam hazeh, that there is some type of supernatural force (or forces) to whom we answer. This sense of ‘olam that God has placed in our hearts is a universal drive that we ignore to our peril.

This idea of ‘olam that we all carry means that in order for us to be truly satisfied with our labors here on earth we must not limit their purpose to “under the sun.” We must build ‘olam into our work, no matter what we do.

This sense of ‘olam is the fundamental difference between humans and animals. Though we may both die and our bodies disintegrate in a similar fashion, we have this understanding of ‘olam that gives us warning of a coming judgment (3:17; 12:7, 14) for which we should prepare. Of course the animals, being sinless, don’t need to worry about such things, but that is where the difference lays nevertheless, in my opinion.

Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 HCSB  (12)  I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life.  (13)  It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts.

It is also the gift of God. God may be in ultimate control, yet He is a beneficent, benevolent tyrant. He gives the gift of enjoyment to His slaves, something He did not have to do. 

He could have created a black and white universe, yet He gave us colors. He could have made the universe soundless, yet He gave us music. He could have allowed us to eternally suffer, yet He came to live among us and to take our sufferings upon Himself and create an avenue of escape. We of all people, who have received His Scriptures and been given insight into the ways of the universe through the Holy Spirit, should be most grateful. 

This also implies that though everyone wants to be happy, happiness should not be our primary goal. Though everyone wants peace, peace cannot be our primary goal. Each of these things is a byproduct. Our goal must be to obey Adonai, to submit to His good, perfect, and wholesome Way (Romans 12:2). This will produce happiness regardless of our circumstances (Philippians 4:11); peace regardless of our surrounding enemies (Psalm 23:5). All blessings are a gift from God so our primary goal must be to please Him.

Ecclesiastes 3:14 HCSB  I know that all God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. God works so that people will be in awe of Him.

All God does will last forever. If there were anything that the Devil could destroy then he would have won some small war against the Almighty. I believe that all – everything – will last forever. Though it may be temporarily gone, like energy, it can neither be created nor destroyed, only modified. I serve a God who can resurrect the dead; who can create an entire universe ex-nihilo, including black holes and quasars. Surely the Alpha and Omega, within whom we live and move and have our being, can hold all creatures in His omniscient mind and recreate them at will, down to the very quark, indistinguishable from the original in any way? Even the wicked will last forever – unfortunately their eternal existence will be in the suffering of outer darkness at their own request to live separate from the Source of Light and Life.

Be in awe of Him. Reverential awe, godly fear is the beginning of wisdom. It is the very first step. If we fail to grasp the fundamental difference between ourselves and holy, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God, we will balk at everything else. The universe will have no real meaning. Morality will be ambiguous and tenuous at best. Both our beginning and our end as a species or as individuals will be ensconced in darkness. To grasp the true nature of the invisible God who lives eternally in unapproachable light is to take the first blinking step out of the darkness. This is why Adonai works.

Ecclesiastes 3:15 HCSB  Whatever is, has already been, and whatever will be, already is. God repeats what has passed.

Whatever is, has already been. See notes on 1:10

God repeats what has passed. This is an intrinsic part of His immutability. It is salvation by grace through faith now and it was salvation by grace through faith in the Old Covenant. God accepted all those who chose Him into His people in the Old Covenant, and He continues to do so now. Using the logical argument of Ad Absurdum, God allowed the rashaim to come to their logical end in the Old and still does today. We are sometimes frustrated by the process as we watch the wicked seem to get away with things but we must keep in mind that the way God dealt with similar situations in the past is the way He will deal with these too. He cannot change. He keeps repeating the same steady, stable message to every generation of Humanity. 

Ecclesiastes 3:16 HCSB  I also observed under the sun: there is wickedness at the place of judgment and there is wickedness at the place of righteousness.

Wickedness at the place of judgment…righteousness. Humans, even good, well-meaning ones have to realize that there are limits to their goodness. They often don’t realize that even in their best mitzvoth, there is some narcissism, or some lack of faith. Our righteous acts are like a polluted garment compared to Hashem’s holiness and purity (Isaiah 64:6). This is one of the reasons none of us can earn our way into heaven (Romans 3:10-12, 23, 28; Ephesians 2:8-9).

Also, if we consider this within the greater context of God’s sovereign control, then we realize that even though evil may be allowed to run through this world, it is ALLOWED. It is limited in time and extent by the sovereign will of God (Job 1:10, 12; 2:5-6). We should never despair when faced with great evil. Yahweh Yireh will provide what we need, whether to overcome the evil with good (Romans 12:21), or to successfully endure and escape evil (1 Corinthians 10:13). God does not ignore injustice, but at the appointed time will bring it to an appropriate end (3:17 cp 12:13-14).

Place of judgment. The term used here is not beit din but makom mishpat (Strong’s #4725+4941). Makom is a specified and formally set aside area like a station, post, office, city, land, or region. Mishpat is a judgment, justice, or ordinance. It’s the act of deciding a case, a court, or a seat of judgment. Every time mishpat is used it is within the context of halakha so in my opinion it is synonymous with our idea of a beit din. This is the only occurrence of this combination of words in the Scriptures.

Ecclesiastes 3:17 HCSB  I said to myself, "God will judge the righteous and the wicked, since there is a time for every activity and every work."

God will judge. Like the rest of us, Qoheleth is troubled by the fact that there is injustice in a world God created and over which He has ultimate control. He consoles himself with the thought that though (because of the gift of free will) injustice may temporarily rule, God will eventually bring justice about (12:14).

Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 HCSB  I said to myself, "This happens concerning people, so that God may test them and they may see for themselves that they are like animals."  (19)  For the fate of people and the fate of animals is the same. As one dies, so dies the other; they all have the same breath. People have no advantage over animals, for everything is futile.  (20)  All are going to the same place; all come from dust, and all return to dust.  (21)  Who knows if the spirit of people rises upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?

God may test. The term used here is the Hebrew verb barar. Barar does in fact literally mean to test but not in the same academic sense that would come to the minds of most of us moderns. Barar means to purify, purge, cleanse or make bright. It could be understood in the metallurgical sense as a jeweler purifies gold, and tests it to determine its quality (Jeremiah 6:27; Malachi 3:2-3). Or it could be understood in the military sense of putting humans through rigorous courses to determine who are truly qualified to meet a certain combat worthiness standard (Judges 7:3-7).

Like animals. Apparently, the point of God’s testing is to help us keep in mind that human or not, we all end up in Sheol (9:10), all end up dust (Genesis 2:7; 3:19), and from the purely human perspective, dead is dead and there’s no way to determine if there’s a difference in their ultimate fate. Therefore we are thrown back on faith in what God has told us. We are forced to that question: “Do I trust God or not?”

No advantage. Many of the rabbinic Sages have tried to rework what Qoheleth has said to justify their belief that humans are intrinsically superior to animals and that only humans go to heaven.[1] Many Christian theologians have tried to do the same, placing humans at the apex of Christianity as Hashem’s favored children. I do not hold that belief. The Hebrew here translated “advantage” (v.19) is mothar which means pre-eminence or superiority. Qoheleth states that humans have no mothar over animals. I too do not believe that we are superior to the rest of creation. It was concerning all of creation, not merely humans that Elohim said, “It is good; very good” (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). The Messiah did not come to only liberate humans but to liberate all of creation from the consequences of sin.

• Romans 8:19-22 HCSB  For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God's sons to be revealed.  (20)  For the creation was subjected to futility--not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it--in the hope  (21)  that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God's children.  (22)  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.
  

And it is concerning the natural world, not just the sons and daughters of God, that Yeshua warns that His return will mark the time designated to destroy those who destroy the earth (Revelation 11:18). Are we the stewards of the Earth? Absolutely. But wise stewards know to not arrogantly elevate themselves above their charges (1 Peter 5:3; 2 Corinthians 1:24). I believe that this wicked desire to elevate humanity too much over the rest of creation has led to the terrible stewardship of the Earth that we have unfortunately seen. 
 
[1] For an interesting rabbit trail, consider the ramifications of 3:14a and b to that particular discussion!

Ecclesiastes 3:22 HCSB  I have seen that there is nothing better than for a person to enjoy his activities, because that is his reward. For who can enable him to see what will happen after he dies?

Nothing better. Qoheleth observed with a clear eye what I as an atheist also observed. Corruption and wrong walks the halls of justice (3:16-17). Human death is indistinguishable in nature from that of animals (3:18-21). Basically, life stinks and then you die. But where I used it as an excuse to rebel against God, Qoheleth observed that rather than sink into the maudlin mire of self-pity and wantonness, it is better to relax and enjoy what we can. If he and I had been in the same car, stuck in the same traffic jam, we would have had very different reactions. I would have been slamming the steering wheel in my frustration, cursing the fools who were in my way. Qoheleth would have noticed how comfortable the seats are; how many wonderful radio stations were available for his enjoyment, and how interesting the people around him were. The alternative to the situation is death. Compared to that – pretty much EVERYTHING can be enjoyed to a point.