Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.
Ecclesiastes weighs everything in life and finds it empty. Then, near the end, it hands the reader one thing to do: give away the bread you live on, with no promised date of return.
In a book where everything else crumbles, this line names something that holds its value.
"Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days." Here we find something solid, something lasting, something that does not share in the common universal vanity. The serving of Christ has the value of eternity in it. The bread cast on the waters is found after many days, or at a future hour.
So where does that value get stored?
This is just the lesson the whole New Testament teaches us. There we learn that there are bags that do not wear out, and that it is service to Christ which fills them for us — that there is such a thing as being "rich toward God," and such a treasure as never fails, no thief approaching it, no moth corrupting it.
The verse says your bread, and one writer presses on that word.
But before you give it, it must be "your bread"; that is, it must be what you live on yourself, and it is from that you minister. Nothing else is really yours. If Christ is not your daily portion — the satisfying One for you — how can you speak of Him or minister Him to others? Your words will seem to them only like "idle tales." The Spirit will not add His anointing power to words that are not true and real about yourself.
The same article sets this against the disciples fishing in John 21.
Man is so made that he is always, of necessity, either a giver or a receiver. Suppose I launch out on the troubled waters of this life, trying to get something from them. Then I must learn, as all of us will sooner or later, that John 21:5 has a lesson in it for me... After the dark night of my toil, the Lord asks me, "Children, do you have any fish?" I have only one answer to give Him, as they had. And "they answered him, 'No.'"
Commentators differ on what the bread stands for: some read it as generous giving, others as the word of God sown in people. Either way, the water is an unlikely place to plant.
Now the Preacher urges liberal action in settled faith. He may well do so, for he knows that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. The waters may look unpromising for bread or even for grain; but casting it in faith at His word is never wasted. One may have to wait many days, but He cannot fail, and you will find it at last.
Another writer reads the waters as the crowds themselves.
"Upon the waters" — calm or restless — "bread" is to be cast, reminding one of Revelation 17: "The waters that you saw... are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages."
One commentator explains the farming behind the picture, then aims it at the reader.
In the East they sow the seed on the waters, the water goes down, and the seed drops into a soft, fertile bed. This is not preaching. It is you and I simply being keen to drop the blessed seed of the Word of God into a soul, wherever God takes us. You are to be a person going about with the heavenly seed-basket on your arm, dropping the seed wherever you go. It may be to a believer. It may be to a sinner. The fact is, far too much is left to the preachers.
Because you cannot follow the water, some point to the printed page as a way of casting further than you can travel.
The printed page can go where we cannot. A halfpenny will take it to some far-off outpost, to some lonely sinner in the back country of Australia, to the shacks in the forests of Canada, to the orange groves of Palestine, to Egypt, India, China — in the words of our Lord's commission, "to every creature."
The promise sets no date. One writer turns that silence into a call for steady sowing.
Sow on. Sow beside all waters. Sow in the morning and in the evening. Plant the truth in the hearts of the young and of the old. Sow and pray, work and believe God, and He will give the increase. The word planted carefully and prayerfully in a child's heart may show signs of its presence in youth, or perhaps not until old age... It is not for us to complain that the soil is hostile and the birds of the air are many. Results are in God's hands, but God has given us the responsibility of spreading His word.
- Bread. Give away what you yourself live on; anything less is not really yours to give, and it shows.
- Cast. Scatter where nothing looks likely to grow; casting in faith at God's word is never wasted.
- Waters. The waters are peoples and nations, calm or restless — and that is exactly where you sow.
- Many days. Seed dropped in childhood may not show until old age. Results belong to God; the sowing belongs to you.
- Find it. In a book where all else is vanity, this alone stands solid — service with the value of eternity in it.
Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.
The Preacher turns from uncertainty to action: give widely, and give because the future is hidden. Two questions follow. Why count "seven" and then "eight"? And why should not knowing what is coming make a person more generous, not more careful?
The portion is not aimed at one favoured case. It reaches as far as need reaches, and then further. Kelly finds the perfect example of it in Christ.
Now the Preacher urges generous action in confident faith. He may well do so, because he knows that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God... Again, we are surrounded by need. The poor never pass away, as the world is full. The next word is "give a portion to seven," not to one here or another there, but all round where need exists. So do not hold back what you have, right to the end; for more need may unexpectedly arise. That is why he says, "and also to eight." For what does anyone know of evil here below? Little indeed. Yet we are in an evil world — and for what purpose? See the perfection of this in Christ, Who went about doing good and healing everyone oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him.
The two numbers are not a quota. Seven counts a full set, and the eighth pushes past it. (Older translations say "and also to eight," and "evil" where the ESV says "disaster.")
"Give a portion to seven" (the complete number), "and also to eight" (that is, God's grace goes beyond all evil, and so is without limit).
Scripture gives each number a fixed sense. One ends a thing; the other starts one.
"Seven" speaks of completion, perfection, and so of stopping. Seven notes give the whole range in music. On the seventh day God ended all His work which He had made, and rested. The eighth day is the first of a new week — a new beginning. The main idea carried by this number in Scripture is what is new, in contrast with the old that has passed away — like the new covenant and the new creation.
Giving starts with being fed yourself. What you hand out is what already satisfies you.
Whatever has satisfied you, whatever you daily find to be enough — learn to give it out to meet the needs of those around you. Christianity is never selfish — it always thinks of others. Whatever the need or the sorrow may be, there is relief. Jesus is the "bread of life." (John 6:33, 48.)
The second half of the verse gives the reason: you cannot see what is coming. That ignorance is a push to act now, not grounds for holding back.
It is true that man knows little of the wonderful working or the end of God. Why, what does he know of his own being?... But this is no excuse for self-indulgence. It is no good reason for doing nothing in the face of appalling need, suffering, sorrow, danger, death, in a world of sin and ruin. It is the louder call to act on His word. He is willing to direct our path in simple faith and earnest love.
The scattering is not limited to bread. One writer applies it to the word of God, and treats it as everyone's work, not the preacher's.
This is not preaching. It is you and I just being keen to drop the blessed seed of the Word of God into the soul, wherever God carries us. You are to be a person going about with the heavenly seed-basket on your arm, dropping the seed wherever you go. It may be to a saint. It may be to a sinner. The fact is, far too much is left to the preachers.
Ecclesiastes keeps calling everything empty. What you give away is the exception: it lasts.
For there we learn that there are bags which never wear out, and that service to Christ is what fills them for us. We learn that there is such a thing as being "rich toward God," and such a treasure as never fails. No thief comes near it, and no moth destroys it. And there too we learn, in keeping with the whole drift of this Book of Ecclesiastes, "the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."
- Portion, not project. Give "all round where need exists," not to one chosen case. Need is everywhere, so the portion goes everywhere.
- Seven is full; eight is over. Seven closes the set; eight steps past it. Give past the point that would count as complete, because God's grace has no limit.
- Your own bread first. Only what has fed you can feed others.
- Ignorance drives action. Not knowing what disaster is coming is "the louder call to act." A hidden future argues for open hands today, never for delay.
- The portion given is the portion kept. Everything else in Ecclesiastes passes. Service to Christ fills "bags which never wear out."
If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
Two ordinary sights sit inside a call to give and to sow. Heavy clouds must let go of their rain. A felled tree stays where it drops. Commentators read them in two ways. Some see God ordering the earth for man's good. Others see a picture of death, which fixes a person's state for ever.
One writer keeps the verse in its setting, where the chapter calls for generous action.
Whether you look up or down, you can see how God orders things on the earth to help needy man. Man is the constant object of His compassion… Full clouds emptying and a fallen tree lying still are both good sights! Yet God turns them to the use of an ungrateful race. Wherever we are, we too can serve God by helping man in his needs, as Christ did. He was the perfect Servant as well as the perfect Saviour.
The same writer describes the whole passage as a call to act generously, resting on the fact that God holds the outcome:
Now the Preacher urges generous action in confident faith, as he may well do who knows that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. The waters may look unpromising for bread or even seed-corn; but casting it in faith at His word is never in vain. One may have to wait many days, but He cannot fail, and you will find it at length.
Other writers take the fallen tree as a picture of death. Where the tree lands is where it stays. That stillness, they say, is what death does to a soul.
In the whole field of fallen human nature there is nothing more awful than death. For as in the forest, so in this field, "as the tree falls, so it lies." How solemn — how eternally solemn! As death finds the soul, so will the judgment seat find it, and so will a long, long eternity. Beyond death there is no repentance. As the breath leaves the body, the state is unalterably fixed. This is man's last change — a change which admits of no succeeding one for ever.
The two readings differ. One sees God's provision in nature. The other sees the finality of death. Both press the same urgency: do now what you can only do now.
Nothing changes after the tree is down. So the constant change of this present life is not something to complain about. It is a mercy.
I hear people sometimes say, "Oh, what a world of change this is." And I say, "Thank God it is." If it were not, grace could not come in and powerfully change our lives. Then there would be no salvation for me or for you. When we step out of this world into what for many is the unknown, the hour of change is over. As the tree falls (if I may borrow an Old Testament figure) so it is going to lie.
Another writer hears the verse asking not only where to sow, but when — and he takes the sowing to be everyone's job.
There is the question of where to preach, but also when to preach… In the East they sow the seed on the water. The water goes down, and the seed drops into a soft, fertile bed. This is not preaching. It is you and I simply being keen to drop the blessed seed of the Word of God into a soul, wherever God carries us. You are to be a person going about with the heavenly seed-basket on your arm, dropping the seed wherever you go. It may be to a saint. It may be to a sinner. The fact is, far too much is left to the preachers.
Since the results are not in our hands, they are also not our measure:
"God removes His workmen, but carries on His work." He can even take away Moses or John the Baptist without the work collapsing… There is nothing better than to work while it is day, obeying the great Lord of the harvest as He directs us — whether sowing or reaping, whether in discouragement or success… Let us at least avoid the crude foolishness of judging our own or other people's work by its outward, present success.
- Clouds fall. Full clouds must empty their rain. God orders the earth to help needy people, and we can serve Him the same way.
- Trees lie. Where a tree falls, there it stays. Death fixes the soul in the same way: "as death finds the soul, so will the judgment seat find it, and so will a long, long eternity."
- So change now. A changing world is mercy, because grace can still change a life here; once you step out of it, the hour of change is over.
- And sow now. Carry the seed-basket everywhere, to saint or sinner, and refuse to judge the work by how much of it you get to see.
He that observeth the wind will not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds will not reap.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, how the bones [grow] in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the work of God who maketh all.
This verse sits inside a call to keep sowing, and it points to two mysteries: the coming of the spirit, and the growth of bones in the womb. If you cannot explain your own beginning, how much of God's work can you hope to trace — and should that stop you working?
The second half of the verse settles what the first half means:
Here the verse links the "way of the spirit" with the growth of the bones in the womb. That link confirms that the first phrase means the human spirit. What it points to is the double mystery of how a person begins, which man's science still cannot explain. We do not know how the spirit of a man comes into being, or even his flesh. And death must be a mystery, just as life is.
Ecclesiastes records a search for wisdom. Here the seeker admits that the search hit a wall:
At its best, this kind of wisdom could not by itself solve even one of the most serious questions that trouble people. Apart from revelation, those questions will trouble them still. This is exactly what the book of Ecclesiastes sets out to show... But this eager seeker cries out over what he prized and longed for: "I said, 'I will be wise,' but it was far from me." Death defeats him... "As you do not know the way the spirit comes… so you do not know the work of God who makes everything." Revelation has to come in, then. And what a joy to see that it has indeed come in!
The limit is not one man's failure. Every human mind meets it:
There are fields of knowledge that man has no power to explore or even reach. He may, like Solomon, come to this point: all he knows teaches him how little he knows. Every piece of knowledge he gains is the mother of many a question the student cannot answer... By the light of revelation we can look ahead to a day when we shall know as we are known — that day, not this life (1 Cor. 13:12).
Verse 5 does not end the chapter. Right after it comes a call to sow in the morning and in the evening. What we do not know should make us more active, not less:
It is true that man knows little of God's wonderful working, or of how it ends. Why, what does he know of his own being?... what does he know of what comes before birth?... But this is no excuse for pleasing ourselves. It is no good reason for sitting still in the face of dreadful need, suffering, sorrow, danger and death, in a world of sin and ruin. It is the louder call to act on the word of Him who is pleased to direct our path, in simple faith and earnest love.
In practice that means steady sowing, whatever the ground looks like:
Sow on. Sow beside all waters. Sow in the morning and in the evening. Plant the truth in the hearts of the young and of the old. Sow and pray, work and believe God, and He will give the increase... It is not for us to complain that the soil is against us and the birds of the air are many. Results are in God's hands, but He has given us the responsibility of spreading His word.
What is true of a body forming unseen is true of a soul being born again. We can watch the signs; we cannot date the moment:
We should remember that no one can explain even natural life. God has kept many secrets from men about how it is put together, and the same is true in the spiritual sphere. We can take account of what we see in what we call conversion. A person hears the Word. His conscience is stirred. The whole man is changed; he yields to the truth of God and seeks after God. But we cannot tell just when, or where, or how, in the course of this inward work of the Spirit of God in the soul, the man is born anew... "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).
The verse ends with God as the One who makes everything — which reaches into the shape of an individual life:
The fact that someone is married, unmarried or widowed is in the first place to do with God's sovereignty and the way He leads a person through life.
- Unknown beginning. The verse names one double mystery: spirit and bones, both forming out of sight. That is the measure of everything else we cannot trace.
- Unknown end. We cannot see how life starts, and we cannot see past death. The eager seeker hit a wall at both ends.
- Revelation opens it. Searching could not reach it, so God had to tell us. Admitting we do not know is the door to being taught.
- Unknown outcome, known duty. Not knowing what God is doing is a louder call to work, not a reason to wait for better conditions.
- Sow anyway. Results belong to God who makes all; the sowing — of the word, in the morning and the evening — belongs to us.
In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.
Ecclesiastes 11 ends the book's long look at life "under the sun" with a call to get to work. Keep sowing from morning to evening, because you cannot see which handful will grow — so how do you keep going without visible results?
One writer takes the two ends of the day as the answer to a practical question: when do you work?
Go on with your work. Let nothing hinder you. That is the great thing for a saint today. "In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand." That is when to preach. "Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season" (2 Tim. 4:2). Where to preach? All the world your parish. When to do it? Morning and evening, always at it.
The verse follows a list of things a person cannot know. One commentator refuses to let that ignorance become a reason to sit still:
It is true that man knows little of God's wonderful working, or of where it ends. What does he know even of his own being? Never mind what follows death — what does he know of what comes before birth? But this is no excuse for self-indulgence. It is no right reason for doing nothing in the face of appalling need, suffering, sorrow, danger, death, in a world of sin and ruin. It is the louder call to act on His word. He is pleased to direct our path in simple faith and earnest love.
Not knowing makes the command louder, not softer. What you cannot calculate, you can still obey.
A second reading takes the two times of day as two ages of life — morning for the youngest hearers, evening for those at the very end:
We preach the gospel to a soul at the eleventh hour. Yet we are also told, "In the morning sow your seed." This may be to the little child. It is wonderful what a little bit of truth God can use with children. And "at evening withhold not your hand" — this may be to the old man. God is the God of all grace, and we do not know what He may do with a soul at the last moment.
The same writer adds a sober balance: it is possible for a person to sin away his day of grace long before his day of death.
Another writer answers the worker who asks what to do. He draws the line between duty and outcome:
Sow on. Sow beside all waters. Sow in the morning and in the evening. Plant the truth in the hearts of the young and of the old. Sow and pray, work and believe God, and He will give the increase. The word laid carefully and prayerfully in the heart in early childhood may show signs of its presence in youth, or perhaps not until old age... It is not for us to complain that the soil is hard and the birds of the air are many. Results are in God's hands. But God has given us the responsibility of spreading His word.
Because the outcome is God's, results do not follow human ability. Another writer puts it plainly:
With all man's efforts to achieve something, it does not always depend on the strongest. God rules over all and does not always give returns according to the greatest efforts, but according to His will. We have to labour and leave the result with God. A splendid preacher labours hard in the gospel without result. Then a simple man struggles through a basic address, and someone confesses the Lord. We ought to do our best in all our service, but, as Paul said, "God gave the increase."
Christ Himself lived this out. He sowed on every soil and left the outcome with the One who sent Him:
Israel had been found barren and unfruitful. So the Lord came bringing what would produce fruit, and He scattered this good seed far and wide, on good and bad soils alike. He had come to serve. As the Perfect Servant, He left the results of His work with Him who sent Him. He rested on the promise of the Lord about His word of grace: "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty" (Isa. 55:11). In the strength of this assurance the Prophet of God sowed His seed in the morning, and in the evening did not withhold His hand.
- Sow — the work is spreading the word of God, and all the world is your parish.
- Morning and evening — the two ends of the day mean constant work — in season and out of season, to the little child and to the old man.
- Withhold not — what you cannot know about God's working is not a reason to stop; it is the louder call to act on His word.
- Prosper — the return does not follow the greatest effort. The splendid preacher may see nothing; the struggling one may see a soul saved. Labour, and leave the result with God.
- Both alike — this was the path of the Perfect Servant, who sowed on good and bad soil alike, sure that God's word never returns empty.