To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens
Ecclesiastes 3 opens by turning from the search for profit to a set clock: every human matter has its own season. The question the commentators press is whose clock it is, and what a person is meant to do while living under it.
Commentators read this verse as the answer to the misery of man's life. Sorrow reaches him, and death troubles his conscience. Still, he sees one thing:
Think of how miserable man is. No creature under the heavens is so open to sorrow, or feels it so sharply. His guilty conscience wakes up to what may come, and must come, after death. Yet he cannot help seeing something else too. He lives under a system in which God orders everything that touches this changing life of ours most closely. The verses that follow set this out in full.
The verse gives each thing a time — and that is also its limit. One writer contrasts what time measures with what God does:
Everything under the sun runs by "times." There is a time to be born, and a time to die. Whatever purpose people take in hand under heaven, each has its time, but only its "time." It is not "for ever," and its time passes on and is gone... But under all these passing times there is a "work that God does from the beginning to the end"... God does that work in ways of endless wisdom, and it lasts "for ever." "I perceive that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it."
A reference work makes the same point about the reach of our understanding: man's life is fenced in by time, while God's is not.
Man learns that he lives in time: there is a time for everything "under the heaven," but only "a time."... No one "can find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." God is working out His own end while this time lasts: man lives in time, but what God does will last for ever.
If the seasons are set, no effort can move them. That leaves man one place to take.
Man's anxious toil can change none of the facts. God's hand arranges; man's place is to bow... Man likes to rule, and he likes it no less now that he is fallen, sinful, and set on his own way. But we are creatures. No one can rule well unless he first serves the One who is above him, above all persons and all things. To fear Him is the beginning of wisdom; to forget Him, and above all to deny Him, is folly, ruinous now and for ever.
The same writer adds elsewhere that this danger reaches everyone, and that God has not hidden His own aim.
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." Man — whether Israelite or Christian — is likely to make mistakes. Besides, his true place is subjection and obedience. God Himself has an aim before Him which He sets before us.
One writer treats the words "under the sun" as the key to the whole passage. He also warns that people have used these verses to excuse a worldly life. He sets these balanced seasons against a life with one single object:
"Under the sun" there is a time for everything. God has set one thing over against another. If there is a birth, there is a death; if there is a smile, there is a tear; the sorrow stands over against the joy... But look at Paul in Philippians 3. Did he have "a time for everything"? No. "One thing I do," he says. And why? Because he had found his life, his sphere, and his object "above the sun"... We have often heard Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 twisted this way. But it is always by people whose hearts are in this present evil world.
If the timing belongs to God, then waiting is not wasted. One writer applies this to seasons of trouble:
David says, "My times are in your hand." If our times were in our own hand, we would be rescued too soon. If they were in our enemy's hand, we would be rescued too late... God's time is always best. "He has made everything beautiful in its time": when the mercy is ripe, we will have it... Deliverance may be later than our time; but it will not be later than God's time.
- Ordered. Life is not random. Behind the changing seasons is a system in which God "orders everything that touches this changing life of ours most closely."
- Limited. Each thing gets its time — "but only its 'time.'" Seasons expire; only what God does endures for ever.
- Bounded. Man "lives in time," so he cannot trace God's work from beginning to end.
- Submitted. Since "God's hand arranges," the wise response is to bow, not to force a season open. Fearing Him is where wisdom starts.
- Anchored. The balanced pairs are the rule "under the sun." Those who find their object above it can say with Paul, "One thing I do." They can wait, because "God's time is always best."
A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
The verse opens with two events no one chooses: birth and death. Then it moves to the field, where a man plants and later pulls up what he planted. Do these fixed seasons mean life is pointless, or that Someone else holds the timetable?
The book has piled up misery. Yet something else runs underneath it.
Whatever man's misery may be, no creature under the heavens is so exposed or so sensitive to sorrow. On his guilty conscience there dawns the awful thought of what may and must come after death. Yet he cannot help seeing that he is under a system whose providence orders all that most closely touches the changing life he now lives.
William Kelly draws out what that order asks of man.
Man's anxious toil can alter none of the facts. God's hand arranges; man's place is to bow. Cain rebelled and gained nothing but bitter loss. Many others have taken the way of Cain, and the end is always the same. Man likes to rule, and no less so since he is fallen, sinful and self-willed. But as creatures, none can rule rightly who does not serve the One who is over him, over all persons and all things.
Born and dying, planting and uprooting: these pairs belong to one sphere. Read outside it, they mislead.
We believe the key to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, and indeed to the whole book, lies in the phrase "under the sun." … "Under the sun" there is time for everything. God has set one thing over against another. If there is a birth, there is a death; if there is a smile, there is a tear; the sorrow stands over against the joy. This is the law of the old creation. But look at Paul in Philippians 3. Did he have "a time for everything"? No. "One thing I do," he says. Why? Because he had found his life, his sphere and his object above the sun.
The same writer warns that people quote these verses to excuse worldliness: "We have often heard Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 abused in the way you refer to."
Every season here carries a limit. A birth has its moment; so does a death; so does the crop you put in the ground.
"Times" measure everything under the sun. There is a time to be born, and a time to die. Whatever people take in hand under heaven, each thing has its time, but only its "time." It is not "for ever." Its time passes on and is gone. … But beneath the exercises of these times there is a "work that God makes from the beginning to the end." … Man cannot find out this work. His sight stops at the horizon of time.
One Person entered this measured scene from eternity.
The centre of it all is the Word made flesh, the person of the Son — an unfathomable mystery known only to the Father. He it is who has been here and has known a time to be born, and a time to die. We bow our heads and worship as we look at Him. His goings forth have been of old, from the days of eternity. His Spirit could say through the prophet, "My times are in Your hand." Yet He took His place in this time scene, and passed through it and out of it, by death and resurrection, to the throne of the Father.
The endless alternation is not aimless.
Now there is purpose in it — a double purpose. Man is abased, God glorified. Man needs abasing, and divine goodness has ordained it. Otherwise the psalmist's words would come true: "Because they do not change and do not fear God" (Psalm 55:19). But for man there is also a resurrection. It is not within the cycle of change, but beyond it. The one who "humbles himself" to accept God's lesson, turning to Him in this way, "will be exalted."
If the seasons are His, then delay is not neglect.
If our times were in our own hand, we would have deliverance too soon. If they were in our enemy's hand, deliverance would come too late. But my times are in Your hand, and God's time is always best. Everything is beautiful in its season: when the mercy is ripe, we shall have it. … Deliverance may be later than our time, but it will not be later than God's time.
- Ordered — God's hand arranges birth, death, planting and uprooting. Man's anxious toil changes none of it. His place is to bow.
- Limited — every purpose under heaven gets a season, but only a season; it is a "time," never a "for ever."
- Paired — under the sun God sets one thing against another: a birth against a death, a smile against a tear.
- Entered — the Son knew a time to be born and a time to die. He passed out of this scene by death and resurrection to the Father's throne.
- Beyond — the cycle abases man and glorifies God. For the one who humbles himself, resurrection lies outside the wheel altogether.