I know that there is nothing good for them but to rejoice and to do well in their life;
The Preacher has just admitted that man cannot trace God's work from beginning to end. This verse is what he concludes from that. The advice sounds simple: be glad, do good. But is it giving up, or is it wisdom — and is joy something a person earns or receives?
The verse gives a searcher's result. It answers a question the previous verses raise, and it comes with a condition:
What then is the good? Man is in such a condition, with such constant changes, and with an unsatisfied feeling of the infinite in his heart. Where can he turn? The searcher gives his results. Let man rejoice and do good in his life. Let him eat and drink and enjoy the food of all his labour. But let him also do it in the fear of God, with God's judgment in view. This is about as far as the natural man can see.
The phrase carries a verdict on man, and it traces even what he enjoys from his own work back to God:
It is wholesome for man to feel how little he can find out, from beginning to end, of the work that God is doing. So the Preacher states his conviction: there is nothing better for them — nothing good in them — but to rejoice and to do good. In His work God had shown only what is excellent and fitting, whatever man or Satan had done against it. Man should trust Him. He is gifted, yet he lives in a scene altogether beyond him. And then what must the Maker be? As a man, he is to receive what his nature needs. It is provided for him without grudging, so that he may see or enjoy good in all his labour. What could man's toil have achieved, unless it were God's gift?
The counsel fits a creature who only ever gets a stretch of days:
This chapter shows man that he lives in a time state. There is a time for everything "under the heaven," but only "a time." God made everything beautiful in its time… During this time state God is working out His own end. Man lives in time, but what God does lasts for ever.
One account shows how the second half of the verse can land. At a student dinner someone quoted it in Latin, and a monk snapped back:
He was dining with a company of fellow students. One of the party quoted Ecclesiastes 3:12 from the Latin Vulgate: "There is nothing better than to be merry and to do well!" "A curse on that 'do well!'" exclaimed an ill-tempered monk who was present; "I wish it were beyond the sea." Latimer was startled. "I understand it now," he said; "that will be a heavy 'do well' for these monks when they have to give God an account of their lives."
There is a reason the counsel stops where it does:
There is no question in it of grace or of redemption. It is the experience of a man — and he a king with wisdom and riches — about human life. He tries to solve all the contradictions that exist in the world while he views them "under the sun." Only the wisdom that comes from above can solve them, or leave them unsolved in peace.
The Preacher weighs good done "under the sun." One writer weighs the same work on another scale:
Happy, serious, simple lesson! The highest achievements or richest prosperity in things under the sun are all vanity. But the smallest service to the Lord has the value of eternity in it — even giving a cup of cold water in His name.
- Limit. Man cannot trace God's work from start to finish, and feeling that limit is healthy, not humiliating.
- Verdict. Man finds nothing good in himself. So "nothing better" means: stop searching, and trust the Maker whose work is excellent and fitting.
- Gift. Joy is not produced by toil. What a person's labour brings him to enjoy is handed to him.
- Weight. "Do good" is the half that costs. It becomes a heavy "do well" when God asks a man for an account of his life.
- Reach. The counsel stretches only "as long as they live." Man lives in time, but what God does lasts for ever, and the smallest service to the Lord carries that value.
yea also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labour, it is the gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:13 ends a long look at time, seasons, and human toil, and it lands on something ordinary: food, drink, and enjoyment in work. Is that a small prize for a life no one can figure out, or a real gift from God?
Ecclesiastes records a deliberate experiment. One writer describes the whole book as the report of a man who kept his wisdom so he could weigh the results.
The Book of Ecclesiastes is, up to a certain point, the opposite of the Book of Proverbs. It is the experience of a man who keeps his wisdom, so that he may judge everything. He tests everything under the sun that could be supposed able to make people happy. He tries the enjoyment of everything that human capacity can imagine as a means of joy. The effect of this trial was the discovery that all is vanity and a chasing after wind. Every effort to be happy in possessing the earth, in whatever way, ends in nothing.
Verse 11 says no one can find out what God has done from beginning to end. Verse 13 gives the practical conclusion of a man standing inside that limit.
What then is the good? What can a man in such a condition turn to? The changes never stop, and he has an unsatisfied feeling of the infinite in his heart. The searcher gives his results. Let man rejoice and do good in his life. Let him eat and drink and enjoy the food of all his labour. But let him also do so fearing God, in view of God's judgment. This is about as far as the natural man can see.
The verse does not say a man earns his enjoyment by working hard. It calls the whole thing a gift:
As man, he is to receive what his nature needs, given freely so that he may see or enjoy good in all his labour. What could man's toil have gained, unless it were God's gift?
The writer returns to this thought later in the book. There he separates two things: having good things, and being able to enjoy them. Both come from the same hand.
If God has given him riches and wealth and the capacity to enjoy it, then he ought to take his portion and rejoice in his labour. Such a spirit of enjoyment will make him forget the evil in his day; it will carry him over the disagreeable things of life. "For God answers him in the joy of his heart." The last phrase means that God Himself corresponds to his joy. Real enjoyment is a spirit that acknowledges God.
The quoted line follows an older translation; the ESV reads, "God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart."
If enjoyment is a gift, then the difference between two people eating the same meal is not the meal.
Take it simply as it stands. I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I thanked God for it. A person may say he enjoys his food because he is hungry. That is eating the way a pig eats. But if you thank God for it, it is another thing. Then you enjoy it as given by God.
That thankfulness is not an optional extra. Scripture treats its absence as a mark of people who have drifted from God:
From the beginning God showed by special revelation, both before and after the fall, that plant and animal food alike are His gifts to man. He gave them for man's support (Genesis 1:29-30; 9:3). He has never failed to send rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling people's hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17). What a constant reason for thankfulness to Him! But sadly, Scripture records a clear mark of people's sinful departure from God and forgetfulness of His mercies: "they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him" (Romans 1:21).
Notice what verse 13 does not claim. It is real light, but not the full answer.
Let us note carefully what this is. It is simply making the most of every material thing "under the sun" — looking at things only from an earthly viewpoint. So it teaches us that, apart from the revelation God has given, man's history is hopeless misery. How wonderful is the contrast in the New Testament! It presents the Lord Jesus Christ, His revelation of the glory of God, and the eternal inheritance of the saints in light.
- Gift. Food, drink and satisfaction in work are not wages. No amount of labour could produce them unless God gave them.
- Capacity. God gives both the portion and the power to enjoy it; without the second, the first is empty.
- Thanks. You meet the gift at the table — thanking God turns eating from appetite into receiving.
- Limit. The verse comes from a man who cannot trace God's work from beginning to end. It is wisdom inside the dark, not light shining out of it.
- Beyond. Ecclesiastes reaches only as far as life "under the sun". The fuller answer comes with Christ and the inheritance He brings.
I know that whatever God doeth, it shall be for ever; there is nothing to be added to it, nor anything to be taken from it; and God doeth [it], that [men] should fear before him.
Ecclesiastes 3 has just listed one time after another — birth and death, weeping and laughing, war and peace. Verse 14 sets one fixed thing against all that passing motion: what God does lasts, and He means it to make people fear Him.
The book has spent chapters measuring man and finding him short-lived. Here the subject changes from man to God.
He had spoken at length about man and his works; he speaks briefly about God and what He does. And what he says about God (for the name Jehovah does not occur in the book) only makes man's ruined condition stand out more sharply. Man does not last, his thoughts perish, his works crumble to dust, and his name is forgotten. He was not created for death, yet now he is born to die; but God abides. "I perceived that whatever God does endures forever." Here in the middle of everything that passes is something permanent.
Verse 11 says God set something in the human heart that reaches past the present moment. Commentators differ on how to translate that word.
Man is in a time state: there is a time for everything "under the heaven," but only "a time." God made everything beautiful in its time, and He has set "the age" in man's heart (Ecc. 3:11). The word translated "world" there in older English versions is olam, often translated "ever" and "everlasting." Some translate it "He has set eternity in their heart." But the sense is doubtless that man's heart can by nature only take in the age marked by time. God is working out His own end during this time state: man lives in time, but what God does will be forever.
One writer says that not being able to trace God's work is good for man, and turns his eyes to the Maker.
It is wholesome for man to feel how little he can find out, from the beginning to the end, the working that God works... Man should trust Him, gifted as he is, yet in a scene completely beyond him; and then what must the Maker be?
The verse also gives God's reason: that people should fear before Him. One writer explains what that fear does in a person.
God does it to produce holy fear, the beginning of wisdom in man. It also becomes the means of training the senses to tell good from evil, in those who would otherwise call good evil, and evil good (Isa. 5:20). Man cannot find out this work, because his sight reaches only to the horizon of time. By his own powers and senses he can take in only the things measured that way.
One writer carries this same "for ever" over to God's work in a person. If nothing can be added to what God does, no later work is needed to finish it.
This is an immediate, a complete, and an eternal work. "Whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it" (Ecc. 3:14). Whether He justifies or sanctifies, His work endures forever. God stamps eternity on every work of His hand: nothing can be added to it, and, blessed be His name, nothing can be taken from it.
One writer names what this "for ever" cost.
It is on the ground of atonement that this blessed "for ever" can take place. To that, as to all God's works, "nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it." Jehovah struck the One who was His fellow, and God hid His face, when the holy soul of Jesus was made an offering for sin. This is the basis of these ways of God, and of the work that He makes from beginning to end, until all ends in a new heaven and a new earth, where the former things have passed away.
- Contrast. Man's works crumble and his name is forgotten; God abides. This verse sets something permanent in the middle of everything that passes.
- Limit. Man lives in time, and his sight stops at the horizon of time. He cannot trace God's work from beginning to end, and feeling that limit is good for him.
- Completeness. Nothing can be added and nothing taken away. Whether God justifies or sanctifies, the stamp of eternity is on the work.
- Ground. The "for ever" rests on atonement — the offering of Christ for sin is the basis of God's ways from beginning to end.
- Purpose. God works this way so that people fear Him. That fear is the beginning of wisdom, and it trains a person to tell good from evil.
That which is was long ago, and that which is to be hath already been; and God bringeth back again that which is past.
The Preacher has just walked through the seasons of life, where everything under the sun gets its time and only God's work lasts for ever. This verse closes that thought with a turn that changes everything: the wheel keeps turning, and the past is not gone — God calls it back.
A note on wording: the writers quoted below use an older translation of the last clause — "God requires that which is past." The ESV has "God seeks what has been driven away."
Everything a person handles has a season — but only a season. A lifetime is too short a horizon to take in what God is doing.
Everything under the sun is measured by "times." There is a time to be born, and a time to die. No matter what purpose the sons of men may 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 underneath these passing times there is a "work that God makes from the beginning to the end." That work, done in ways of infinite wisdom, is "for ever." Man cannot find out this work, because his sight stops at the horizon of time. He can only take in by his own powers and senses the things that time measures.
No matter how far back a wrong lies, it stays open until God has dealt with it.
God is not finished with an evil until He has judged it. He never lets it just drop out of sight unnoticed; but "God requires," as the Preacher says, "that which is past." A solemn thought! Nothing but a real judgment of a thing before God can give it an effective burial.
Every new start tempts us to treat what is behind as settled. The verse cuts across that instinct, and one writer applies it to the mood of a new year.
The mistakes, failures, and disappointments of the past have, so the natural man thinks, been left behind, and the hope of a brighter and more successful experience dawns on his mind. He forgets the striking observation of the wise man… Man may forget his past in the busy rush of daily life; but God never does, for He has declared that every man shall be judged according to his works.
Suppose a person could turn over a new leaf and keep it. That still would not bring rest.
But suppose, for a moment, that we could do it. Suppose that by a well-kept resolution to lead a better life we could turn God's heart toward us for the future. God's righteous reckoning for the past would still remain… And with such a requirement hanging over our heads, how could we possibly have peace?
Your own memory is no measure of what stands against you.
You may plunge into every kind of pleasure in order, if possible, to forget the sins, and for a time you may succeed. But the sins are there. Some are forgotten. Some you remember well, as great stains in your life that you cannot erase. Whether secret or public, remembered or forgotten, great or small, they are there in the past. God says He "requires that which is past."
If the future cannot pay for the past, something else must. Forgiveness has a price, and it is not one you can pay later.
Everything you can do in the future cannot wipe out the past. "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Heb. 9:22). "God requires that which is PAST" (Eccl. 3:15).
For anyone who comes to God on that ground, the past is closed.
If you come to God now, the past is all forgiven, all blotted out, no memory of it remaining, and not a word to remind you of it; for God delights to say, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more" (Heb. 10:17).
This is not only about one life. God works the same way with whole nations — and not always in judgment.
God will know how to bring Sodom out of obscurity in His own time. But it is certain that for other perished nations besides her, the word of God says a resurrection-time is coming… For various purposes of righteousness or of grace, God will certainly show, as the Preacher assures us, that He "requires that which is past." … The wheel is in fact turning, and what brings down will bring up again.
- Time passes, God stays. Everything under the sun gets a season and only a season; God's work is "for ever," and man's sight is too short to trace it.
- The past stays open. God is not finished with an evil until He has judged it — and the wheel turns for whole nations too, not only for one life.
- Forgetting settles nothing. Secret or public, remembered or forgotten, great or small, your sins are still there in the past.
- Resolutions fail here. A better future leaves the old reckoning untouched, so reform can never produce peace.
- Only blood closes it. Nothing you do later wipes out the past, but for those who come to God He remembers their sins no more — the requirement met, not ignored.