I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to the intelligent, nor yet favour to men of knowledge; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
The writer of Ecclesiastes looks around at the world he can see, and it does not add up. The fastest runner loses the race. The strongest army loses the battle. The clever man goes hungry. Two questions follow: is human effort worth anything, and is life ruled by luck?
The verse first says where the writer was standing when he looked: "under the sun." One commentator explains what that phrase shuts out:
What is "under the sun" is on the earth. There is, of course, something above the sun — that is heaven, the heavenly things. So Ecclesiastes deals with earthly things, with what man does apart from God... In all his searching and describing of the things under the sun, the writer makes it clear that he does not depend on divine revelation, on what is above the sun. He reaches his results by the light that nature gives. His resources are within himself.
So the bleakness of the verse is not God's last word on the subject. It is an honest report from a man limited to what he can observe:
This book gives us man's experience, and man's reasoning, about everything that happens under the sun. Remember that, and the passages that look like unbelief cause no difficulty. Man's experience is bound to be unbelieving. He admits his ignorance, because experience can know nothing beyond what is seen. But the answer to every moral problem lies above and beyond what is seen.
The verse names five people with real advantages: the swift, the strong, the wise, the intelligent, and those with knowledge. Each one still fails. One writer reads the verse as a second trouble beyond the death already in view, then blocks the wrong conclusion about wisdom:
From verse 11 he follows another line of thought. It is not only that the end is so dark and so near. It is that the course meanwhile is so uncertain that no advantages can make it safe... The season God provides may never come, and without it the swift and the strong, the wise and the prudent and the instructed all fail. Ruin follows instead of the prize... Is wisdom useless, then? Far from it.
Does "time and chance" leave room for blind luck? One writer answers that question about this verse. He puts the result in God's hand and leaves the work in ours:
In Ecclesiastes it seems to mean that, with all man's efforts to achieve something, the outcome does not always depend on the strongest, and so on. God rules over all. He does not always give returns for the greatest efforts, but according to His will. We have to work and leave the result with God. A fine preacher works hard at preaching the gospel with no result. Then a simple man struggles through a basic talk, and someone confesses the Lord. We ought to do our best in all our service but, as Paul said, "God gave the increase."
One commentator turns the verse from a complaint into a comfort. He reads it through Jacob, who prevailed but was left limping:
We must always keep in the place of weakness, for it is the place of power... We have no resources in ourselves. Jacob had gained the victory through his dislocated hip. He limped on that hip, yet he had prevailed. "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." He now had to meet Esau with a weakened muscle. But it taught him not to trust in his own natural strength, but in the One who had weakened him and made him strong.
The verse describes a world where nothing lines up as it should. One commentator names the cause of that disorder, and points to where the answer lies:
Sin has ruined and confused everything here below. To look to the One above the ruin, Who stays the same for ever, was the only wisdom and righteousness. Now that He has revealed Himself in His Son, this is far clearer. Death is the end of everything here below; but in Him is life, and those who believe have it in Christ.
- Under — The verse reports only what a man can see from ground level. "Under the sun" means earth without revelation. Its findings are honest observation, not God's final word.
- Unsecured — Speed, strength, wisdom, money and standing are real advantages. None of them can guarantee the prize. Without the season God provides, every one of them fails.
- Undeserved — "Time and chance" is not blind luck. God rules over all. He gives results according to His will, not according to who tried hardest.
- Unreserved — Give full effort anyway. Do your best in every service, then leave the result with God, who gives the increase.
- Upward — Sin has confused everything down here. The only wisdom is to look to the One above the ruin, Who stays the same for ever and has now made Himself known in His Son. In Him is life.
For man also knoweth not his time as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are taken with the snare, like them are the children of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
The Preacher has just said that speed, strength and skill do not decide outcomes; now he explains why. Two pictures — a fish in the net, a bird in the snare — show danger arriving before the victim sees it. So what can a man do with a life he cannot schedule?
The verse belongs to a new line of thought that starts one verse earlier.
The bleakness has a reason. Ecclesiastes keeps to what a man can see from ground level. One commentator makes that the key to the whole book.
The second phrase we notice is "under the sun." It appears twenty-nine times in this book. What is "under the sun" is on the earth… In all his searching and describing of things under the sun, the writer makes one thing clear. He does not rely on divine revelation, on what is above the sun. He reaches his results by the light nature gives; his resources are within himself. Ecclesiastes is therefore the book of the natural man apart from divine revelation. It stands in the Scriptures for one purpose: to show the natural man how hollow everything under the sun is, and so to move him to seek and find what is better — what is above the sun.
The same writer treats this verse as the closing note of a whole movement in the book, and lays his outline out accordingly:
PART II. CHAPTERS 7–12. THE GOOD ADVICE OF THE NATURAL MAN, DISCOURAGEMENT AND FAILURE: (7–9:12). THE PRAISE OF WISDOM AND PHILOSOPHY, THE FINAL WORD AND THE GREAT CONCLUSION: (9:13–12).
Not knowing your time is part of a larger problem.
Present events answer to God's government so little that no one can draw a just conclusion from them. Yet the Preacher lays down two truths beyond dispute. The righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God. Yet no man knows either love or hatred — the whole is before them. On the surface the same outcome comes to all; one thing happens to bad and good.
Both images work the same way. The fish and the bird feel safe right up to the moment of capture. One writer turns that into a warning about how we judge our own state.
Absence of alarm is, in itself, no real guarantee of safety. Every fisherman's baited hook, every well-spread fowler's net assumes this.
The Preacher's world offers no firm footing. One writer looks past that darkness to what God has since revealed.
Sin has ruined and confused everything here below. The only wisdom and righteousness was to look to One above the ruin, Who stays the same for ever. Now that He has revealed Himself in His Son, this is far plainer still. Death is the end of everything here below; but in Him is life, and those who believe have it in Christ. Before He came, death could not help being dreadful — even for the believer the light beyond was so dim. Now we can call death gain, and far better than the life of this world; for it means to depart and be with Christ.
The hour stays hidden, so delay is a gamble. A writer describing a sudden disaster draws the plain lesson.
It is a mistake to put off deciding for Christ till it is too late. "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring" (Prov. 27:1) is God's word to every one of us. How solemnly it was illustrated here. Two of the dear men who were to meet me on Tuesday passed into eternity on Monday! So much for man's plans.
- Sight — The verse looks at life from "under the sun." The writer works by what nature shows him, without revelation. That is why the view is so bare.
- Uncertainty — Present events give no reliable reading of God's government. No one can work out his own time from them.
- Snare — The fish and the bird are caught because they suspect nothing. Calm is no proof of safety.
- Above — Everything under the sun is ruined and confused. The only wisdom is to look to the One above it. In Him is life for those who believe.
- Now — The hour falls suddenly, so no one owns tomorrow. The decision belongs to today.