Part 1 of 3
We are continuing in our study of the book of Ecclesiastes and we now turn our attention to chapter 3 verses 1-15. The first eight verses of this chapter are without question THE most well-known in the whole book. In the 1960s, a pop group known as the Byrds used these verses in the lyrics of their song entitled “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and thus popularized it.
But most people who have heard these words do not know that they are from the Bible, let alone the book of Ecclesiastes, and even fewer know what they really mean.
Verse 1 says, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
At first glance, this seems to be telling us that we need to be wise in the way that we live, that is, we need to know when is the right time to do the right thing. We need to understand that there is an appropriate time for everything and to act accordingly.
Or in the words of one commentator, “The poem is popularly understood to mean that there are appropriate moments for people to act…” But that is not quite what Solomon is saying. Yes, it’s true that we should live and act appropriately and wisely, and discipline ourselves to do the right things at the right times.
There should be order and structure in our lives and we should not live haphazardly and so on. All that is true but that is not the point of this passage.
You see, Solomon is not giving us a prescription of what we should do. Instead, he is giving us a description of what actually happens in life.
He is describing for us the events and activities that take place in time. He is telling us that everything that happens, happens according to a predetermined plan. Everything has been appointed, and everything occurs according to their set time.
Everything in this entire universe is part of a grand plan or scheme. There is a season and an appointed period for every event and activity. All things take place at their appropriate time.
A Description of Everything in Time (vv. 1-8)
Verse 1 is a summary statement followed by seven verses that give particular examples of that opening statement.
It’s clear that Solomon intends to cover everything and to leave no exceptions. He uses the words everything and every purpose (or every activity) under the heaven in verse 1. Then from verses 2-8, we find fourteen pairs of contrasting opposites. Let us consider them briefly.
In verse 2, we have two pairs that encompass the entire life cycle, and include every living thing. Every person or animal or plant in this world has a beginning and will have an end. There is a time to be born or be planted, and a time to die or be uprooted.
These first two pairs of contrasts serve as a fitting introduction to all the rest, because all the rest take place between them.
And it’s clear that the preacher is giving us a description of life and not a prescription. In other words, he is telling us, “this is what happens in life” and not “this is what you must do or not do.”
We know that because no person chooses the time of his birth, and in most cases, he does not choose the time of his death. None of us chose when and where we wanted to be born.
And apart from taking our own life, none of us will choose the time of our death. These things are outside our control and they happen to us at their appropriate time.
In verse 3, the poem continues with two additional pairs of opposites, namely, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up. The first describes what happens in the sphere of the animate or living while the second in the sphere of the inanimate.
To kill refers to the action of ending life while to heal refers to the effort to preserve life. To tear down and to build up refer particularly to the sphere of building and construction.
A good illustration of verse 3 is during a time of war. War is a time of killing and destruction. When the hostilities are over, then that is a time of healing and building up again.
In verse 4, we move into the realm of emotions. “A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Weeping and laughing refer more to private expressions of happiness and sadness while mourning and dancing speak of more public expressions of emotion.
In verse 5, the author mentions casting away stones and gathering stones. Mostly likely, he is thinking of the time to clear away stones from a field in order to make it suitable for agricultural use in contrast to the time to ruin the enemy’s field by throwing stones into it and making it useless for growing anything.
In verse 5, we also read of a time to embrace and a time to refraining from embracing. This has to do with the time of being together in contrast to the time of being separated.
Verse 6 says, “A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away.” There are times when we have to look for something or keep something but there are other occasions when we have to give up searching for it or throw it away.
A good illustration of this is found in the story of Jonah. The sailors started to hurl their cargo off the ship in the hope of lightening it and keeping it afloat in the midst of the storm. They tried their very best to keep Jonah onboard but eventually they were compelled to hurl him overboard as well.
Verse 7, “A time to rend and a time to sew.” This probably speaks of the time of mourning when people rend their clothes as an expression of grief and sadness while the time to sew refers to the time when clothes are repaired after the mourning is over.
A time to keep silence and a time to speak may also have reference to seasons of grief and tragedy. Remember how Job’s friends sat down with him for seven days and nights and none of them said a word because they saw that his grief was very great. They kept silence. But then after the seven days were over, Job was able to speak again and his friends also opened their lips to counsel him.
It seems that the whole of verse 7 has reference to times of grief, sadness and tragedy.
Finally, in verse 8, we have a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. Here are strong emotions of attraction and repulsion both on a personal and corporate or national level.
So to summarize: birth and death, planting and uprooting, killing and healing, breaking down and building up, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, clearing stones and gathering stones, embracing and refraining from embrace, getting and losing, keeping and casting away, rending and mending, silence and speaking, loving and hating, war and peace.
If you think about it, the timings of many of these things are totally out of our hands and control. And even when we do have some control over somethings, we are not the ones who are ultimately and finally in control.
We talked about the time of birth earlier, but let’s talk about the time of war as another example. The common people and even the soldiers in the army have no control over when their country goes to war or when the time of war is forced upon them.
Even the king, who may declare a state of war, is not ultimately sovereign for Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersover he will.” We are not ultimately the masters of our own fate or the captains of our own souls!
Or think about the time of sorrow and rejoicing. We do not decide, for example, that we are going to have three hours of laughter today and twenty minutes of crying tomorrow, followed by several days of neither laughing nor crying. That is not how life works. Again, we are reminded that we are not the ones in ultimate control over the seasons of our life….