3 "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.
14 I perceived that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away."
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
The paradox mentioned at the end of the previous Note - between the immortal and the finite in man's experience and constitution - is now further developed in this passage. The words in 1-8 are well known and often quoted. But we need to ask what they mean and what is their connection with what is being said in the present context. There are two points to note: the first is that the necessity for detachment, already mentioned in earlier Notes, is underlined once more. It is vain to hope for an ordered, systematic existence without the changes and vicissitudes of life, for life is just not like that. It is not all laughing or dancing, nor is it all smooth. Therefore, we must be rightly related to it. Paul's experience in prison, as described in Philippians 4:11, 12 illustrates this well: he knew how to be abased and how to abound. He was adaptable. And he was adaptable because he was detached. This must be our pattern also: we must take each change as it comes, and learn to glorify God in it. The other point to note is that there is a contrast and antithesis between 'time' and 'eternity' here, which adds to man's perplexity, and for this reason: the 'eternity' in man's heart leads him to long for permanence and the unchanging, whereas, in fact, he is confronted with the reality of the transient and the changing. Also, the paradox of his experience, namely that he is an immortal creature, with eternity set in his heart, and yet finite and mortal, a limited creature, means that he cannot see the end from the beginning, as God does, and is not able to see rhyme or reason in the 'times' that change. Man sees from 'under the sun', and it is the under side of the tapestry he sees, which is often incomprehensible.