Examining The Scripture XCII: Seasons

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Makes a statement through a nice piece of poetry, that there is a deliberate time for all human activity or a time for every purpose under heaven.

(1) There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

(2) a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

(3) a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

(4) a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

(5) a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

(6) a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

(7) a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

(8) a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Many of these, if not all of these activities/imperatives are directed at humans. He uses “antithetical” or opposing pairs that are the antithesis of one another for effect and/or illustrations of extremes in the human realm. Kill/Heal, Born/Die, Mourn/Dance, War/Peace. According to The Pulpit Commentary, Hebrew manuscripts and most printed texts of verses 2-8 are arranged in two parallel columns, so that one “time” always stands under another to further drive home this deliberate separation. We read later in Chapter 3 (v. 17) that the humans perpetrating these acts will be held accountable for them also through judgment. The interesting thing is that Solomon starts the list with something that a human has absolutely no control over: birth, or very little control over: Death. As he goes through this list of polar opposites we see patterns of life and death, building up and breaking down, emotional reactions perhaps to things like the deaths and births, the seeking and the losing. Although most of these things are to a varying degree different, so too are they easily combinable and interchangeable (Glenn et al 983).

You also get the sense of God’s providence working here. If there is a time for everything the implication is that it is planned. Everything refers especially to men’s movements and actions because it is “under heaven”. In human affairs Providence arranges the moment when everything will happen and the duration of its “happening”. There are also implications of prudence of a process of decision-making in some of these examples (killing, gathering, silence, speaking….choices, some wise, some not so wise.

So I guess what we really have here is a mingling of things that are completely in God’s control like conception/birth and death of an individual and we have things that are still within God’s providence and sovereignty but also man’s choice to some extent.

Glenn, Donald , John Walvoord. "Ecclesiastes." Bible Knowledge Commentary Old Testament: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Bible Knowledge). Acambaro: Victor, 1985. 983-984. Print.