After all, the writer arrives at the conclusion intimated in Ecclesiastes 3:12; only here the result is gathered from the acknowledgment of man's impotence (Ecclesiastes 3:16-18), as there from the experience of life. Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, etc.; rather, so, or wherefore I saw that there was nothing, etc. As man is not master of his own lot, cannot order events as he would like, is powerless to control the forces of nature and the providential arrangements of the world, his duty and his happiness consist in enjoying the present, in making the best of life, and availing himself of the bounties which the mercy of God places before him. Thus he will free himself from anxieties and cares, perform present labors, attend to present duties, content himself with the daily round, and not vex his heart with solicitude for the future. There is no Epicureanism here, no recommendation of sensual enjoyment; the author simply advises men to make a thankful use of the blessings which God provides for them. For who shall bring him to see what shall be after him? The Revised Version, by inserting "back"—Who shall bring him back to see?—affixes a meaning to the clause which it need not and does not bear. It is, indeed, commonly interpreted to signify that man knows and can know nothing that happens to him after death—whether he will exist or not, whether he will have cognizance of what passes on earth, or be insensible to all that befalls here. But Koheleth has completed that thought already; his argument now turns to the future in this life. Use the present, for you cannot be sure of the future;—this is his exhortation. So he says (Ecclesiastes 6:12), "Who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?" where the expression, "under the sun," shows that earthly life is meant, not existence after death. Ignorance of the future is a very common topic throughout the book, but it is the terrestrial prospect that is in view. There would be little force in urging the impotence of men's efforts towards their own happiness by the consideration of their ignorance of what may happen when they are no more; but one may reasonably exhort men to cease to torment themselves with hopes and fears, with labors that may be useless and preparations that may never be needed, by the reflection that they cannot foresee the future, and that, for all they know, the pains which they take may be utterly wasted (cf. Ecclesiastes 7:14; Ecclesiastes 9:3). Thus in this section there is neither skepticism nor Epicureanism. In brief, the sentiment is this—There are injustices and anomalies in the life of men and in the course of this world's events which man cannot control or alter; these may be righted and compensated hereafter. Meantime, man's happiness is to make the best of the present, and cheerfully to enjoy what Providence offers, without anxious care for the future.
HOMILETICS
Times and seasons; or, Heaven's order in man's affairs.
I. THE EVENTS AND PURPOSES OF LIFE.
1. Great in their number. The Preacher's catalogue exhausts not, but only exemplifies, the "occupations and interests," occurrences and experiences, that constitute the warp and woof of mortal existence. Between the cradle and the grave, instances present themselves in which more things happen than are here recorded, and more designs are attempted and fulfilled than are here contemplated. There are also cases in which the sum total of experience is included in the two entries, "born," "died;" but the generality of mortals live long enough to suffer and to do many more things beneath the sun.
2. Manifold in their variety. In one sense and at one time it may seem as if there were "no new thing under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9), either in the history of the race or in the experience of the individual; but at another time and in another sense an almost infinite variety appears in both. The monotony of life, of which complaint is often heard (Ecclesiastes 1:10), exists rather in the mind or heart of the complainant than in the texture of life itself. What more diversified than the events and purposes the Preacher has catalogued? Entering through the gateway of birth upon the mysterious arena of existence, the human being passes through a succession of constantly shifting experiences, till he makes his exit from the scene through the portals of the grave, planting and plucking up, etc.
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."
('As You Like It,' act it. sc. 7.)
3. Antithetic in their relations. Human life, like man himself, may almost be characterized as a mass of contradictions. The incidents and interests, purposes and plans, events and enterprises, that compose it, are not only manifold and various, but also, it would seem, diametric in their opposition. Being born is in due course succeeded by dying; planting by plucking up; and killing—it may be in war, or by administration of justice, or through some perfectly defensible cause—if not by actual raising from death, which lies confessedly beyond the power of man (1 Samuel 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7), at least by healing every malady short of death. Breaking down, whether of material structures (2 Chronicles 23:17) or of intellectual systems, whether of national (Jeremiah 1:10) or religious (Galatians 2:18) institutions, is after an interval followed by the building up of those very things which were destroyed. Weeping endureth only for a night, while joy cometh in the morning (Psalms 30:5). Dancing, on the other hand, gives place to mourning. In short, whatever experience man at any time has, before he terminates his pilgrimage he may almost confidently count on having the opposite; and whatever action he may at any season perform, another season will almost certainly arrive when he will do the reverse. Of every one of the antinomies cited by the Preacher, man's experience on the earth furnishes examples.
4. Fixed in their times. Though appearing to come about without any order or arrangement, the events and 'purposes of mundane existence are by no means left to the guidance, or rather no-guidance, of chance; but rather have their places in the vast world-plan determined, and the times of their appearing fixed. As the hour of each man's entrance into life is decreed; so is that of, his departure from the same (Hebrews 9:27; 2 Timothy 4:6). The date at which he shall step forth upon the active business of life, represented in the Preacher's catalogue by "planting and plucking up," "breaking down and building up," "casting away stones and gathering stones together," "getting and losing;" the period at which he shall marry (Esther 3:4), with the times at which weddings and funerals (Esther 3:4) shall occur in his family circle; the moment when he shall be called upon to stand up valiantly for truth and right amongst his contemporaries (Proverbs 15:23), or to preserve a discreet and prudent silence when talk would be folly (Proverbs 10:8), or even hurtful to the cause he serves; the times when he shall either suffer his affections to flow forth in an uninterrupted stream towards the good, or withhold them from unworthy objects; or, if be a statesman, the occasions what, he shall go to war and return from it, are all predetermined by infinite wisdom.
5. Determined in their durations. How long each individual life shall continue (Psalms 31:15; Acts 17:26), how long each experience shall last, and how long each action shall take to perform, is equally a fixed and ascertained quantity, if not to man's knowledge, certainly to that of the supreme Disposer of events.
II. THE TIMES AND SEASONS OF LIFE.
1. Appointed by and known only to God. As in the material and natural world the Creator hath appointed times and seasons, as, e.g; to the. heavenly bodies for their rising and setting (Psalms 104:19), to plants for their growing and decaying, and to animals for their instinctive actions (Job 39:1, Job 39:2; Jeremiah 8:7), so in the human and spiritual world has he ordained the same (Acts 17:26; Ephesians 1:10; Titus 1:3); and these times and seasons, both in the natural and in the spiritual world, hath God reserved to himself (Acts 1:7).
2. Unavoidable and unalterable by man. As no man can predict the day of his death (Genesis 27:2; Matthew 25:13), any more than know beforehand that of his birth, so neither can he fathom beforehand the incidents that shall happen, or the times when they shall fall out during the course of his life (Proverbs 27:1). Nor by any precontriving can he change by so much as a hair's breadth the place into which each incident is fitted, or the moment when it shall happen.
Learn:
1. The changefulness of human life, and the duty of preparing wisely to meet it.
2. The Divine order that pervades human life, and the propriety of accepting it with meekness.
3. The difficulty (from a human point of view) of living well, since no man can be quite certain that for anything he does he has found the right season.
4. The wisdom of seeking for one's self the guidance of him in whose hands are times and seasons (Acts 1:7).
All things beautiful; or, God, man, and the world.
I. THE BEAUTIFUL RELATION OF THE WORLD TO GOD. Expressed by four words.
1. Dependence: no such thing as independence, self-subsistence, self-origination, self-regulation, in mundane affairs. The universe, out to its circumference and in to its center, from its mightiest Structure down to its smallest detail, is the handiwork of God. Whatever philosophers may say or think upon the subject, it is simple absurdity to teach that the universe made itself, or that the incidents composing the sum of human life and experience have come to pass of themselves. It will be time enough to believe things are their own makers when effects can be discovered that have no causes. Persons of advanced (?) intelligence and culture may regard the Scriptures as behind the age in respect of philosophic insight and scientific attainment; it is to their credit that their writers never talk such unphilosophic and unscientific nonsense as that mundane things are their own creators. Their common sense—if not permissible to say their inspiration—appears to have been strong and clear enough to save them from being befooled by such vagaries as have led astray many modem savants, and to have taught them that the First Cause of all things is God (Genesis 1:1; Exodus 20:11; Nehemiah 9:6; Job 38:4; Psalms 19:1; Isaiah 40:28; Acts 14:15; Acts 17:24; Romans 11:36; Ephesians 3:9; Hebrews 3:4; Revelation 4:11).
2. Variety no monotony in mundane affairs. Obvious as regards both the universe as a whole and its individual parts. The supreme Artificer of the former had no idea of fashioning all things after one model, however excellent, but sought to introduce variety into the works of his hands; and just this is the principle upon which he has proceeded in arranging the program of man's experiences upon the earth. To this diversity in man's experience the twenty-eight instances of events and purposes given by the Preacher (Esther 3:2-8) allude; and this same diversity is a mark at once of wisdom and of kindness on the part of the Supreme. As the material globe would be monotonous were it all mountain and no valley, so would human life be uninteresting were it an unchanging round of the same few incidents. But it is not. If there are funerals and deaths, there are as well marriages and births; if nights of weeping, days of laughing; if times of war, periods of peace.
3. Order: no chance or accident in mundane affairs. To short-sighted and feeble man, human life is full of accidents or chances; but not so when viewed from the standpoint of God, Not only does no event happen without his permission (Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6), but each event occurs at the time and falls into the place appointed for it by infinite wisdom. Nor is this true merely of such events as are wholly and exclusively in his power, like births and deaths (Esther 3:2), but of such also as to some extent at least are within man's control, as e.g. the planting of a field and the plucking up of that which is planted (Esther 3:2), killing and healing, breaking down and building up (Esther 3:3), weeping and laughing (Esther 3:4), etc. Men may flatter themselves that of these latter actions they are the sole originators, have both the choosing of their times and the fixing of their forms; but according to the Preacher, God's supremacy is as little to be disputed in them as in the matter of man's coming into or going out from the word. We express this thought by citing the well-known proverb, "Man proposes, but God disposes," or the familiar words of Shakespeare—
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."
('Hamlet,' act 5. so. 2.)
4. Beauty: no defect or deformity in mundane affairs. This cannot signify that in such events and actions as "killing," "hating," "warring," there is never anything wrong; that God regards them only as good in the making, and generally that sin is a necessary stage in the development of human nature. The Preacher is not pronouncing judgment upon the moral qualities of the actions he enumerates, but merely calling attention to their fitness for the times and seasons to which they have been assigned by God. Going back in thought to the "Very good!" of the Creator when he rested from his labors at the close of the sixth day (Genesis 1:31), the Preacher cannot think of saying less of the work God is still carrying on in evolving the plan and program of his purpose. "God hath made everything beautiful in its time" (cf. Esther 3:11): beautiful in itself, so far as it is a work of his; but beautiful not less in its time, even when the work, as not being entirely his, is not beautiful in itself, or in its inward essence. Cf. Shakespeare's—
"How many things by season seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!"
('Merchant of Venice,' act 5. sc. 1.)
Beautiful in themselves and their times are the seasons of the year, the ages of man, and the changing experiences through which he passes; beautiful, at least in their times, are numerous human actions which God cannot be regarded as approving, but which nevertheless he permits to occur because he sees the hour has struck for their occurring. As it were, the glowing wheels of Divine providence never fail to keep time with the great clock of eternity.
II. THE BEAUTIFUL RELATION OF MAN TO THE WORLD. Also expressed in four words.
1. Weariness: no perfect rest in the midst of mundane affairs. Not only is man tossed about continually by the multitudinous vicissitudes of which he is the subject, but he derives almost no satisfaction from the thought that in all these changes there is a beautiful because divinely appointed harmony, and a beneficent because Heaven-ordained purpose. The order pervading the universe is something outside of and beyond him. The fixing of the right times is a work in which he cannot, even in a small degree, co-operate. As a wise man, he may wish to have every action in which he bears a part performed at the set time marked out for it on the clock of eternity; but the very attempt to find out for each action the right time only aggravates the fatigue of his labor, and increases the sense of weariness under which he groans. "What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth?" Not, certainly, "no profit," but not enough to give him rest or even free him from weariness. And this, when viewed from a moral and religious standpoint, is beautiful inasmuch as it prevents (or ought to prevent) man from seeking happiness in mundane affairs.
2. Ignorance: no perfect knowledge of mundane affairs. "No man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." One more proof of the vanity of human life—that no man, however wise and far-seeing, patient and laborious, can discover the plan of God either in the universe as a whole or in his own life; and what renders this a special sorrow is the fact that God hath set "the world [or.,' eternity'] in his heart." If the "world" be accepted as the true rendering (Jerome, Luther, Ewald), then probably the meaning is that, though each individual carries about within his besom in his own personality an image of the world—is, in fact, a microcosmus in which the macrocosmus or great world is mirrored—nevertheless the problem of the universe eludes his grasp. If, however, the translation "eternity" be adopted (Delitzsch, Wright, Plumptre), then the import of the clause will be that God hath planted in the heart of man "a longing after immortality," given him an idea of the infinite and eternal which lies beyond the veil of outward things, and inspired him with a desire to know that which is above and beyond him, yet he cannot find out the secret of the universe in the sense of discovering its plan. With an infinite behind and. before him, he can grasp neither the beginning of the work of God in its purpose or plan, nor the end of it in its issues and results, whether to the individual or to the whole. What his eye looks upon is the middle portion passing before him here and now—in comparison with the whole but an infinitesimal speck—and so he remains with reference to the whole like a person walking in the dark.
3. Submission: no ground for complaining as to mundane affairs. Rather in the view presented is much to comfort man had the ordering of the universe, or even of his own lot, been left to man, man himself would have been the first to regret it. As Laplace is credited with having said that, if only the Almighty had called him into counsel at the making of the universe, he could have given the Almighty some valuable hints, so are there equally foolish persons who believe they could have drafted for themselves a better life-program than has been done for them by the supreme Disposer of events. A wise man, however, will always feel grateful that the Almighty has retained the ordering of events in his own hand, and will meekly submit to the same, believing that God's times are the best times, and that his ways are ever "mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies" (Psalms 25:10).
4. Fear: no justification for impiety or irreverence in mundane affairs. A proper study of the constitution and course of nature, a due recognition of the order pervading all its parts, with a just consideration both of the perfection and permanence (Esther 3:14) of the Divine working, ought to inspire men with "fear "—of such sort as both to repress within them irreligion and impiety, and to excite within them humility and awe.
Requiring that which is past.
I. IN THE REALM OF NATURE. God seeks after that which is past or has been driven away, in the sense that he recalls or brings again phenomena that have vanished; as e.g. the reappearance of the sun with its light and heat, the various seasons of the year with their respective characteristics, the circling of the winds with other meteorological aspects of the firmament. The thought here is the uniformity of sequence in the physical world (Ecclesiastes 1:4-7).
II. IN THE SPHERE OF INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE. God seeks after that which has been driven away in the sense that he reproduces in the life of one individual experiences that have existed in another, or in himself at a former point in his career. The thought is, that by Heaven's decree a large amount of sameness exists in the phases of thought and feeling through which different individuals pass, or the same individuals at successive stages of their development.
III. IN THE DOMAIN OF HISTORY. God seeks after that which has been driven away, in the sense that, on the broad theatre of action which men name "time," or "the world," he frequently, in the evolutions of his providence; seems to recall the past by reproducing "situations" "incidents," "events," "experiences," similar to, if not identical with, those which occurred before. The thought is that history frequently repeats itself.
IV. IN THE PROGRAM OF THE UNIVERSE. God will eventually seek after that which has been driven away, by calling up again out of the past for judgment every individual that has lived upon the globe, with every word that has been spoken and every act that has been done, with every secret thought and imagination, whether it has been good or whether it has been bad. The thought is that the distant past and the distant future will one day meet. The place will be before the great white throne; the time will be the last day.