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Choon-Leong Seow has some helpful comments about the \u201ctime for this, time for that\u201d poem in Ecclesiastes 3. He points out that the thrust of the section is about God\u2019s control of times and portions. As evidence, he notes that the word \u201cseason\u201d us normally used \u201cof predetermined or appointed time.\u201d More fundamentally, while the section recognizes the reality of human action (describing man as \u201cthe doer\u201d in 3:9), the accent is on God\u2019s action: \u201cThe word \u2018sh <\/em> \u2018to do, work, make, act\u2019 is used repeatedly of God, who is also mentioned several times in vv. 10-15: it is God who has made . . . everything (v 11); people cannot discover the deed . . . that God has done . . . from the beginning to the end (v 11); what God does . . . is \u2018eternal\u2019 (v 14); and God has acted . . . that people might be reverent before God (v 14). The only thing that the human is able to do . . . is to find pleasure in life (v 12), but even that is a gift of God (v 13).\u201d The \u201ceverything\u201d that God does in v 11 echoes with the \u201ceverything\u2019 of v 1, and v 11 also refers to \u201ctime\u201d (cf. v 1): \u201cGod is the one responsible for bringing about everything in its time.\u201d <\/p>\n Choon-Leong Seow has some helpful comments about the \u201ctime for this, time for that\u201d poem in Ecclesiastes 3. He points out that the thrust of the section is about God\u2019s control of times and portions. As evidence, he notes that the word \u201cseason\u201d us normally used \u201cof predetermined or appointed time.\u201d More fundamentally, while the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-ot-ecclesiastes"],"yoast_head":"\n
Seow offers the following explanation of \u201ceternity in the heart\u201d: \u201cThe preoccupation that God has given to people ot keep them in their place is this \u2018eternity\u2019 in their hearts that inevitably confronts the reality of each moment. That is the irony of the human\u2019s situation. Humanity can expect to know the appropriateness of what God has done only in its moment, in its time, but one cannot hope to discover what God has done \u2018from the beginning to the end\u2019 (v 11). Qohelet is thinking here of the effort of people ot bypass the moment in order to grasp the totality of existence. Mortals cannot discover that sort of thing, however. Humanity knows of eternity, but can only cope with activities in their time. The eternity in human hearts only serves to underscore the ephemerality of the moment that each person experiences.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"