Ecc. 3: Enjoy your Work

Ecclesiastes 3:22 "So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?"

Ecclesiastes 3 is probably best know for comprising a majority of the 1959 Pete Seeger tune "Turn! Turn! Turn!" The first 8 verses are a Proverbs-like set of couplets, declaring that there are times for everything. At one time, there is a time to plant, and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. They all seem to be opposites. Something we would declare good, and something that could ostensibly be bad. There are times for all of them.

In keeping with the context of meaninglessness, of vanity, is the writer saying it doesn't really matter what you do? Maybe its not to do one thing full time. If you are going to do one thing, you should do the other.

Again there is the emphasis to find satisfaction in our toil. To be happy with that. God created man with this burden. To only know life. To only know time. To be unable to fathom the eternity of God and his works. This is why eternity is so mind blowing. It was meant to never be understood by mere men. We have one go-around. Life is temporary, while God, who transcends life, is eternal, not to be grasped.

Life under the sun, is not ideal, where judgment and justice should be rightfully, wickedness exists. God, who also transcends time, sets our time. And everything will happen in his time.

The writer has faith in God, and appears to trust God with eternity, but still doesn't know. He wonders if man and animal are truly so different. Both die (like the wise and the fool). Both are composed of the dust to which they will return. Man doesn't know what happens after him. Man can only know history, not future.