Chapter 3
A time for everything...
2021 - That long poem about everything having its time and place. This is vss 1-8.
vss 9-15 are titled The God-Given Task
Then vs 11:
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. [Ecc 3:11 ESV]
And 12 seems to be a continuation, or an addition maybe, to 2:24:
12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; [Ecc 3:12 ESV]
In fact, 12 and 13 repeat 2:24, so they are to be taken together. Be joyful, do good, eat, drink, and take pleasure in your work. This is the best of life.
He calls these things God's gift to man. Only what God does endures, not what we do. At the risk of being repetitive, here is 3:13:
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. [Ecc 3:12-13 ESV]
These verses:
14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; 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. [Ecc 3:14-15 ESV]
These seem profound, yet I don't quite get the whole point. I see that the difference between God and man is that what God does, stays, endures, remains. He made earth, heaven, man, and all that is. It is all still here. What man makes passes away with time. But God made the things that man uses to make things. What God made will always be here.
2023 - The things that God made are cyclical, enduring, and cannot be changed or improved. What man makes decays, stops working, or is superseded by automation and technology and advancing knowledge. Therefore, the rising and setting sun, the turning of the seasons, the rotation of the Milky Way - these have no beginning and no end, they do not decay and grow old, they continue as they always have. There is nothing "new" about the sun coming up today. What do men admire? Things that endure, and so man seeks to make himself a god by building that which endures. It is why we are so enamored with the pyramids in Egypt...and South America, with the Roman aqueducts, the Taj Mahal. Endurance is an attribute of the divine, and that is why we are so obsessed with that which endures. The closest we can come to this, perhaps, is in children and grandchildren.
2021 - The point is that what God made endures forever. The works of man fade and are forgotten. God's creation is new every morning. Every sunrise and sunset...these endure, these are God's. We realize at some level, everyone realizes, that there is a transcendent order to things. Aligning with that - with the God that is the only source of enduring work or thought or purpose - is the only source of a good life. This all speaks directly to Peterson trying to put responsibility in God's place. It does not work, it too is empty, because it is for individual or corporate good, and no matter how much you get that right, it does not endure, no more than the antics of a Friday night fool. There has to be something greater, else there is no purpose to life. This is what Peterson misses.
Vss 16-22 are titled From Dust to Dust
Here are some interesting thoughts from Solomon about animals:
In vs 18 he says God tests us so we see "...we are but beasts." Our end and the end of beasts is the same. We both die. We both came from dust, we both return to dust. 19b says "...They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage of the beasts..." And 21 is the real kicker:
21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? [Ecc 3:21 ESV] Maybe it is true after all that all dogs go to heaven.
The chapter ends with this repeated conclusion. This is the third time we've seen this thought:
22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? [Ecc 3:22 ESV]
2021 - This last is quite depressing. Why does it come after what was said in vs 14, which seemed to be the answer?
This last paragraph says that men die, and animals die, and both return to the dust. Not only are we forgotten by men, but we are as forgotten as a dead donkey. This phrase in vs 18 - "God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts". Really? Solomon thinks the whole reason for all things is just to make us realize how menially useless and unimportant our noblest accomplishments are? So we understand that our labor is just labor in the same way an ox's work is just plowing, just like the last ox and the next ox? What is the difference? Solomon says there isn't any. And perhaps this is the depressing truth. We're just beasts.
BUT, I still go back to vss 11, 12. There is purpose there. I think.