Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Ecclesiastes 3:11-15
God has Given Man a Conception of Everlastingness.
Here he provides something extra to what God has given men to do. While man has to work so hard, nevertheless God has made everything beautiful in its time (‘God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good' - Genesis 1:29). And at the same time God has set everlastingness in man's heart (‘God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him' - Genesis 1:27). But it has been done in such a way that man is unable to comprehend totally what God has done.
‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also he has set everlastingness in their heart, yet in such a way that man cannot find out the work that God has done from the beginning, even to the end.'
The thought of time has turned his thoughts to the beauty of the world. He acknowledges that everything is beautiful in its time. God had created beauty (Genesis 1:29), and that beauty continues on as different things arise in their time. But on the basis of Ecclesiastes 3:1 the corollary is that while each thing has its time, and it is a time of beauty, it will in the end wither and decay. Nevertheless it has had its time of beauty. But again that might be seen as the point, its beauty fades in the end. The ceaseless repetition continues. Of what purpose the beauty if it finally fades?
The partial answer comes in that he sees God as having set within man's heart the awareness of everlastingness. Now here is something very tangible and very different. Man was made in the image of God, and therefore man is aware that God is the everlasting God, that although history repeats itself again and again in the same way, it does so on a time-line that finally continues on everlastingly. Thus he grasps the concept of everlastingness. At last he has found something that is not transient.
But he immediately stresses that this does not mean that man is able to find out God's ways, or what He has done from the beginning, or will do, even to the end. That is outside man's cognisance. He cannot fathom God. All he can do is be aware of that everlastingness, and that those who know God are connected to that everlastingness, even though each only has a short span along that unceasing time-line, unless of course man can in some way partake in that everlastingness.
‘I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and to do good so long as they live. And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy good in all his labour. It is the gift of God.'
But as men cannot totally search out God's ways in spite of their sense of everlastingness, the best thing for them to do is to be happy and to do good as long as they live, while being aware of the everlastingness. He is continuing the thought that men must follow the path of the godly (must be pleasing to God - Ecclesiastes 2:26), even though they may still not quite appreciate what they have which is so important. He has failed as yet to recognise that there is an everlasting quality and a special relationship with God in all that they do, and that they are part of everlastingness, in the sense that they are caught up in an undefinable something which is positively everlasting, and not just everlasting continuance. (What elsewhere is called an eternal covenant.)
But he still sees such a man's happiness as obtained by living a contented life before God, achieved by eating and drinking, in the normal course of this life, what he sees as given to him by God, and by enjoying good in all his labour, accepting it as God's given task for him, and throwing himself into it. For this is God's gift to him. (But the Preacher's positive understanding is still lacking).
‘I know that whatever God does it will be for ever. Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. And God has done it that men should fear before him. That which is has been already, and that which is to be has already been. And God seeks that which is pursued.'
He is now getting closer to the significance of his concept of everlastingness. God is everlasting, and what He does it will be for ever. There at least is something that is perfect. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing can be taken from it. It is not limited by the time-line. It transcends it. (He will in the end work up to the position that man can transcend it too).
‘And God has done it that men should fear before him.' What has God done? He has done things that are clearly everlasting. Nothing can be added to them. Nothing can be taken from them. Here is meaning and permanence indeed. And the purpose of this is that men might fear before Him, might be in awe of Him, and worship Him. The consequence of this, if only he could see it, was that God was drawing His own into something that was everlasting. (In the end the everlasting covenant. But he never directly puts it in those terms for he is ‘a wise man', he is thinking of the whole of mankind).
At least he now draws God into the seemingly meaningless process. That which is has been already, and that which shall be (is to be) has already been. That is the process that he has already despaired of, the continual recurring of things through time. But now there is a new factor. God steps in to the process. God positively seeks what has been pursued or driven away. He positively acts on the process. It is no longer meaningless. It is another step in the solution of his problem.
But he does not try to analyse what those everlasting things are that God does. He recognises that they are beyond his understanding. What matters is that they are there, and that man has some awareness of them.
‘And God seeks that which is pursued.' The meaning of this phrase is difficult, but that does not prevent us from recognising the fact that it is a clear declaration of God acting within the seeming meaninglessness of things. Perhaps it indicates that as His own put in effort to pursue what has already been or will be, God steps in to have His part in it with them. Or it may signify that what the godly are pursuing is precisely what God is seeking for them.
Alternatively it has been suggested that we could translate, ‘God claims it (or seeks it) as it passes on'. God takes what seems to be the meaningless process of time and gives it meaning by introducing Himself into the situation.
Whatever way we see it, it indicates that God has become active in the situation, a fact which introduces the meaningful.