CRITICAL NOTES.— ECCLESIASTES 3:1. SEASON-TIME.] Season signifies a certain period or term; time denotes a division of time in general. ECCLESIASTES 3:2. A TIME TO PLANT, &C.] Used in O. T. as a metaphor to describe the founding and destruction OF CITIES. ECCLESIASTES 3:7. A TIME TO REND AND A TI... [ Continue Reading ]
CRITICAL NOTES.— ECCLESIASTES 3:11. IN HIS TIME.] This is the emphatic part of the sentence. The fitting time is one of the chief elements in the ways of Providence, which raises in us the thought of an Infinite Wisdom. _Also He hath set the world in their heart_. The _world_ here should be rendere... [ Continue Reading ]
CRITICAL NOTES.— ECCLESIASTES 3:12. FOR WHO KNOWETH THE SPIRIT OF MAN THAT GOETH UPWARD.] Man has no distinct and certain knowledge of his own future destiny, or of that of other forms of life. The subject is altogether beyond the range of human experience. Like God Himself, the future state is uns... [ Continue Reading ]
CRITICAL NOTES.— ECCLESIASTES 3:18. THAT GOD MIGHT MANIFEST THEM.] The disorders of the present are permitted to the end that God might test, or prove, men. _That they themselves are beasts_. Not in regard to moral character, but to the common fate of dissolution, awaiting alike both men and beasts... [ Continue Reading ]
CRITICAL NOTES.— ECCLESIASTES 3:22. FOR WHO SHALL BRING HIM TO SEE WHAT SHALL BE AFTER HIM?] Man cannot tell what God will do in the future with all his earthly circumstances—how far, in the great future, they will be modified or destroyed. Hence riches, &c., must have many elements of uncertainty.... [ Continue Reading ]