III. 1.  Everything has its season, and there is a time for everything under the heavens.  He has taught in the previous verses the doubtful and changeable state of humanity; now he wants to show that all things are opposed to each other in the world, and that nothing remains forever of those things, which are under the heavens and beyond time, since the other spiritual substances are contained neither in the heavens nor in time.

2.  A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot that which has been planted.  No one doubts that men are born and die, and God knows that what he has planted will grow full and well; for to pull out what has been planted is to die.  But since we read in Isaiah[1] "we have conceived, laboured with and given birth out of a fear for You", this must be said, because when a man is ready, that man in particular, who was born from fear, will die as soon as he has begun to love God.  Since indeed "perfect love sends fear outside"[2].  The Hebrews understand all that he has written about the contradiction of times, (until it says " a time for war and a time for peace") as concerning Israel.  Because it is not necessary to go through each verse in turn here, commenting on how they are to be interpreted and what they mean, I will list them briefly, leaving a more detailed study to the reader's discretion. There was a time for growing and planting in Israel, a time for dying and leading it into bondage. A time for killing them in Egypt, and a time for freeing them from Egypt. A time for destroying the Temple under Nebuchadnezer, and a time for rebuilding under Darius.  A time for bewailing the plundering of the city and a time for laughing and dancing under Zorobabel, Esdra, and Nehemiah.  A time for dissemination from Israel and a time for gathering them together again.  A time like a belt or harness put around the Jews by God, and a time for leading them into bondage in Babylon and there for them to rot across the Euphrates.  Read perizoma of Jeremiah[3].  A time for seeking them out and rescuing, a time for losing and a time for forsaking.  A time for schism in Israel and a time for reunification.  A time for hushing the prophets, now when in Roman bondage and a time for proclaiming them aloud, when even in enemy lands they weren't lacking in God's presence or comfort.  A time for loving, in which He loved those men before our fathers, a time for hating, since they threw their hands up against Christ.  A time for war, only not for those who are doing repentance for themselves and a time for peace in the future, when all the tribes return, and all Israel will be safe. 

3.  A time for killing and a time for healing.  It is both the time for killing and the time for healing, he says: "I will kill, and I will revive"[4].  He cures, provoking one to repentance.  'I killed' has the same meaning as "in the morning I murdered all the sinners of the Earth."[5]  A time for destroying and a time for building.  We are not able to build anything good unless we have first destroyed what is bad.  Just as the word of Jeremiah came from God so that he first rooted out, undermined and killed; then he built and planted.[6]

4.  A time for weeping and a time for laughter.  Now is the time for weeping and in the future it will be the time for laughter: for "the blessed weep, since they themselves will laugh."[7]  A time for bewailing and a time for dancing.  For this reason they are seized in the Gospel, those to whom God says " I have lamented for you and you have not moaned; I sang and you did not dance."[8]  We must moan at present so that afterwards we can dance that dance, which David danced before the arc of the covenant[9], and displeasing to the daughter of Saul he was more pleasing to God. 

5.  A time for dispersing stones and a time for collecting stones.  I marvel how an learned man could have said this ridiculous note about this passage: "this passage speaks about the destruction and killing of Solomon's houses, because men first destroy, then build".  Some amass stones to construct buildings, others destroy those buildings which have been erected, according to Horace's lines "he demolished, he builds, exchanges squares with wheels, he fluctuates and disagrees with the whole order of life itself." [10]  Whether he is correct in saying this or not I leave up to the reader to decide.  Nonetheless we should follow the sequence of the prior explanation-they say it is a time for scattering and collecting stones, similar to what is written in the Gospel: "God is powerful enough to raise up the sons of Abraham from these stones".[11]  For there was a time for dispersing the nation and a time for gathering them again into the Church.  I have read in a certain book, (like the Septuagint however, which says "there was a time for throwing stones and a time for collecting them") that the harshness of the ancient law of the Gospel was tempered by grace.  In fact the stern law, unkind and unforgiving, murders the sinner, he pities with the grace of the Gospel and provokes men to repentance.  And there is a time for throwing stones, or collecting them, because stones are thrown in law and are collected in the Gospel.  Whether this is true fact or not is credited to the author.

A time for embracing and a time for being far from embrace.  The meaning of this is seemingly the simplest understanding- the apostle agrees with the same words: "do not cheat each other, unless by chance it is agreed for a time that you give yourselves to fasting and to prayer."[12]  Attention must be given to children, and again to self-control.  Or perhaps it was the time for embrace when the opinion was flourishing that we ought to "grow and multiply, and fill up the Earth"[13].  And the time became far from one of embracing when it passed away: "the times are hard; it remains that both they that have wives be as though they had none".[14]  But if we wanted to climb to the higher parts, we would see wisdom embracing its lovers: for he says "honour it and it will embrace you"[15], and hold them in its arms and lap in a tighter embrace.  More precisely, it is not always possible to stretch the human mind to heaven and think about the divine and higher things, or continually consider celestial matters, but meanwhile to indulge in the necessities of the flesh.  On account of this there is a time for embracing wisdom, and holding it more tightly, and a time for relaxing the mind from the study and embrace of wisdom, just as of the care of the body, and we have those things that our life needs in the absence of sin. 

6/7.  A time to acquire and a time to lose.  A time to keep and a time to throw away.  As is in many verses before the meaning is the same here too, which is apparent before and following this verse, in that he says: A time to destroy and a time to build.   And then A time to rend and a time to mend.  Just as the Synagogue is destroyed so that the Church can be built and schism is only brought about by the law so that the Gospels are unified, because each preacher has carried it out one by one, unifying from the law and the prophets the testimonies of the arrival of the Lord.  And thus there was a time for seeking and guarding Israel, a time for losing and discarding it.  Or perhaps in fact a time for seeking a nation in the tribes and a time for losing the people of the Jews.  A time for guarding the believers of the nations and a time for dismissing the faithless from Israel.  A time for silence and a time for speaking.  I think that the Pythagoreans, whose discipline is to remain silent for five years and afterwards to speak to learned men, took the origin of their decree from this.  Let us learn therefore and so remain silent first, so that afterwards we open our mouths only to speak.  Let us be silent for a set period and depend on the utterances of our teacher.  Nothing seems right to us unless we learn that after much silence we are made into teachers by our pupils.  Now though instead of the world slipping day by day into a far worse situation, we teach in churches what we do not know.  And if by composing words or at the bidding of the devil, who is the patron of madness, we have aroused the applause of the common people, then we think we understand, (contrary to our conscience), what it is we were able to dissuade others from. We do not learn all the arts without a teacher, only those which are so common and easy that they don't require a tutor. 

8.  A time for loving and a time for hating.  The time for loving God, children, wife, and relatives is afterwards, and the time for hating those in martyrdom since hostile piety attacks those steadfast men for the sake of the confession of Christ.  Or maybe there is a time for loving the law, and those things that the law decrees- that is circumcision, sacrifices, the Sabbath, Neumania[16], and a time for hating them when the grace of the Gospel has been lost.  But we cannot say this, since now we look through the mirror in mystery, the time for loving is the present, and in the future there will come a time when we will see face to face and then, more accomplished, we will begin to hate and despise what we love.[17]  A time for war and a time for peace.  Although we are in the present world, it is the time for war: when we have left this world the time for peace will come.  For the place of God is in peace and so too is our city of Jerusalem, for it is called 'chosen in peace'.  Therefore no one now thinks he is safe: you must prepare yourselves in the time of war and put on the apostles arms, so that we may rest in peace at last victorious.

9/11.  What gain, then, has the worker in exchange for all his toil?  I have observed the task which God has given the sons of man to be concerned with: He made everything beautiful in its time; He has also put an enigma into their minds so that man cannot comprehend what God has done from the beginning to end.   The opinion of many other scholars on this passage does not escape me, because in this world God conceded to the teachers of perverse doctrines their true occupation, lest man's idle mind should become slow and while thinking that God's creations are good, yet nonetheless not be able to see them as the natural knowledge of the world.  But the Hebrew who taught me the Scriptures explained it in this way: when all things are placed in their own time and there is a time for destroying or building, weeping and laughing, silence and speaking, and others things which are said about time, why do we try to survive in vain and believe the labours of this short life to be perpetual?  And according to the Gospel we are not even happy, and it is called wickedness since we think nothing of tomorrow.[18]  For what more are we able to have in this world than continual striving in that toil, which God has given to man, so that one man may gain more by following others, in a situation where he is able to learn and exercise himself?  For all that God does is good, but good in his world.  It is good to wake and to sleep, but it is not good to be always awake or asleep, since in turn each and every thing can be considered good, when there is need, according to God's plan.  Moreover God also created the world to be inhabited by men, so that they should enjoy the variation of time, and not seek the causes nature, how all things are made, why He made this or that grow or change from the beginning of the world until now.

12/13.  Thus I perceived that there is nothing good for each of them than to rejoice and do what is good in his life.  Indeed every man who eats and drinks and finds satisfaction in all his labour- it is a gift from God.   Therefore the settler and the foreigner of the world has been charged that he should enjoy the time of his short life, and when the hope of a longer life has been removed, he sees everything that he has as if he is about leave this life, and he sees also what he can do well in his life.  And his thoughts are not in vain thus twisted, on account of his amassed wealth.  And he doesn't think that he is able to acquire more from his toil than his food and drink and if he expends anything from his wealth into good work, then only this is a gift of God.  We are not provoked, as some scholars think, by such words into luxury, pleasures, and desperation as are animals, according to that phrase of Isaiah: "let us gorge ourselves and drink, for tomorrow we will die."[19]  But according to the apostle: "having sustenance and clothing, we are content with these."[20]  And whatever we have that is more than this, we use in feeding the poor and our need for charity.  More to the point, since the true food is the flesh of the Lord, and his blood is the true drink, according to anagoge[21], we only regard this as good in the present world, if we actually do feed from his flesh and drink from his blood, not only in secret but even in reading the Scriptures.  For true food and drink, which is taken from the word of God, is knowledge of the Scriptures.  But no one believes the word of Balaam of the prophets, who says "there will be no toil against Jacob, no suffering in Israel"[22].  It is in fact contrary to this, because it is said to be a gift of God: "If anyone eats and drinks and shows he is good in all of his work"[23].  In fact these are the many troubles of the righteous.  And the apostle complains about these, saying he has sweated in toil and suffering.  But the Lord freed us for our future in toil and suffering also:  "there will be no toil against Jacob, no suffering in Israel".  And we read how " the blessed weep, since they will laugh"[24], and our laughter follows the words of Job the prophet: for the "mouth will be filled with the joy of truths"[25].  Thus now we enjoy our toil in good work, by which we restrict and restrain ourselves so that afterwards we may cease from working.

14.  I realised that whatever God does will endure forever: nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away, and God has acted so that man should fear Him.  There is nothing in the world that is new.  The course of the sun and moon in turn and the dryness and verdure of the earth and trees are born and take shape with the world itself.  And therefore God governed all things by a defined plan and commanded the elements to be at the disposal of man, for his use, so that when men see these things they know that there is providence and fear the appearance of God; while from the equality of the world, the natural season, order, and constancy they understand their creator.  "For his invisible work in the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even his eternal virtue and power"[26].  If we want we can read this as if from the beginning, with the meaning of the first part already understood: "and God has acted so that man should fear Him" then this is the meaning: God made all these things, so that men fear him, and reject for another what God once created for man.  But he governed perfectly, saying: "so that they should fear his appearance".[27]  The image of the Lord, indeed, is powerful over those who are wicked. 

15.  What has been, already exists, and what is still to be, has already been, and God seeks him that suffers persecution.  All things we perceive in the past, present or future, they themselves have been, are, and will be.  That same sun which now rises, existed before we were in this world, and after we die, it will rise again.  But we have mentioned the sun, so that we understand other things to be the same as they have been before.  Because if they are seen to die by what we call death, they do not really die, but grow again given a second life, and nothing dies forever but is reborn and relives as if with a certain new seed.  For this is what he says: "and God seeks him that suffers persecution", which is said better in Greek kai ho theos zetesei to diokomenon that is what dies, what has perished, and has ceased to be.  But if that speaks about all that are in the world there is no doubt about man, that having died he will be reborn.  But if anyone likes to choose a beginning as if his own, "and God seeks him that suffers persecution", he uses this evidence in the persecution of certain people: to comfort him, who had persevered in martyrdom.  And since all in this world, who want to live religiously, follow the apostle, they suffer persecution and take consolation in the fact that God seeks him that suffers persecution, just as he seeks out the blood of a man who has been murdered, and comes to seek what has perished, and carry the wandering sheep back to the flock on his shoulders.[28]

16/17.  Furthermore, I have observed beneath the sun: in the place of justice there is wickedness, and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness.  I mused: God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for everything and for every deed, there.  The meaning of this is clear but is cloaked by the cloud of interpretation.  He says: I sought truth and righteousness under the sun and I saw that even among the benches of judges truth is not valued, but gifts.  Or differently: I thought some kind of justice present in this world and either took the pious man on his own merit, or punished the impious for his crimes; and I found the opposite to that which I had been thinking.  For I saw a righteous man here suffer much injustice and an impious man made to rule instead of being punished for his crime.  But thinking to myself afterwards and considering it carefully I understood that they judge not in respect of God and treating each case one by one, but rather reserve judgement for the future, so that all are judged equally and receive there according to their will and effort.  For this is what he says: "and there is a time for everything and for every deed, there", that is, in judgement when God will have begun to judge, then there will be truth, now injustice prevails in the world.  Such as when we read in Wisdom, Sirach wrote: "lest you say, what is this or what is that? For all things are sought in their own time"[29].

18/21.  Then I said to myself concerning men: God has chosen them out, but only to see that they themselves are as beasts.  For the fate of men and the fate of beast - they have one and the same fate: as one dies so the other dies, and they all have the same spirit.  Man has no superiority over beast, for all is futile.  All go to the same place; all originate from dust and return to dust.  Who perceives that the spirit of man is the one that ascends on high while the spirit of the beast is the one that descends down into the earth?  It is not surprising that there is no distinction in this life between righteous and wicked, nor that none values virtues, but all things occur with uncertain outcome, where nothing seems to differ according to the worthlessness of the body between sheep and men: there is the same birth, common end in death; we proceed similarly towards the light and are equally dissolved into the dust.  But there seems to be this difference, that the spirit of man ascends to the heavens, and the spirit of animals goes down into the earth, but from where do we know this for certain?  Who can know whether what is hoped is true or false?  But he says this, not because he thinks the spirit dies with the body, or that there's one place set aside for beasts and for man, but because before the arrival of Christ all were led equally to the nether regions.  Jacob said that he was about to go down to those regions.[30]  And Job complains that the pious and impious are held back in the lower world.[31]  And the Gospel says that with an abyss blocking the way even Abraham and Lazarus were rich in prayers in the underworld.[32]  And in fact before Christ accompanied by a robber opened the wheel of flames, and the fiery rumpias[33] and the gates of paradise, the heavens were closed and the equal unworthiness of the spirits of sheep and of men was abridged.  One also seems to be dispersed and the other saved; but there is not much of a difference between dying with the body or being held in the darkness of the underworld.  Let us look over these things one by one in paragraphs, and discuss them briefly.  I considered the eloquence of the sons of man, whom God chose.  Only this eloquence, he says, God wanted to be between men and beasts, since we speak, they are mute; we possess the will for conversation, they are stupefied with silence.  And though we only differ from beasts in language, though it is shown to us, how we are like the beasts - weak in body.  Just as a beast dies, thus man dies, and one breath is for all, and that is the air that we breathe.  For he says this: "and one spirit is for both, and there is nothing more for man than for beast."  Since lest we think the text refers to the soul he adds: "all are made from earth and return to the earth."  But nothing else except the body is made from earth, and quite relevant, regarding the body he continues: "you are earth and to the earth you will return."[34]  But this seems to be blasphemy: for who knows if the spirit of the sons of man ascends upwards, or if the spirit of beasts goes downwards into the earth?  He does not contend that there is no difference between animals and men in reference to the dignity of the soul, but in adding "who?" he wants to show the difficulty of the matter.  For the pronoun "who" is used in the Holy Scriptures not on account of impossibility, but a difficulty.  So here it is said in that passage, "who will describe that man's generation?"[35], and in the psalm: "Lord, who ascends in your tabernacle, and onto your sacred mountain?"[36], and other examples that follow this pattern.  And in Jeremiah it can be said differently in Hebrew: "And he is a man, and who knows him?"[37].  This then, is the only difference between beast and men, that the spirit of man ascends to the heaven, and the spirit of the beast descends into the earth and is dispersed with the flesh; but let any man, who is of the Church and learned in the religious disciplines, be the real champion of the matter, which is rather doubtful.  Then he adds just how much it refers to a spiritual understanding: "since the Lord will keep both men and beasts safe"[38], and in another place he says, "beasts, I am among you"[39], and all the prophets say that both men and beasts will be saved in Jerusalem, and that the promised land will be filled with sheep and cattle.  Who knows whether the saintly man, who is worthy of the name of man, will ascend to heaven, and whether the sinner, who is called beast, will go down into the earth?  For it is possible in light of the uncertain and dangerous condition of his life, that the righteous man falls and the sinner rises, and it sometimes happens that man, having more reason and learned in the Scriptures, does not look about himself, and although worthy of his knowledge lives out his life and is led down to the nether world; and the simpler and unlearned man, who is said to be compared to the beasts of men, lives better and is crowned in martyrdom, and he is then to live in paradise.

22.  I therefore observed that there is nothing better for man than to be happy in what he is doing, for that is his lot.  For who can enable him to see what will be after him?   Instead of that which we have as "to see what will be after him", Symmachus interprets it more clearly saying, "so that he sees those things which will be after these ones".  Therefore nothing is good in life, unless a man is happy in his work, doing acts of sympathy, and obtaining his future reward in the realm of heaven.  We have this one lot, which nor neither thief nor robber values, nor any tyrant has the power to take away, and which follows us after our death.  And we will not be able to enjoy our toil again when this life will be over, or know what things will be afterwards in the world.  Another explanation of this is: I am disturbed by the wickedness of what I have said above, that I think there is no difference between men and beasts, and I have been led into this opinion by wrong conclusions, so that I said nothing else was good, except grasping ones present desire.  Nor when death has destroyed us is it possible to enjoy these things, which we, ungrateful, leave behind.  Some have referred to that understanding because it says, "for who leads him, so that he sees those things, which will be after him", so that they say, "it is better for a man to enjoy his work" because it is only this that he is able to take away with him from his possessions.  For when death comes he will not know what kind of heir he will die with, whether worthy or unworthy, who will enjoy his wealth.