`I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked ... they have more than heart could wish ...

they increase in riches'.

Need Asaph have envied such? Ask him as he leaves the sanctuary of God:

`Surely Thou didst set them in slippery places ... Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth

that I desire beside Thee ... God is ... my PORTION for ever'.

(6) A time for every purpose - both of God and man (3:1-17)

The remaining verses of chapter 2:12-26 are divided up into a series of quests and conclusions, arriving at length

at the same result we saw when referring to 2:10. While Koheleth quite appreciated the superiority of wisdom over

folly, yet the maddening thing was that:

`One event happeneth to them all ... And how dieth the wise man? as the fool. Therefore I hated life; because the

work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit'(2:14-17).

This must be the conclusion if we look for results in this life. Koheleth, however, has something better to tell us

of wisdom later on; he says it is `good like an inheritance', and this does give true `profit'. `Wisdom giveth life', that

is, the life to come.

At the end of chapter 3, Koheleth again considers the `one event'. Here, instead of looking at two classes of

men, the wise and the fools, he sees all men comparable with beasts in respect to their end: `One thing befalleth

them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other ... all go unto one place ... '(3:19,20). He no longer hates life however, but

perceives what is the true `portion', and is content (3:18-22). Death, if viewed as the destroyer of all our works,

must fill us with despair, and raise the sceptic plaint as to the reason of things; but if death simply ends our term of

schooling, then we may look forward to true accomplishment in the life to come and rejoice in the opportunities of

this fleeting life while we may.

Another reason why Koheleth hated not only life but all his labour, was that he would have to leave it to the man

(who may prove the veriest fool) that should be after him. This made his heart despair. Here have I, he says in

effect in 2:21, laboured with wisdom, knowledge, and equity, yet now that my labour is accomplished I am faced

with the spectre of human frailty. A few short years, and all my toil will pass to another - what then has been the

good of all the planning, the labour, the care, the skill? Then he emerges into the sunlight of his previous

conviction:

`There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good

in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who can enjoy, WITHOUT

HIM?' (2:24,25, The Companion Bible).

Chapter 3 opens with the well-known list of times and seasons for every purpose under heaven. There is a real

connection with the preceding argument, as the sequel indicates (see 3:9-17).

`To everything there is an appointed time (cf. Ezra 10:14; Neh. 2:6; Est. 9:27; Dan. 6:10) and a fitting time for

every purpose under the heaven' (Eccles. 3:1 Author's translation).

The word `purpose' here indicates something desired (see 2 Sam. 23:5), or delighted in (Psa.1:2), or pleasure

(Eccles. 5:4; 12:1). It is not the purpose of God that is under consideration, we are still pursuing the great theme of

the book. There is a time to be born, and a time to die, and between these two events the whole round of positive

and negative purposes that constitute the daily round are filled in. Planting or plucking up, killing or healing, getting

and losing, loving and hating. The twenty-eight items give the sum of human activity, and when it is all summed up,

Koheleth says, `What profit?'

If the affairs of men, with their profitless labours, are nevertheless regulated by a fitting time, so also is the work

of God; `He hath made everything beautiful in its own time' (3:11). What we must learn is that God's time is not

man's time. Here is the time for man's purposes, but Koheleth says: