How often is this glorious statement of the goal of the ages perverted into a sentence of threatening, `God

requireth that which is past', meaning the sinner's past life.

`That which IS TO BE, hath already been'.

Revelation restores the lost paradise of Genesis. The new creation brings us back to the state of bliss which

obtained before man or Satan fell. The whole work of redemption is to seek the lost and bring it back. `God

SEEKETH the past'. Israel's restoration is spoken of in the language of their past. `I will restore thy judges AS AT THE

FIRST' (Isa. 1:26). Before the age-times began, God was all: when the ages shall have reached their consummation,

God will be all in all.

`That which hath been is now'.

Type and prophecy continually repeat the final truth. One antichrist there shall be, but there are also many

antichrists. Even Scripture moves in the greatest of circles, and God Himself stretches out across the ages to bring a

ruined world back to Himself. Such were the lessons which Koheleth learned as he contemplated the times and

seasons of human activity. May we drink deeply into the spirit of this passage, and though exercised with the sore

travail which God gives, be cheered with the joy of faith, which is also the gift of God.

The reader is expected to weigh and examine the many and varied investigations conducted by Koheleth. Just a

passing note or so must suffice for the details of the next chapter or two.

The marginal rendering of chapter 3:18 of the Authorised Version and the text of the Revised Version, together

with the suggested version of The Companion Bible, show that some difficulty has been experienced in arriving at

the true meaning of this verse. The most difficult word to place is that translated `manifest'.  One of its most

frequent meanings is `to purify'. Parkhurst places this as the primary meaning.

`The commandment of the LORD is pure' (Psa. 19:8).

`To cleanse as is wheat from chaff' (Jer. 4:11).

`To purify, as by suffering and trial' (Dan. 12:10).

`To try them, and to purge' (Dan. 11:35).

`And I will purge out from among you the rebels' (Ezek. 20:38).

Isaiah 1:25 had been rendered, `I will melt down as with alkaline salt thy dross, and I will remove all thy base

metal'. We suggest that the meaning of Ecclesiastes 3:18 is somewhat as follows:

`I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might purify (winnow, cleanse as by

trial) them, and that they might see that (apart from resurrection) the one event levels all to that of the beasts that

Koheleth evidently did not believe the philosophic conceit so universally believed today that man possesses an

immortal soul; he left that for these more enlightened days. Though wisdom excel folly, the wise man dieth `AS THE

FOOL'. Though man bear the image of God, he dieth `AS THE BEAST'. Psalm 49 bears unequivocal testimony to the

truth of Ecclesiastes  3:18,21.  This is indeed the final thought expressed by Koheleth at the close of his

`Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to God Who gave it. Vanity of

vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity' (Eccles. 12:7,8).

Death is the final expression of vanity, and that which is associated with it the aggravating factors.

Oppression (4:1), all travail and rightness of work (4:4), the heaping up of riches for whom? (4:8), pass under

review, punctuated at every step by a reflection on that which is good, or that there is nothing better than to accept