3:9–11 In verse 9 the Preacher returns to his opening question: What “gain” (Hb. yitron) does a worker get from his toil? As noted earlier, this is a genuine question and not a rhetorical one assuming a negative answer (cf. comment on 1:3). The Preacher has continued to consider the “toil” and “business” of mankind (3:9–10) despite the great frustration they have caused him at times (e.g., 2:18), and he will now admit some value in them in 3:12–13. First, however, the Preacher makes a theological observation on the work of God (v. 11). He continues to utilize the keyword from the preceding poem by observing that God has made everything “beautiful in its time [ʿet].” Just as God’s original work of creation was pronounced “very good” (Gen. 1:31), so also his mysterious, continuing work of providence makes things “beautiful,” despite the evil intentions of men. The principle “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Eccles. 3:1) is applied here to the cosmos at large, not just to the realm of human experience and endeavors (vv. 1–8). The past and present work of God in “making everything beautiful in its time” also implies that he will remake everything beautiful in the future. As noted in Introduction: Theology of Ecclesiastes, this verse contains the seeds of hope for a future transformation of the cosmos; while the world as we observe it now displays many joys, it is also the realm of sorrow, evil, and vanity. The cosmos in its present state needs to be definitively and permanently remade, and the book’s repeated reminders of a judgment to come (v. 17; 11:9; 12:14) provide a reassurance that this will surely happen.

Therefore Ecclesiastes, along with the rest of Scripture, provides the believer with an unshakable future hope of redemption and transformation. While this settles the question of the ultimate goal of history, astute observers of the world will nevertheless often find themselves unable to make sense of what they see around them. After all, the world is often not a beautiful place, and mankind is frequently more hideous than glorious. If history is progressing to a glorious climax, this reality is often difficult to observe. The Preacher is aware of this; he knows that our answers to many questions often come up short, and his intellectual honesty leads him to address this directly. There is in fact a theological reason for the believer’s frequent consternation at the world: God has put eternity into our hearts, or in other words has created within us a sense of the transcendent, yet in such a manner that on our own we are incapable of completely understanding all God’s ways. Here in 3:11 we encounter the first usage of the verb “to find” (Hb. matsaʾ), which will be used thematically in Ecclesiastes in the sense of “to figure out, to grasp, to comprehend” something (cf. comments on 7:13–14; 7:23–24; 7:25–29). In this context, it refers to “figuring out” what God has done from beginning to end—that is, comprehensively. It might be reasonably asked whether it is realistic for a finite being to attempt to comprehend all the works of an infinite God. The age-old theological dictum of finitum non capax infinitum certainly applies here: “The finite cannot fully grasp the infinite.”

Be that as it may, the Preacher is painfully aware of this divinely imposed limitation on human knowledge. In a sense, men and women face a similar struggle to that experienced by Adam and Eve in Eden, when the Lord placed limits on mankind’s knowledge by forbidding them to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17; 3:2–7). One of the characteristic struggles of mankind is whether or not he will gracefully accept such limitations or willfully rebel against them. At least in that sense every human being faces a temptation similar to that of Adam and Eve.

3:12–13 The preceding evocations of Genesis 1–3 continue in Ecclesiastes 3:12–13. It took a serious failure of gratitude on the part of Adam and Eve to view their permission to eat from every tree in the garden (with a single exception) as an intolerable limitation. Similarly, people have often since complained that God has withheld complete knowledge from mankind, but the reality is that he has given us an incredible abundance of good gifts to be enjoyed. In verses 12–13 the Preacher is reminded of the goodness of God in his gifts to mankind. The Preacher “perceives” (or “came to know”; v. 12) an answer to the question of verse 9: “What gain has the worker from his toil?” The fact that at least a partial answer is forthcoming indicates that the question is a genuine one and is not a denial in the form of a rhetorical question. Echoing his thoughts from 2:24–26, the Preacher mentions the gifts of food and drink and pleasure in one’s work (3:13). The Preacher is fond of pointing out what options are “better” than others (e.g., 7:1–5), and sometimes, as here in 3:12, he utilizes a superlative to state that there is “nothing better” than a particular blessing (cf. comment on 2:24–26). One of these ultimate gifts is the ability to be joyful in life (3:12). Some scholars argue that the following phrase (“to do good as long as they live”) refers to enjoying the good things in life, but in Ecclesiastes this idea is expressed by the phrase “to see good” (cf. 2:1). The phrase “to do good” used in 3:12 occurs also in 7:20, where it clearly refers to acting righteously and avoiding sin. As incredible as it may seem to the person enslaved by sin, doing good is in fact an immensely satisfying and enjoyable enterprise, and our obedience is to be viewed as another one of the gracious gifts of God.

3:14 The divinely imposed limitation on human knowledge mentioned in verses 9–11 leads the Preacher to mention another humbling reality: the eternal, all-sufficient, and enduring nature of God’s power. While Scripture invites people to enjoy the privilege of being God’s fellow workers (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor. 6:1), it also emphasizes that God’s purposes will be accomplished with or without human assistance. Viewed from the standpoint of absolute divine sovereignty, there is nothing that human beings can do that will either add to or take away from what God does. This is intended not to discourage human effort but simply to put mankind’s natural pride in check. It is, admittedly, a humbling realization but one that should also serve to inspire a sense of awe and worship, which is what is meant by the expression “to fear before God.”