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Ecclesiastes 11 – Text and Notes
[Coffman lists this chapter as offering solutions to life’s perplexities: charity (vv.1-6); cheerfulness (vv.7-9); piety (v.10)]
Live Day to Day for Others
1 Cast your bread on the surface of the waters, for you will find it after many days. [Extended Notes]
2 Divide your portion to seven, or even to eight [i.e., an idiom for today would be, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”], for you do not know what misfortune may occur on the earth. [If we practice charity to others in the days of our prosperity, the ones whom we helped will practice charity towards us in the days of their prosperity and our misfortune.]
3 If the clouds are full, they pour out rain upon the earth; and whether a tree falls toward the south or toward the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies. [Cannot control our future, so we should work and do good.]
4 He who watches the wind will not sow and he who looks at the clouds will not reap. [Do look for excuses not to work and do good.]
5 Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things. [What I like about this verse is the Preacher does not use some esoteric subject that only a few would have experienced. He uses the wind and babies. The point is, if we do not understand how something as everyday as wind and babies work, how can sit around and predict our own future?]
6 Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good. [And when we are blessed, whether once or twice, share with others.]
7 The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.
8 Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him rejoice in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come will be futility.
9 Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.
10 So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.
(NAS95)
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