Scripture Daily

Context No. 431 of 4322 · Ecclesiastes

Context · Reflection

Ecclesiastes 3:16-22: in context

16Moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there. 17I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.” 18I said in my heart, “As for the sons of men, God tests them, so that they may see that they themselves are like animals. 19For that which happens to the sons of men happens to animals. Even one thing happens to them. As the one dies, so the other dies. Yes, they have all one breath; and man has no advantage over the animals, for all is vanity. 20All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. 21Who knows the spirit of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, whether it goes downward to the earth?” 22Therefore I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works, for that is his portion; for who can bring him to see what will be after him?

Ecclesiastes stares straight at the hardest facts, and this passage stacks two of them right next to each other. First, injustice. The Teacher says he looked at the place of justice, the courts, the seats of authority where fairness is supposed to live, and found wickedness there instead, and at the place of righteousness, more wickedness. The very institutions meant to set things right were themselves crooked. His only answer to that is deferred: God will judge the righteous and the wicked, he says, for there is a time for every matter. The reckoning is real but not yet, and he leaves it in God's hands rather than pretending he can force it now.

Then the second hard fact: death, and its leveling of the whole human race down to the level of the animals. The same fate, he says, befalls people and beasts; both have the same breath, both return to the dust, and who can even say for certain whether the human spirit goes up and the animal's goes down? It is about as bleak as Scripture gets. But watch the conclusion he draws from staring at both realities, the injustice he cannot fix and the death he cannot escape. There is nothing better, he says, than that a person should rejoice in his work, for that is his portion; who can show him what will come after him? Faced with the great questions he cannot answer or control, when justice will finally come, what lies beyond death, he does not spiral into despair or into a frantic attempt to master the future. He receives the present, the work of his own hands and the ordinary joy in it, as the portion God has actually given him.

That is a hard-won kind of wisdom. The big unresolvable questions, the injustice that goes unpunished, the mortality that comes for everyone, can paralyze a person or poison them with bitterness. The Teacher's counsel is neither denial nor despair, but to hold those questions open before God and meanwhile to receive today's work and today's gladness as the portion given to me now. Am I letting the great things I cannot resolve or foresee embitter and paralyze me, or can I trust the reckoning to God and gratefully receive the present gift of my own work as my portion for today?

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