Ecclesiastes 3:2

A time to be born Literally, a time to bear. It should be noted that in Hebrew MSS. and printed texts, the list of Times and Seasons appears in two parallel columns, as if forming a kind of rhythmical catalogue, what the Greeks called a συστοιχία, or Table of Contrasts. It seems at first strange that the list should begin with events which are (putting aside the exceptional case of suicide) involuntary. It may be, however, that they were chosen for that very reason as representative instances of the fixed order on which the writer dwells. We shrink from the thought of an untimely birth (ch. Ecclesiastes 6:3) or an untimely death; we shudder at the thought of accelerating either, or of hindering the former, and yet the other incidents of life have, not less than these, each of them, their appointed season, if only we could discern it.

a time to plant Human life in its beginning and its end is seen to have a parallel in that of plants. Here also there is a time for sowing, and after the fruits of the earth have been gathered in (this and not a wanton destruction, which would be a violation of the natural order, is clearly meant) to pluck up that the planting may again come. It is, perhaps, over fanciful to make the words include the "planting" and "uprooting" of nations and kingdoms as in Jeremiah 1:10. It is significant, however, that the word for "pluck up" is an unusual word, and, where it occurs elsewhere, in the O. T. is used figuratively of the destruction of cities as in Zephaniah 2:4.