Ecclesiastes 3:7

A time to rent, and a time to sew The words are commonly connected with the practice of rending the garments as a sign of sorrow (Genesis 37:29; Genesis 37:34; Genesis 44:13; Job 1:20; 2 Samuel 1:2) and sewing them up again when the season of mourning is past and men return again to the routine of their daily life. It is, however, somewhat against this view that it makes this generalisation practically identical with that of Ecclesiastes 3:4. The symbolic use of "rending a garment" to represent the division of a kingdom, as in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (1 Kings 11:30) and therefore of "sewing" for the restoration of unity (so the "seamless garment" of John 19:23 has always been regarded as a type of the unity of Christ's Church) seems to suggest a more satisfying sense. There are seasons when it is wise to risk or even to cause discord and division in families (Matthew 10:34-35) or schism in Church or State, other seasons when men should strive to restore unity and to be healers of the breach (Isaiah 58:12). In the parable of the New Patch upon the old Garment we have an instance of an inopportune sewing which does but make the rent worse (Matthew 9:16).

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak Here again the range of thought has been needlessly limited by interpreters to the silence which belongs to deep sorrow, of which we have an example in the conduct of the friends of Job (Job 2:12-13), of the want of which in the sons of the prophets Elisha complained bitterly (2 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 2:5). This is, of course, not excluded, but the range of the law is wider, and takes in on the one hand, the unseasonable talk of the "prating fool" of Proverbs 10:8, and on the other the "word spoken in due season" (Proverbs 15:23), to one that is weary (Isaiah 50:4), the right word at the right time, in the utterance of which we rightly see a genius akin to inspiration. If it is true at times that speech is silvern and silence golden, there are times when the converse also is true, when the word in season is like "apples of gold (perhaps, oranges) in a basket of silver" (Proverbs 25:11).