Ecclesiastes 3:4

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A TIME TO MOURN - namely, for the dead (). DANCE - as David before the ark (; ; spiritually, ; ; ). The Pharisees, by requiring sadness out of time, erred seriously. The Church's temporary sorrow shall be ultimately turned into joy (). Meanwhile, let us not force ourselves to laughter unseasonably, forestalling God's time, like the world,...

1-10 To expect unchanging happiness in a changing world, must end in disappointment. To bring ourselves to our state in life, is our duty and wisdom in this world. God's whole plan for the government of the world will be found altogether wise, just, and good. Then let us seize the favourable opportunity for every good purpose and work. The time to die is fast approaching. Thus labour and sorrow fill the world. This is given us, that we may always have something to do; none were sent into the world to be idle....

Verse Ecclesiastes 3:4. _A TIME TO WEEP, - LAUGH, - MOURN, - DANCE_] _________________ "When private _griefs_ affect The heart, _our tears with decent sorrow flow_; Nor less becoming, when the _public mourns_, To vent the _deepest sighs_. But all around When things a _smiling aspect_ bear, our souls May _well exult_; 'tis then a time for _joy_....

EXPOSITION ECCLESIASTES 3:1 Section 4. In confirmation of the truth that man's happiness depends upon the will of God, Koheleth proceeds to show how _Providence arranges even the minutest concerns; that man can alter nothing, must make the best of things as they are, bear with anomalies, bounding his desires by this present life._ ECCLESIASTES 3:1 The providence of God disposes and arranges every detail of man's life. This proposition is stated first generally, and then worked out in particular by means of antithetical sentences. In Hebrew manuscripts and most printed texts Ecclesiastes 3:2 are arranged in two parallel col

A TIME TO WEEP, AND A TIME TO LAUGH,.... There is a time for these things, as it goes ill or well with persons, as to their health, estate, or friends; and as it goes ill or well with kingdoms and states. The Jews wept when they were in Babylon, and their mouths were filled with laughter when their captivity was returned, Psalms 137:1; and as it goes ill or well with the church of Christ, when there are corruptions in doctrine and worship, a neglect of ordinances, declensions in faith and practice, few instances of conversion, and there are divisions and contentions, it is a time for the mourners in Zion to weep but when God creates Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy, or makes her an eternal excellency, and the praise of the whole earth, then it is a time to rejoice and be glad, Isaiah 61:3

2. FURTHER RESULTS OF THE SEARCH CHAPTER 3 _ 1. The times of man under the sun (Ecclesiastes 3:1)_ 2. When then is the good? (Ecclesiastes 3:12) 3. Concerning judgment and the future (Ecclesiastes 3:16) Ecclesiastes 3:1. There is a time for everything. Twenty-eight “times” are mentioned, beginning with the time of birth and ending with the time for peace. Everything has a fixed time: Life-death; seeding-harvesting; killing-healing; breaking-down building-up; weeping-laughing; mourning-dancing, etc. These are the times of the entire race; that is what human life

From one point of view this section may be entitled _In Praise of Opportunism,_ from another _Human Helplessness._ Every action in which man can engage has its allotted season, but who can be sure that he has found this season? God's plan can be known only in part, hence man's efforts to succeed are always liable to fail; nothing remains but to enjoy the present. ECCLESIASTES 3:1. PURPOSE: read business or affair. In the Heb. the antitheses that follow are in parallel columns like a Greek _sustoichia_ or Table of Contrasts. Ecclesiastes 3:2. Untimely birth and untimely death are both abhorrent; human entrances and exits have their parallel in the agricultural operations of sowing and reaping. There is no need to compare...

TO WEEP. Genesis 23:2. Gen 44:30. 2 Samuel 12:21.Joel 2:17; Jeremiah 21:9; Luke 6:25. TO LAUGH (Compare Ecclesiastes 2:1; Ecclesiastes 2:2). Genesis 21:6; Psalms 2:4;...

_a time to weep_ The two couples are naturally grouped together, the first taking in the natural spontaneous expression of individual feeling, the second the more formal manifestation of the feelings in the mourners and wailers of a funeral (Zechariah 12:10, where the same verb is found) and the dancers at a wedding feast. In the parable of the Children in the Market-place our Lord practically inculcates the lesson of the DEBATER. The Scribes who sneered at the fasts of John's disciples, and condemned the disciples of Jesus for not fasting were as the children whose dramatic funerals and weddings were alike out of place and inopportune, and so the true followers after the Wisdom which "is justified of her children," who recognised that the ascetic and the joyous life had each its true time and season, would not weep to their lamenting or dance to their piping ...

B. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THAT WE WORK UNDER THE RULE OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE Ecclesiastes 3:1-22 1. Man should adjust to live his life within the framework of God's providence. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 TEXT 3:1-8 1 There is an appointed time for everything, And there is a time for every event under heaven 2 A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up. 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance. 5 A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing. 6 A time to search, and a time to giv