time · noun, common both genders singular absolute
purpose
חֵ֔פֶץChe.fetz
H2656
pleasure · noun, common masculine singular absolute
work
הַֽמַּעֲשֶׂ֖הha.ma.'a.Seh
H4639
an action (good or bad) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath…
Ecclesiastes 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
Matthew 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
Psalms 98:9 Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.
Ecclesiastes 11:9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the s…
Romans 2:5-10 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgme…
2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 3:16–end
Solomon is still showing that every thing in this world, without piety and the fear of God, is vanity. Take away religion, and there is nothing valuable among men, nothing for the sake of which a wise man would think it worth while to live in this world. In these verses he shows that power (than which there is nothing men are more ambitious of) and life itself (than which there is nothing men are more fond, more jealous of) are nothing without the fear of God.
I. Here is the vanity of man as mighty, man in his best estate, man upon the throne, where his authority is submitted to, man upon the judgment-seat, where his wisdom and justice are appealed to, and where, if he be governed by the law…
Solution of it. There is a coming judgment in which God will vindicate His righteous ways. The sinner's "time" of his unrighteous "work" is short. God also has His "time" and "work" of judgment; and, meanwhile, is overruling, for good at last, what seems now dark. Man cannot now "find out" the plan of God's ways (Ecc 3:11; Psa 97:2). If judgment instantly followed every sin, there would be no scope for free will, faith, and perseverance of saints in spite of difficulties. The previous darkness will make the light at last the more glorious.
there-- (Job 3:17-19) in eternity, in the presence of the Divine Judge, opposed to the "there," in the human place of judgment (Ecc 3:16): so "from then…
I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked,.... This he considered in his mind, and set it down for a certain truth, and which relieved him under the consideration of the sad perversion of justice; and made him easy under it, and willing to leave things to him that judgeth righteously, and wait his time when everything that was now wrong would be set right: he knew from reason, from tradition, and from the word of God, that there was a judgment to come, a general, righteous, and eternal one; that this judicial process would be carried on by God himself, who is holy, righteous, just, and true, omniscient, and omnipotent; and, being the Judge of all the earth, would do…
The Church Fathers
I ask you, then, are we to suppose that the only decree of God that will not come to pass, the only decree of God, will be the one which we read in those same writings as being about to judge between believers and unbelievers, when everything else that we read has happened as it was foretold? On the contrary, it will come to pass as all those other prophecies came to pass. Then there will be no person of our times who will be able at that judgment to find an excuse for unbelief when everyone shall call on Christ: the upright for justice, the perjurer for deceit, the king for power and the soldier for battle, the husband to maintain his authority and the wife to show her submission, the father for command and the son for obedience, the master for his right to rule and the servant for his subjection, the humble for piety and the proud for ambition, the rich man to distribute and the poor to receive, the drunkard at his wine cups and the beggar at the gate, the good person that he may excel in virtue and the bad one that he may cheat, the Christian worshiper and the pagan sycophant. All have the name of Christ upon their lips, and, with whatever intention and formula they invoke him, without doubt they shall render an account of it to him whom they invoke.
The Divine Wisdom has pointed out in Ecclesiastes that for everything, i.e., for all things happy or those which are considered unfortunate and unhappy, there is a right time: saying: "For all things there is a time, and a time for everything under the heaven." … and below: "For there is a time," it says, "for everything and for every deed." None therefore of these things does it lay down as always good, but only when any of them are fittingly done and at the right time, so that these very things which at one time, when done at the right moment, turn out well, if they are ventured on at a wrong or unsuitable time, are found to be useless or harmful; only excepting those things which are in their own nature good or bad, and which cannot ever be made the opposite, as, e.g., justice, prudence, fortitude, temperance and the rest of the virtues, or on the other hand, those faults, the description of which cannot possibly be altered or fall under the other head. But those things which can sometimes turn out with either result, so that, in accordance with the character of those who use them, they are found to be either good or bad, these we consider to be not absolutely in their own natures useful or injurious, but only so in accordance with the mind of the doer, and the suitableness of the time.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Judgment · THE GENERAL — THE GENERAL
Judgment, The · Predicted in the Old Testament — Predicted in the Old Testament
Justice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Time · An appointed season — An appointed season
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
"I said in mine heart: God shall judge the righteous as well as the wicked: for there is there a time for every purpose and for every work." Since "the righteous" stands first, the word ישׁפּט has here the double sense of judging [richtens = setting upright] = acting uprightly, justly by one, as in the shofteni of Psa 7:9; Psa 26:1, etc., and of judging = inflicting punishment. To the righteous, as well as to the wicked,
(Note: The lxx (in Aquila's manner): σὺν τὸν δίκαιον καὶ σὺν τὸν ἀσεβῆ - according to the Talm. hermeneut. rule, that where the obj. is designated by את, with that which is expressly named, something else is associated, and is to be thought of along with it.)
God wi…
In due season God will judge: Human injustices (3:16) are temporary and will be righted by God’s justice. The narrator repeats this point to close the entire book (12:14).
Rashi on Ecclesiastes 3:17
I said in my heart, etc. Therefore, I say everything is judged by the Holy One, Blessed Is He, in due time, and even though the matter [appears] delayed, it will eventually reach its time, for there is a time for everything, even for retribution and for the visitation of judgement there is a time that comes.
And for every deed that man did, they will judge him there when the time of the visitation arrives; there at that time, a time is given for every deed, to be judged for it. At the gate of the fold there are words, but in the stall are there is strict accounting.39See Maseches Shabbos 32a. The shepherd waits until the goats are by the gate of the fold, and then he rebukes and punishes th…