time · noun, common both genders singular absolute
keep
לִשְׁמ֖וֹרlish.Mor
H8104
properly · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
time
וְעֵ֥תve.'Et
H6256
time · conjunction + noun, common both genders singular absolute
away
לְהַשְׁלִֽיךְle.hash.Likh
H7993
to throw out · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct
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
Philippians 3:7-8 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Luke 9:24-25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.
Mark 8:35-37 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
Matthew 16:25-26 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
2 Kings 5:26 And he said unto him, Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? Is it a time to receive money,…
Psalms 112:9 He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever; his horn shall be exalted with honour.
Ecclesiastes 11:1 Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.
Matthew 19:29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake,…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 3:1-10
The scope of these verses is to show, 1. That we live in a world of changes, that the several events of time, and conditions of human life, are vastly different from one another, and yet occur promiscuously, and we are continually passing and repassing between them, as in the revolutions of every day and every year. In the wheel of nature (Jam 3:6) sometimes one spoke is uppermost and by and by the contrary; there is a constant ebbing and flowing, waxing and waning; from one extreme to the other does the fashion of this world change, ever did, and ever will. 2. That every change concerning us, with the time and season of it, is unalterably fixed and determined by a supreme power; and we must…
time to get--for example, to gain honestly a livelihood (Eph 4:23).
lose--When God wills losses to us, then is our time to be content.
keep--not to give to the idle beggar (Th2 3:10).
cast away--in charity (Pro 11:24); or to part with the dearest object, rather than the soul (Mar 9:43). To be careful is right in its place, but not when it comes between us and Jesus Christ (Luk 10:40-42).
John Gill on Ecclesiastes 3:6
A time to get, and a time to lose,.... To get substance, as the Targum, and to lose it; wealth and riches, honour and glory, wisdom and knowledge: or, "to seek, and to lose" (i); a time when the sheep of the house of Israel, or God's elect, were lost, and a time to seek them again; which was, lone by Christ in redemption, and by the Spirit of God, in effectual calling;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away; to keep a thing, and to cast it away, into the sea, in the time of a great tempest, as the Targum; as did the mariners in the ship in which Jonah was, and those in which the Apostle Paul was, Jonah 1:5; It may be interpreted of keeping riches, and which are sometimes kept too close, an…
Do you wish to learn the opportune time for seeking the Lord? Let me briefly state that your entire life is the only time to carry this out. Seeking the Lord is not defined by limit or time; rather, the truly opportune time for this consists in never putting an end to our search.
Do you want to learn, too, the right moment to seek the Lord? To put it briefly—all your life. In this case alone the one moment to pursue it is the whole state of life. For it is not at a fixed moment and an appointed time that it is good to seek the Lord, but never to cease from continual search—that is the real timeliness.
Jerusalem, therefore, was abandoned "like a booth in a vineyard" because the guardian angels left it along with the Lord when Christ had suffered. A crop in the field is guarded by the Lord not for its own sake but only for the grain it yields, such that the stalk is permitted to be destroyed once its fruit is harvested. So also it was not principally for its own sake that Jerusalem was guarded temporarily, but on account of Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born according to the flesh within its borders. But when its fruit had been harvested, that is, the body of Christ, whence came the heavenly bread of life, then Jerusalem was abandoned like a field after the harvest, like a booth in a vineyard after its grapes had been gathered. This, then, is why it was said here in the divine Scriptures, "There is a time for guarding and a time for casting aside," for there was a time when Jerusalem was guarded and a time when it was being cast aside.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
"To seek has its time, and to lose has its time; to lay up has its time, and to throw away has its time." Vaihinger and others translate לאבּד, to give up as lost, which the Pih. signifies first as the expression of a conscious act. The older language knows it only in the stronger sense of bringing to ruin, making to perish, wasting (Pro 29:3). But in the more modern language, אבד, like the Lat. perdere, in the sense of "to lose," is the trans. to the intrans. אבד, e.g., Tahoroth; viii. 3, "if one loses (המאבּד) anything," etc.; Sifri, at Deu 24:19, "he who has lost (מאבּד) a shekel," etc. In this sense the Palest.-Aram. uses the Aphel אובד, e.g., Jer. Meza ii. 5, "the queen had lost (אובדת)…
We have no control over when we are born or when we die (8:8), but it is our responsibility to live wisely between those events. • plant and . . . harvest: Wise agricultural decisions must be made in the natural seasons. • In ancient Israel, the times to kill included capital punishment and war. • In times of mourning, people in the Near East would often tear their clothes. • There is a time to hate, even for God (Pss 5:5; 11:5).
Rashi on Ecclesiastes 3:6
A time to seek. As the matter is stated, “I will seek the lost,”13Yechezkeil 34:16. concerning the scattered among Yisroel.
And a time to abandon. And a time when He causes them to perish in the exile, as it is stated, “And you will become lost among the nations.”14Vayikra 26:38.
A time to preserve. [As it is stated,] “May Adonoy bless you and safeguard you,”15Bamidbar 6:24. when you do His will.
And a time to discard. [As it is stated,] “And He cast them to another land.”16Devarim 29:27.
