Ecclesiastes 3:10-11

God’s plan is unfathomable. Nevertheless, God has an appropriate time for every activity (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The meaning is not, "beautiful in its own way," as the song goes. God has also placed within the heart of every person a sense of something eternal and a desire to know the eternal significance of what we do (Ecclesiastes 3:11, "set eternity in their heart"). [Note: Delitzsch, p. 261.]

"This quest is a deep-seated desire, a compulsive drive, because man is made in the image of God to appreciate the beauty of creation (on an aesthetic level); to know the character, composition, and meaning of the world (on an academic and philosophical level); and to discern its purpose and destiny (on a theological level). . . . Man has an inborn inquisitiveness and capacity to learn how everything in his experience can be integrated to make a whole." [Note: Kaiser, p. 66.]

"’Eternity’ to Old Testament people was not timelessness or absence of time. They knew no such realm. It was, rather, extension of time-as far back and as far forward as one could imagine-’time in its wholeness’ (JB), ’sense of time past and future’ (NEB)." [Note: Hubbard, pp. 106-7.]

The idea of a timeless, ideal state is Platonic, not biblical. We cannot grasp fully all of God’s plans. Consequently, because we cannot see the full consequences of our works beyond the grave, our labor lacks ultimate gratification.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 "summarizes the teacher’s whole argument, and in context (Ecclesiastes 3:10-15) it serves equally well as a summary for the entire wisdom corpus." [Note: Walter C. Kaiser Jr., "Integrating Wisdom Theology into Old Testament Theology: Ecclesiastes 3:10-15," in A Tribute to Gleason Archer, p. 206.]

One writer suggested that the Hebrew word translated "eternity" should be re-pointed (i.e., the vowels should be replaced with other vowels), in which case it means "darkness." [Note: Brian P. Gault, "A Reexamination of ’Eternity’ in Ecclesiastes 3:11," Bibliotheca Sacra 165:657 (January-March 2008):39-57.]