Ecclesiastes 3:10 Commentary and Bible Study

The travail which Solomon speaks of includes all those purposes that time imposes on us and from which we cannot escape. It includes all of the contrary and profitless ebbs and flows of life that leave us pretty much in the position where we started. This is not a pleasant state for man to be in but it is what he has brought on himself by his rebellion against God who has cursed the world in anticipation of the sin that sinful man will inevitably commit. The word task means ‘occupation’ and the idea is that it is an unpleasant occupation, so that the word can mean ‘bad business’ or ‘travail’. This is clear from the verb at the end of the verse translated ‘occupied’ but also meaning ‘bowed down with’ or ‘afflicted with’, an entirely negative idea. This occupation is a burden even though it has within it times that seem to us pleasant and joyful, for it includes times of laughing and dancing, of gaining and loving. But even these are a burden when we see that they gain nothing real and last only a short time before they are replaced by their opposite. This occupation is, in effect, life itself, which consists of a series of futile efforts on the part of each one of us, and embracing all these is the experience of birth and death. While we are in the midst of life, it normally succeeds in convincing us that it is a worthwhile enterprise, so that moment by moment we throw ourselves wholeheartedly into each experience. There are intriguing things but only in flashes, only short-lived. Solomon had seen what this task really amounted to and continues to warn us against being taken in by life lived entirely for material things and earthly rewards.