Ecclesiastes 3:7 Commentary and Bible Study

The tearing of a garment in Hebrew culture was an expression of grief or anguish or horror at what had been done. The idea seems to be that clothing cannot remain intact while something else far more precious has been broken, destroyed. It was Reuben who is first recorded in Scripture as tearing his clothes at what had happened to Joseph, and soon afterwards Jacob did the same in his grief at the apparent loss of his son.Tearing and sowing are opposite actions; no one tears what he will immediately have to sow again, and no one sows what he is about to tear up. Every action has a purpose and we would rightly question the sanity of someone alternatively sowing and tearing repeatedly. But such is the pressure of the moment that life leads us to do opposites and in a way that fits entirely the situation we find ourselves in at the present time, and both of these actions in isolation make sense. But by bringing them together Solomon shows us a different perspective on our circumstances which might not have occurred to us. Since we are so driven by life, can we really say that we plan our course through life and gain from it what we set out to gain? But if not, what is the real purpose of it all? What is the point of randomly wandering through this world, led by powers greater than ourselves? This perception of life is certainly very far from what most people imagine, but it is to undermine our false impressions that Solomon has put these words before us.Similarly, there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. Wisdom teaches us to recognise these times and not to behave inappropriately, but we have little influence over when they will come.