Ecclesiastes 3:3

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-10 To expect unchanging happiness in a changing world, must end in disappointment. To bring ourselves to our state in life, is our duty and wisdom in this world. God's whole plan for the government of the world will be found altogether wise, just, and good. Then let us seize the favourable opportunity for every good purpose and work. The time to die is fast approaching. Thus labour and sorrow fill the world. This is given us, that we may always have something to do; none were sent into the world to be idle.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Everything - More particularly, the actions of people (e. g. his own, Ecclesiastes 2:1-8) and events which happen to people, the world of Providence rather than the world of creation. It would seem that most of his own works described in Ecclesiastes 2:1-8 were present to his mind. The rare word translated "season" means emphatically "fitting time" (compare Nehemiah 2:6; Esther 9:27, Esther 9:31).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. time to kill—namely, judicially, criminals; or, in wars of self-defense; not in malice. Out of this time and order, killing is murder.

to heal—God has His times for "healing" (literally, Isa 38:5, 21; figuratively, De 32:39; Ho 6:1; spiritually, Ps 147:3; Isa 57:19). To heal spiritually, before the sinner feels his wound, would be "out of time," and so injurious.

time to break down—cities, as Jerusalem, by Nebuchadnezzar.

build up—as Jerusalem, in the time of Zerubbabel; spiritually (Am 9:11), "the set time" (Ps 102:13-16).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

A time to kill; when a man shall die a violent death, either by chance, as Exodus 21:13, or by the sentence of the magistrate, or by the hands of murderers.

A time to heal; when he who seemed to be mortally wounded shall be healed and restored.

A time to break down; when houses shall be demolished, either by the fancy of the owner, or by the rage of other men, or otherwise.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

A time to kill, and a time to heal,.... A time to kill may be meant of a violent death, as a time to die is of a natural one; so the Targum,

"a time to kill in war;''

or else, by the hand of the civil magistrate, such who deserve death. Aben Ezra interprets it "to wound", because of the opposite "to heal"; and so there is a time when wounds and diseases are incurable, and baffle all the skill of the physician, being designed unto death; and there is a time when, by the blessing of God on means, they are healed; the wound or sickness not being unto death: so the Targum paraphrases the last clause,

"to heal one that lies sick.''

This may be applied in a civil sense to calamities in kingdoms, and a restoration of peace and plenty to them; which is the property of God alone, who in this sense kills and makes alive in his own time, Deuteronomy 32:39; And in a spiritual sense to the ministers of the word, who are instruments of slaying souls by the law, which is the killing letter, and of healing them by the Gospel, which pours in the oil and wine of peace and pardon through the blood of Christ, and so binds up and heals the broken hearted; and there is a time for both;

a time to break down, and a time to build up; to break down a building, and build a waste, as the Targum; to break down cities and the walls of them, as the of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; and to build them up: as in the times of Nehemiah and Zerubbabel: and so in a spiritual sense to break down the church of God, the tabernacle of David, and to raise up and repair the breaches of it; to build up Zion, and the walls of Jerusalem, or to restore the Gospel church state to its glory, for which there is a set time; see Amos 9:11.

Geneva Study Bible

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. a time to kill, and a time to heal] The first group had brought together natural death and natural birth. This includes in the induction the death which man inflicts in battle or single combat, in attack or self-defence, or in administering justice, and with it the verb that includes all the resources of the healing art which can raise men from all but actual death. Here also there is an appointed order, and man’s wisdom lies in accepting it. This, rather than a fatalistic theory of Necessity, as being what man cannot, even if he will, resist, seems the thought expressed. The wise man knows when to slay and when to heal.

a time to break down, and a time to build up] The grouping reminds us as before of Jeremiah 1:10 and may possibly be extended so as to take in a figurative as well as a literal building. We may perhaps trace an allusive reference, if not to the text, yet to the thought which it expresses, in St Paul’s language in Galatians 2:18, “If I build again the things which I destroyed I make myself a transgressor.” His wisdom lay in recognising that the “fulness of time” had come for breaking down the old structure of Judaism and building up the new structure of the kingdom of God. Of the mere literal sense we have a striking illustration in the paraphrase of the words of Elisha to Gehazi (2 Kings 5:26) as given in the Christian Year.

“Is this a time to plant and build,

Add house to house and field to field?”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - A time to kill, and a time to heal. The time to kill might refer to war, only that occurs in ver. 8. Some endeavor to limit the notion to severe surgical operations performed with a view of saving life; but the verb harag does not admit of the meaning "rewound" or" cut." It most probably refers to the execution of criminals, or to the defense of the oppressed; such emergencies and necessities occur providentially without man's prescience. So sickness is a visitation beyond man's control, while it calls into exercise the art of healing, which is a gift of God (see Ecclus. 10:10 Ecclus. 38:1, etc.). A time to break down, and a time to build up. The removal of decaying or unsuitable buildings is meant, and the substitution of new and improved structures. A recollection of Solomon's own extensive architectural works is here introduced. Ecclesiastes 3:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"To put to death has its time, and to heal has its time; to pull down has its time, and to build has its time." That harog (to kill) is placed over against "to heal," Hitzig explains by the remark that harog does not here include the full consequences of the act, and is fitly rendered by "to wound." But "to put to death" is nowhere equals "nearly to put to death," - one who is harug is not otherwise to be healed than by resurrection from the dead, Ezekiel 37:6. The contrast has no need for such ingenuity to justify it. The striking down of a sound life stands in contrast to the salvation of an endangered life by healing, and this in many situations of life, particularly in war, in the administration of justice, and in the defence of innocence against murder or injury, may be fitting. Since the author does not present these details from a moral point of view, the time here is not that which is morally right, but that which, be it morally right or not, has been determined by God, the Governor of the world and Former of history, who makes even that which is evil subservient to His plan. With the two pairs of γένεσις καὶ φθορά there are two others associated in Ecclesiastes 3:3; with that, having reference, 2b, to the vegetable world, there here corresponds one referring to buildings; to פּרוץ (synon. הרוס, Jeremiah 1:10) stands opposed בּנות (which is more than גּדור), as at 2 Chronicles 32:5.

These contrasts between existence and non-existence are followed by contrasts within the limits of existence itself: -