Bible Strands
Ecclesiastes 3:1
To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Qohelet, the unnamed Teacher, opens a list (3:1–8) that follows his meditation on the vanity of human labor. He is reporting an observation about the structure of creation, not issuing a command.
The words — Zeman (זמן) carries the sense of a fixed, appointed season, not a vague "time"; chephets (חפץ) is better rendered "matter" or "affair" than "purpose," narrowing the scope to concrete events rather than abstract goals.
The thread — Ecclesiastes 3:17 returns to the same claim, asserting that God judges the righteous and the wicked "since there is a time for every activity"; Ecclesiastes 8:5 pairs the 'et (time) with wisdom, saying the wise heart knows the right time and procedure.
Why it lands — It removes the reader from the center of timing: not every desire has a window, and the window belongs to the order of creation, not to the individual's will. The verse asks the reader to stop treating delay as rejection and to sit inside the season rather than outside it.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 3:17 I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked, since there is a time for every activity and every deed.”
- Matthew 16:3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but not the signs of the times.
- Ecclesiastes 8:5 Whoever keeps his command will come to no harm, and a wise heart knows the right time and procedure.
- Ecclesiastes 7:14 In the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider this: God has made one of these along with the other, so that a man cannot discover anything that will come after him.
- 2 Kings 5:26 But Elisha questioned him, “Did not my spirit go with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to accept money and clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and oxen, menservants and maidservants?
- Proverbs 15:23 A man takes joy in a fitting reply—and how good is a timely word!
- 2 Chronicles 33:12 And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the LORD his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers.
- Ecclesiastes 2:3 I sought to cheer my body with wine and to embrace folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.
- Ecclesiastes 2:17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- Ecclesiastes 1:13 And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a miserable task God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!