Bible Strands
Ecclesiastes 3:2
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Preacher addresses humanity under heaven, framing human existence within divinely appointed cycles of life and labor.
The words — The Hebrew עֵת ('et) repeats to mark fixed seasons, paired with לֶ֖דֶת (le.det, "to bear a child") and מוּת (mut, "to die") to establish birth and death as non-negotiable temporal boundaries.
The thread — This framework of appointed life events runs through Hebrews 9:27 on the fixed appointment of death, Job 14:5 on God setting life's limits, and Matthew 15:13 on divine authority over what is planted or uprooted.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that human cultivation, loss, and mortality operate within sovereign timing rather than personal control.
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
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
Cross-references
- Hebrews 9:27 Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment,
- Job 14:5 Since his days are determined and the number of his months is with You, and since You have set limits that he cannot exceed,
- Matthew 15:13 But Jesus replied, “Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by its roots.
- Jeremiah 18:7 At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed.
- Job 7:1 “Is not man consigned to labor on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired hand?
- Isaiah 38:1 In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”
- Luke 1:20 And now you will be silent and unable to speak until the day this comes to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time.”
- John 16:21 A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.
- Galatians 4:4 But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
- Jeremiah 45:4 Thus Jeremiah was to say to Baruch: “This is what the LORD says: Throughout the land I will demolish what I have built and uproot what I have planted.