Ecclesiastes 3:17

I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked,.... This he considered in his mind, and set it down for a certain truth, and which relieved him under the consideration of the sad

I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. Solution. God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for (there is) a time.

I said in mine heart, mine heart was sorely grieved at this disorder, but I quieted it with this consideration, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked; absolving and saving the just, and condemning the wicked. A time, fixed by God’ s unalterable decree. He implies, that as this life is the sinner’ s time in which he doth whatsoever seemeth good in his own eyes, so God will have his time to reckon with them, and rectify all these disorders. There; in the presence or at the judgment-seat of God; which is easily understood out of the foregoing words, the relative being put for the antecedent, as it Isaiah 114:2. Or it may be rendered then, as this particle is used, , and as it is usual in other authors for adverbs of place to be put for adverbs of time. For every purpose, and for every work; for the examining and judging, not only all men’ s practices or open actions, but also all their secret thoughts and purposes; all the evil which they either did, or designed, or desired, or endeavoured to do. The design of this verse is partly to strike a terror into oppressing potentates, and partly to satisfy the doubts and support the spirits of good men, who are oppressed in this life.

Ecclesiastes 3:17 I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for [there is] a time there for every purpose and for every work.Ver. 17. I said in my heart, God shall judge, &c.] He did not deny the Divine providence, as Averroes for this cause did; much less did he turn atheist with Diagoras, because he could not have justice done upon a fellow that had stolen a poem of his, and published it in his own name. But he concluded within himself, that God would surely take the matter into his own hand, judge those unrighteous judges, right and relieve the oppressed, "bring forth their righteousness as the light, and their innocence as the noonday," if not in this world, yet certainly at that great assizes to be held by his Son. "Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, whereof he hath given assurance to all men." His petty sessions he keepeth now, letting the law pass upon some few corrupt judges by untimely death, disgraces, banishment, remorse of conscience, &c. - as he did upon Judge Morgan, that condemned the Lady Jane Grey; Judge Hales, Belknap, Empson, Dudley, that I speak not of Pilate, Felix, &c. - reserving the rest till the great assizes. Some he punisheth here, lest his providence - but not all, lest his patience and promise of judgment - should be called into question, as Augustine well observeth. His twenty-two learned books, De Civitate Dei, were purposely written to clear up this truth; and so were Salvian’ s eight books, De gubernatione Dei, et de iusto praesentique eius iudicio.

(17) A time there—viz., with God. In this verse a judgment after this life is clearly spoken of, but not yet asserted as a conclusion definitely adopted, but only as a belief of the writer’s conflicting with the doubts expressed in the following verses. “1 said in mine heart,” with which Ecclesiastes 3:17-18 both begin, conveys the idea, “I thought,” and yet again I thought.” The writer returns again to speak of the punishment of the wicked in Ecclesiastes 8:15; Ecclesiastes 11:9.

Verse 17. For there is a time there for every purpose] Man has his time here below, and God shall have his time above. At his throne the judged shall be rejudged, and iniquity for ever close her mouth.

17. God shall judge the righteous and the wicked] The words “I said in my heart” introduce this as the first thought that rises unbidden at the sight of the wrong-doing in the world. It was, as it were, an immediate intuitive judgment, as distinguished from those which are introduced by “I returned,” or “I considered” (chap. Ecclesiastes 4:1; Ecclesiastes 4:4; Ecclesiastes 4:7; Ecclesiastes 4:15). In the emphatic “there is a time there,” we may, perhaps, trace, as in the grand abruptness of Medea’s blessing on her children, Εὐδαιμονοίτον· ἀλλʼ ? ἐκεί· τὰδʼ ? ἐνθάδεΠάτηρἀφείλετʼ ?.“All good be with you!—but it must be there;Here it is stolen from you by your sire.”Eurip. Med. 1065. or in Plato, ἡἐκείσεπορεία, (= “the journey thither” Phaed. p. 107 d), and in the “that world” of Luke 20:35, a passing belief in a judgment after death as redressing the wrongs of earth, soon to be, for a time, at least, traversed and overclouded by the sceptical thoughts with which the writer had come in contact. It is, however, possible that “there” may refer to the unfathomed depths of the divine Judgment which works, through long delay, at its appointed time, and in this case the thought finds a parallel in the complaint and confession of Psa 73:17-28. The one immediate conviction is, however, balanced in the conflict of thought through which the Debater is passing, by another which seems incompatible with it.

17. God shall judge — The thought of a final judgment is here introduced, not so much as a matter of calm belief, as the grasping of a discouraged and despairing heart snatching at what comfort the