{"id":9715,"date":"2026-03-28T12:52:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/?p=9715"},"modified":"2026-03-28T12:52:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:52:30","slug":"ecclesiastes-111-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/?p=9715","title":{"rendered":"Ecclesiastes 11:1-6"},"content":{"rendered":"
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1 <\/span>Cast your bread upon the waters, f<\/span><\/span>or you will find it after many days.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

2\u00a0<\/sup>Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, f<\/span>or you do not know what evil will be on the earth.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

3\u00a0<\/sup>If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

4\u00a0<\/sup>He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

5\u00a0<\/sup>As\u00a0you do not know what\u00a0is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

6\u00a0<\/sup>In the morning sow your seed, a<\/span>nd in the evening do not withhold your hand; f<\/span>or you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be\u00a0good.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

Chapters 11-12 close the book with practical exhortation. Though we cannot know what the future holds, we are still to act wisely in view of it. Verse 1 seems to refer to making an investment (\u201ccast your bread\u201d) in merchandising across the seas (\u201cupon the waters\u201d) in expectation that a profit will be realized on it \u201cafter many days.\u201d \u2026 Verse 1 speaks of the time required to see a return on the investment and verse 2 about the need for diversification. \u2014 Grace, page 1180.<\/span><\/h3>\n

__________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cast your bread (v.1) \u2014 Sow without any hope of a harvest: do good even to them on whom your benefactions seem thrown away. \u2014 Treasury, page 427.<\/span><\/h3>\n

__________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

If we wait until conditions are perfect (v.4), we will never do anything. We must act now and trust God for the outcome. \u2014 Grace, page 1181.<\/span><\/h3>\n

__________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We do not need to understand how or why God works to trust in His providential outworking of all things. \u2026 While we do not know the results of our efforts, we are to diligently apply ourselves and trust God for the outcome. \u2014 Grace, page 1181.<\/span><\/h3>\n

__________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026 Busy oneself in reproductive industry (v.1), such as that of a farmer, and share with the poor the resulting profit (v.2). The clouds and the trees are pointed to (v.3) as illustrations of this life of industry and benevolence. The clouds fill themselves, they empty it out upon the thirsty earth. A tree, whether it happens to be in the cold north or the hot south, gives its fruit and shade to others. The argument of v.2 is that because a famine is possible, therefore surplus wealth should be generously distributed. \u2026 The argument of verse 3 is that if the lot of a tree happens to fall in the north or in the south of a land, its function is to grow and bear fruit and afford shade, and so benefit the people. A farmer that declines to work because of the wind or the rain (v.4) will not enjoy the full harvest that will reward the diligence of v.6. \u2026 It is as fruitless and as vain to waste time in trying to find out God\u2019s secret purposes in the permission of evil as to try to ascertain how the bones of a child are formed prior to birth. \u2014 Williams, pages 447-448.<\/span><\/h3>\n

__________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t stand gazing idly at the clouds, wondering when and where the rain is going to fall. Don\u2019t allow your actions to be governed by the capricious conditions of life under the sun. Sow because it is the honorable thing to do. True, the value of what you are doing is shrouded in mystery, as is the formation of the child in the womb. Man does not know what God is doing, but that lack of knowledge is never to serve as a cause for inactivity. Man must do his work and enjoy the present life, though it is beyond his powers to determine the future. \u2014 KJV Commentary, pages 752-753.<\/span><\/h3>\n

My various commentaries see different shades of meaning in these verses. My take, after reading what they had to say, is this: Life isn\u2019t predictable. We can never know the future. Our role in light of this is to do the next right thing. We should plan for the future while knowing that it will likely not pan out the way we expect it to. We should waste a lot of time trying to make sense of it all because we can\u2019t.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. 2\u00a0Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth. 3\u00a0If the clouds are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecclesiastes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9716,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9715\/revisions\/9716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}