6 In the morning put your seed into the earth, and till the evening let not your hand be at rest; because you are not certain which will do well, this or that--or if the two will be equally good.
Whatever comes to your hand to do with all your power, do it because there is no work, or thought, or knowledge, or wisdom in the place of the dead to which you are going.
Be preaching the word at all times, in every place; make protests, say sharp words, give comfort, with long waiting and teaching;
Put in the seed of righteousness, get in your grain in mercy, let your unploughed earth be turned up: for it is time to make search for the Lord, till he comes and sends righteousness on you like rain.
Much has been planted, but little got in; you take food, but have not enough; you take drink, but are not full; you are clothed, but no one is warm; and he who gets payment for his work, gets it to put it into a bag full of holes. This is what the Lord of armies has said: Give thought to your ways. Go up to the hills and get wood and put up the house; and I will take pleasure in it and be honoured, says the Lord. You were looking for much, and it came to little; and when you got it into your house, I took it away with a breath. Why? says the Lord of armies. Because of my house which is a waste, while every man takes care of the house which is his. For this cause the heaven over you is kept from giving dew, and the earth from giving her fruit. And by my order no rain came on the land or on the mountains or the grain or the wine or the oil or the produce of the earth or on men or cattle or on any work of man's hands.
And I sent burning and wasting and a rain of ice-drops on all the works of your hands; but still you were not turned to me, says the Lord. And now, give thought; looking on from this day, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the time when the base of the Lord's house was put in its place, give thought to it. Is the seed still in the store-house? have the vine and the fig-tree, the pomegranate and the olive-tree, still not given their fruit? from this day I will send my blessing on you.
But now I will not be to the rest of this people as I was in the past, says the Lord of armies. For I will let the seed of peace be planted; the vine will give her fruit and the land will give her increase and the heavens will give their dew; and I will give to the rest of this people all these things for their heritage.
And he said, Such is the kingdom of God, as if a man put seed in the earth, And went to sleep and got up, night and day, and the seed came to growth, though he had no idea how. The earth gives fruit by herself; first the leaf, then the head, then the full grain. But when the grain is ready, he quickly sends men to get it cut, because the time for cutting has come.
He who does the cutting now has his reward; he is getting together fruit for eternal life, so that he who did the planting and he who gets in the grain may have joy together. In this the saying is a true one, One does the planting, and another gets in the grain. I sent you to get in grain which you had no hand in planting: other men did that work, and you take the reward.
But some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, when they came to Antioch, gave the good news about the Lord Jesus to the Greeks. And the power of the Lord was with them, and a great number had faith and were turned to the Lord.
What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? They are but servants who gave you the good news as God gave it to them. I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave the increase. So then the planter is nothing, and the waterer is nothing; but God who gives the increase.
And he who gives seed for putting into the field and bread for food, will take care of the growth of your seed, at the same time increasing the fruits of your righteousness; Your wealth being increased in everything, with a simple mind, causing praise to God through us.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Ecclesiastes 11
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 11 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
“Let thy bread go forth over the watery mirror: for in the course of many days shalt thou find it.” Most interpreters, chiefly the Talm., Midrash, and Targ.,
(Note: The Midrash tells the following story: Rabbi Akiba sees a ship wrecked which carried in it one learned in the law. He finds him again actively engaged in Cappadocia. What whale, he asked him, has vomited thee out upon dry land? How hast thou merited this? The scribe learned in the law thereupon related that when he went on board the ship, he gave a loaf of bread to a poor man, who thanked him for it, saying: As thou hast saved my life, may thy life be saved. Thereupon Akiba thought of the proverb in Ecclesiastes 11:1. Similarly the Targ.: Extend to the poor the bread for thy support; they sail in ships over the water.)
regard this as an exhortation to charity, which although practised without expectation of reward, does not yet remain unrewarded at last. An Aram. proverb of Ben Sira's ( vid ., Buxtorf's Florilegium , p. 171) proceeds on this interpretation: “Scatter thy bread on the water and on the dry land; in the end of the days thou findest it again.” Knobel quotes a similar Arab. proverb from Diez' Denkwürdigkeiten von Asien (Souvenirs of Asia), II 106: “Do good; cast thy bread into the water: thou shalt be repaid some day.” See also the proverb in Goethe's Westöst. Divan , compared by Herzfeld. Voltaire, in his Précis de l'Ecclésiaste en vers , also adopts this rendering:
Repandez vos bien faits avec magnificence,
Même aux moins vertueux ne les refusez pas.
Ne vous informez pas de leur reconnaissance -
Il est grand, il est beau de faire des ingrats