Ecclesiastes 11:1-4

Cast Your Bread on the Waters

1 ¹Cast your bread on the surface of the waters, for you ²will find it after many days.

2 ³Divide your portion to seven, or even to eight, for you do not know what ⁴misfortune may occur on the earth.

3 If the clouds are full, they pour out rain upon the earth; and whether a tree falls toward the south or toward the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies.

4 He who watches the wind will not sow and he who looks at the clouds will not reap.

Ecclesiastes 11:1-4 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO ECCLESIASTES 11

This chapter begins with an exhortation to liberality to the poor, enforced by several reasons and arguments, and the objections to it removed; and the whole illustrated by various similes, Ec 11:1-6; and then it is observed, that a life attended with outward prosperity and inward peace, and spent in doing good, is very delightful, and very desirable it is to have it continued; yet it should be remembered this will not be always, that many days of darkness in the grave will come; and after all the whole of a man's life is vanity, as is often inculcated, Ec 11:7,8; and the chapter is closed with an ironic address to young men, designed to show them the folly and danger of sinful courses, to reform them from them, and to put them in mind of a future judgment, Ec 11:9,10.

Cross References

• 1. Deuteronomy 15:10; Proverbs 19:17; Matthew 10:42; Galatians 6:9; Hebrews 6:10
• 2. Deuteronomy 15:10; Proverbs 19:17; Matthew 10:42; Galatians 6:9; Hebrews 6:10
• 3. Psalms 112:9; Matthew 5:42; Luke 6:30; 1 Timothy 6:18, 19
• 4. Ecclesiastes 11:8; Ecclesiastes 12:1

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "in, within"
• [b]. Lit "is"