Ecclesiastes 11:5-6

5 Just as you don't know the path of the wind, or how bones [develop] in^[a] the womb of a pregnant woman, so you don't know the work of God who makes everything.^[b]

6 In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hand rest, because you don't know which will succeed, whether one or the other, or if both of them will be equally good.

Ecclesiastes 11:5-6 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or know how the life-breath comes to the bones in
• [b]. Jb 10:10-11; Ps 139:14-16; Jn 3:6-8