Ecclesiastes Chapter Eleven, God: The Maker Of Everything

Ecclesiastes 11:3 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. [4] He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

This passage begins with a seeming common sense observation on the preacher’s part. It actually reminds me of that odd question one might get asked: If a tree falls in the middle of the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?

Verse 3 also seems like a pair of simple, straight forward, common sense comments. When the clouds are full of rain, they discharge their load upon the land again, continuing what we call the hydrologic cycle. The preacher already touched upon this subject in Ecclesiastes 1:7, succinctly yet accurately describing how water moves over the face of the earth.

The latter portion of the verse details the aforementioned fallen tree and where it lands. Like the hydrologic cycle, the eventual death and deterioration of vegetation feeds healthy forestation. And when it falls, there it lies; it is like saying, “what will be, will be.” There is perhaps a subtle fatalism or stoicism in the commentary.

Verse 4 speaks of both the observer and the regarder; in truth they are one and the same. Both are guilty of procrastination. They regard the face of the sky, and it seems like he is waiting for some sign. How do we know this? The preacher doesn’t say that the man simply watches or looks. He is observing and regarding. Simply waiting on a proper time will accomplish nothing of substance.

The moral of this passage is that procrastination will ultimately yield nothing to the man given to it. If we wait for the supposed right time to do something, that right time may never arrive, and its absence paralyzes him from ever doing anything, good or bad. Abstaining as we wait for the ideal circumstance can certainly be a cloak for cowardice or simple lethargy; both things I feel we can all admit to succumbing to from time to time. Like the rain-filled clouds and the fallen tree, the observer of the sky failing to reap is simply common sense. Rather than wait, put your hand to the job and do it with all your might.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 As you do not know what is 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.

One cannot approach this passage without immediately thinking about Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit,” John 3:8. We may feel the effect of the wind on our person or when it bends tree branches, but we cannot see the wind itself, and its current remains a mystery to the naked eye. Even modern science cannot see the wind, though we have made great progress in predicting weather patterns and how the wind goes about on its circuit.

Like the second birth, in which God the Holy Spirit indwells the believer and we are recipients of eternal life, it is an invisible thing, unseen by the naked eye. The first birth, or birth by water (John 3:5) is of course our physical birth, observable by man, and predictable via the act used to conceive a child. The second birth, or birth by the Spirit, is unobservable and its conception is entirely an act of God as His Spirit brings us to life. But like a man can feel the wind without seeing it, so too can we feel the rebirth without seeing it; our inner man is transformed as a new, spiritual nature awakens with desires that are contrary to the flesh. We begin to conduct ourselves in a manner contrary to our former life; this contrast is how the wind is felt, so to speak, without being seen. It assures us that it is there, without confirmation by the naked eye, see 1 John 3:19, for example.

It is worth noting that the Hebrew term for “wind” in this verse is the same term employed for “spirit.” The Holy Spirit then is represented in Scripture as invisible, unassailable, unknowable in His movements as He stirs or hardens the hearts of men. Sadly, the usage of this term has led certain cults, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to believe the word used for spirit only means breath when it applies to man. The idea then is that breath is a synonym for life, and that one’s breath represents the whole person, and when one’s breath is gone, life is absent and that man no longer exists. Scripture adequately refutes this fallacy, but cults that want power over their congregants will twist Scripture to compel people to remain in their cult. Christianity is not about shoehorning someone into a church mold…or else. It’s about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And it doesn’t matter if you fellowship with me, or go to a church with me, or believe absolutely everything I subscribe to. What matters is the gospel and our faith in the Lord. And we don’t need (and shouldn’t attempt to utilize) twisted Scripture and fear to compel people to remain in our group, because our group has, “the truth.” No, Jesus Christ is the truth, and if we believe the message of the gospel and have placed our faith in Him as Savior, He has us. We don’t need to have others to bring them into subjection to our thinking; we need to preach the gospel so the Holy Spirit may indwell believers and conform them to the image of God’s dear Son. That is why truth matters. That is why doctrine is critical, and letting the verse or term speak in its proper context equally so. We can’t know the truth, or speak the truth in love, when truth is corrupted and wrested from its intended meaning and purpose.

The preacher states that we do not know (and still do not know) how the bones of an infant grow within the womb of her who is with child. There is still, even today, so much about conception and how a child grows that is mysterious and marvellous. Indeed, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well,” Psalm 139:14, ESV. The preacher emphasizes the mystery of the wind’s motion and the child growing in the womb as two things beyond observational awareness. I also appreciate, as another aside, how the Scripture refers to a pregnant woman as being with child, giving the unborn baby the dignity of referring to them as human, rather than the clinical term, fetus. Our modern culture makes pregnancy too clinical, attributing terms that dehumanize infants so we can rest our consciences a little better as we murder them. But the Bible is clear: God considers the unborn child fully human, and killing them is tantamount to committing murder, Exodus 21:22, 23.

Finally, the third example the preacher gives regarding the unknowable things is God Himself. By the time we have reached the fifth word in Genesis, we come across the word, “created,” Genesis 1:1. The preacher elaborates, informing us that God created everything. John wrote, “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made,” John 1:3. In Hebrews we read, “through whom also He made the worlds,” Hebrews 1:2. The Psalmist added, “Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them,” Psalm 146:6. Of course the Bible begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” Genesis 1:1. This principle truth is reiterated in Exodus 20:11, when God is issuing the Ten Commandments to Israel.

Man does not, and cannot know, the works of God. They are infinite in scope and scale. Adam slept when God formed Eve, Genesis 1:21, 22. Yet the angels bore witness to material creation, and sang God’s praises, “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,” Job 38:7. We are not God’s equals, His peers. Of course we don’t know all that He does or is. Just as an animal does not comprehend a human rightly, the human race does not rightly grasp God. But we know enough. The Bible was given as a revelation of God’s purpose and person, culminating with the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins, to redeem us to God. We may not know the myriad works of God, but He has vouchsafed enough that through the message imparted and the evidence given, we may confidently trust Him, and by doing so receive eternal life.