Bird's-eye view
Here the Preacher brings us to one of the central pillars of his entire argument. Having established the cyclical nature of life under the sun and the inability of man to find ultimate satisfaction in his own works, he now turns our attention upward. The solution to the vexing realities of our existence is not found by trying to untangle every knot, but by recognizing the hand of the one who tied them. This passage is a dense theological statement on the absolute sovereignty of God over both the pleasant and the painful circumstances of our lives. It is a call to theological realism. God is God, and we are not. He makes things crooked, and He sends both prosperity and adversity. Our task is not to straighten His work or to demand an explanation for His methods, but rather to learn the appropriate response in every season: cheerful gratitude in the good times and sober consideration in the bad. Ultimately, God orchestrates all things this way to keep us humble, to keep us dependent, and to prevent us from the arrogant folly of thinking we can master our own fate or predict the future.
This is practical Calvinism for the man on the street. It is the application of God's exhaustive sovereignty to the lived reality of our days. The crookedness of life is not a sign of God's absence but a clear display of His work. The unpredictable rhythm of good and evil days is not cosmic chaos but a divine curriculum designed to teach us wisdom. And the end goal of this curriculum is that we would stop looking for answers "under the sun" and learn to fear the Lord, who is over the sun.
Outline
- 1. The Divine Tangler and the Human Straightener (Eccl 7:13-14)
- a. The Unalterable Work of God (Eccl 7:13)
- b. The Appropriate Response to God's Providence (Eccl 7:14a)
- i. Cheer in Prosperity
- ii. Consideration in Adversity
- c. The Theological Reason for God's Methods (Eccl 7:14b)
Context In Ecclesiastes
This passage sits within a broader section (chapters 6-8) where the Preacher is applying the doctrine of God's sovereignty to the problem of vanity. In the opening chapters, he demonstrated that from a purely horizontal, "under the sun" perspective, life is a chasing after the wind. In chapters 3-5, he introduced the vertical reality: God is in heaven, and He is sovereign over all the times and seasons. Now, in this central portion of the book, he brings these two truths together. If life is full of frustrating realities (vanity) and God is in complete control (sovereignty), then what? Verses 13 and 14 are the Preacher's direct answer. The frustrations themselves are part of God's design. This is not a detour from the main argument but rather its very heart. The inscrutable nature of God's providence is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be embraced, and the proper embrace of it is the beginning of wisdom.
Key Issues
- The Sovereignty of God in Providence
- The Problem of Evil and Suffering
- Human Inability and Dependence
- The Nature of True Wisdom
- Living Faithfully in an Unpredictable World
God Draws Straight with Crooked Lines
One of the central messages of Scripture, and of the Reformed faith, is that God is exhaustively sovereign. This means He is not just in charge of the big picture, but He is meticulously superintending every last detail. As we like to say, God draws straight with crooked lines. Our lives are the crooked lines. Our sins, our follies, the unexpected tragedies, the baffling injustices, all of it. From our vantage point, it looks like a tangled mess. But from His eternal perspective, He is using every bit of it to draw a perfectly straight line to His foreordained and glorious end.
This passage in Ecclesiastes is a blunt statement of this very truth. The Preacher tells us to "See the work of God." Look at it. Consider it. Don't look away. And what is this work? It is making things crooked that we, in our finitude, think ought to be straight. We are constantly trying to play God, to fix our circumstances, to manage our outcomes. And God, in His wisdom, introduces providences into our lives that we simply cannot fix. He does this to break us of our pride, to teach us that He is God and we are not, and to drive us to a place of humble trust. The crookedness is not a divine mistake; it is a divine tactic.
Verse by Verse Commentary
13 See the work of God, For who is able to straighten what He has bent?
The imperative here is to See. This is not a casual glance. It means to consider, to ponder, to reckon with the reality of God's operations in the world. And what is the primary exhibit we are to consider? The fact that God bends things. He introduces circumstances, events, and realities into our lives that are "crooked." This could be a chronic illness, a rebellious child, a financial hardship, an injustice at work. It is anything that defies our sense of how things "ought" to be. It is a disruption to our neat and tidy plans. Then comes the rhetorical question, which expects a resounding "no one." Who can make it straight? You can't. Your therapist can't. The government can't. If God Himself is the one who bent it, then no human effort can straighten it out. This is a frontal assault on the bootstrap mentality of fallen man. It forces us to confront our creaturely limits. The beginning of wisdom is not figuring out how to straighten the crooked thing, but rather acknowledging the hand of the One who bent it and asking what He intends to teach us through it.
14a In the day when there is good be of good cheer, But in the day when there is evil see,
Having established the unalterable nature of God's providence, the Preacher now gives the practical application. Since you cannot change the fundamental circumstances God has ordained, you must learn to change your response to them. He divides all of life into two basic categories: the day of good (prosperity, health, joy) and the day of evil (adversity, sickness, sorrow). The instruction for the good day is simple: be of good cheer. Enjoy it. Receive it as a gift from God's hand. Don't ruin a sunny day by worrying about the forecast for tomorrow. This is not hedonism; it is grateful piety. God gives us good things to enjoy, and it is an offense to His generosity when we refuse to do so. The instruction for the evil day is different. It is not "despair," but rather see. The same word as in the previous verse. Consider. Reflect. Understand that this day, too, comes from the hand of God. Don't treat it as a random accident or a cosmic fluke. See it as part of God's work.
14b God has made the one as well as the other So that man will not find out anything that will be after him.
This is the theological bedrock for the whole passage. Why does God checker our lives with both good and evil? Why not just uninterrupted bliss? Because He is a good Father, and He is training His children. The text says plainly that God has made the one as well as the other. He is the author of both the day of prosperity and the day of adversity. This is hard doctrine for our sentimental age, but it is biblical bedrock (Job 2:10; Isa 45:7). He appoints both, sets them alongside each other. And the reason given is profound: so that man will not find out anything that will be after him. God arranges our lives in this unpredictable way to keep us from being able to predict, and therefore control, the future. If life were a simple formula, if righteousness always led to immediate prosperity and sin to immediate trouble, we would quickly become arrogant Pharisees. We would think we had the system figured out. We would start to trust the formula instead of trusting God. By mixing the providences, God demolishes our pride and forces us to live by faith, not by sight. He keeps us dependent, looking to Him for our daily bread, unable to boast about what tomorrow will bring. This uncertainty is a great mercy; it is the tether that keeps us close to the heart of God.
Application
The application of this text is intensely practical. First, we must repent of our idolatrous desire for control. Much of our anxiety and frustration comes from our futile attempts to straighten what God has bent. We need to confess our pride and accept our creaturely status. Your life is not a problem to be solved; it is a story being written by a sovereign Author. Your job is to trust the Author, not to grab the pen from His hand.
Second, we must learn the discipline of appropriate response. When God gives you a sunny day, laugh. Eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart. Thank Him for His kindness. When He sends a day of adversity, don't shake your fist at the heavens. Instead, "see." Ask yourself what God is teaching you. What idol is He exposing? What sin is He mortifying? What character trait is He forging in you? Both days are from Him, and both are for your ultimate good.
Finally, all of this finds its ultimate resolution in the gospel. The most crooked event in human history was the crucifixion of the only truly straight man who ever lived. At the cross, the ultimate "day of evil" befell the Son of God. And God, in His infinite wisdom, used that crooked, evil act to draw the straightest line imaginable, the line of our redemption. He took the greatest injustice and turned it into the foundation of all true justice. Because of the cross, we know that God is not just sovereign, but He is sovereignly good. We can therefore trust Him with all the crooked lines in our own lives, knowing that He is working all things together for good for those who love Him, for those who are called according to His purpose.