Commentary - Ecclesiastes 11:1-6

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher turns from his observations on the inscrutable nature of God's providence to the practical application of how a wise man lives in light of it. Having established that life under the sun is vapor and that man cannot discover the whole work of God, the temptation would be to slide into a kind of cynical paralysis or a tight-fisted hoarding. But Solomon counsels the opposite. The very uncertainty of life, which is a source of despair for the unbeliever, becomes for the man of faith the necessary backdrop for robust, generous, and diligent action. This is not a blind leap into the dark, but rather a confident stride into a world governed entirely by a sovereign and good God. The message is straightforward: because you don't know everything, you must act in faith. Because you cannot control outcomes, you must trust the One who does. This is a call to a life of calculated, godly risk, a life of open-handed generosity and tireless labor, all grounded in the humble recognition that God is God, and we are not.

This passage is a direct assault on the sort of anxious, controlling spirit that refuses to act until all variables are accounted for. Such a spirit is a manifestation of unbelief, a practical atheism that wants to be its own little god, sovereign over its own little portfolio. The Preacher demolishes this by pointing to the mysteries of meteorology and embryology, reminding us that we are creatures, not the Creator. The conclusion is not inaction, but rather joyful, faithful, and constant action. We are to cast our bread, divide our portions, and sow our seed from morning to night, leaving the results entirely in the hands of the one who "works all things."

Outline

Faithful Action in a Vaporous World

Throughout this book, Solomon has been systematically dismantling our pretensions to control. Life under the sun is hebel, a chasing after the wind. You cannot grasp it, bottle it, or predict it. From the cycles of nature to the injustices of human courts, we are confronted with our finitude. The modern secular man, when he begins to suspect this, either despairs into nihilism or doubles down on his frantic attempts to manage every risk and guarantee every outcome. He buys another insurance policy for his insurance policy.

But the man who fears God takes a different route. He sees the vanity of the world not as a bug, but as a feature. It is designed to drive us out of ourselves and onto God. God has set eternity in our hearts, but in such a way that we cannot find out His work from beginning to end (Eccl 3:11). This is not a cosmic cruelty; it is the necessary environment for faith to breathe. And here in chapter 11, we see what that faith looks like when it puts its boots on. It is not passive resignation. It is active, generous, and industrious. It is the cheerful confidence of a man who knows that while he cannot command the wind or the rain, he serves the one who does.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

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

The Preacher opens with a command that sounds, on the surface, like terrible business advice. Throw your bread, your substance, your livelihood, onto the water. This is the opposite of clutching it to your chest. This is an act of faith-filled recklessness. The image is likely drawn from maritime trade, sending out ships laden with grain, an enterprise fraught with risk. You send it out, and for a long time, it is simply gone. You have no control over the storms, the pirates, or the foreign markets. But the promise is that "after many days," you will find it. There will be a return. This is the foundational principle of godly investment. It requires a release of control. True generosity, true kingdom enterprise, feels like a loss at the time. You are casting your bread on the waters, not into a lockbox. But the God who governs the currents of the sea is the same God who governs the currents of providence. He ensures the return. This is not a sterile mathematical formula, but a promise to be believed. We give, we send, we invest, we preach, we love, and we do it all knowing that the immediate result is out of our hands. The results are in God's hands, and His hands are good.

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

This continues the theme of wise, risk-taking enterprise. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. The reason given is our ignorance of the future. "You do not know what calamity may occur." This is not the advice of a nervous agnostic trying to hedge his bets. This is the advice of a robust believer who takes God's sovereignty and human ignorance seriously. Because God is in control of all calamities, and because He has not given us the blueprint, wisdom dictates that we diversify. We should spread our efforts, our investments, our generosity. This applies to our finances, but also to our evangelistic and cultural efforts. We support the local church, we fund missions, we build schools, we create art, we engage in politics. We divide our portion to seven, or even to eight. The numbers seven and eight simply indicate a full and generous diversity. The man who thinks he has inside knowledge of the future will put everything on one horse. The man who knows he walks by faith will act prudently, spreading his seed widely, trusting God for which plot of ground will yield a hundredfold.

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

Here the Preacher points to the fixed realities of the natural world, which operate according to God's established decrees. When the clouds are full, they will rain. It is what they are for. When a great tree falls, it's down. You don't get to argue with it. These are brute facts of existence. There is a givenness to the world that we must accept. We cannot wish the rain back into the clouds, and we cannot nudge the fallen tree to a more convenient location. The point is that there are certain processes in God's world that are simply going to run their course. Our job is not to fret about them or try to alter them, but to act in accordance with them. The clouds being full is not a reason to stay inside and worry about getting wet; it is the condition for the ground to be watered for the seed you are about to sow. The fallen tree is not an invitation to a metaphysical debate; it is a fact on the ground to be dealt with. This is a call to robust realism. Acknowledge the way the world works and get on with your own work.

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

This is the proverb that nails the procrastinator to the wall. It gets to the heart of what is wrong with the anxious, risk-averse spirit. The man who waits for perfect conditions will wait forever. If you are waiting for the wind to be perfectly calm before you sow your seed, you will never get it in the ground. If you are constantly looking at the clouds, worried that it might rain on your harvest, you will never bring the sheaves in. This is the paralysis of analysis. It is a form of unbelief that masquerades as prudence. The farmer's task is to sow and to reap in the seasons God has given. He is not in charge of the weather. To make the weather his primary concern is to usurp God's role, and the result is impotence and poverty. In the Christian life, how many ministries have never been started, how many gospel conversations have never been had, how many acts of generosity have been withheld, because someone was "watching the wind?" We are called to be faithful sowers, not amateur meteorologists.

v. 5 Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the work of God who works all things.

Solomon now drives his point home by appealing to two profound mysteries. First, the path of the wind. We can measure it and track it, but we do not fundamentally understand or control its "path." Second, and even more profoundly, the mystery of life itself: how a skeleton is knit together in the womb. These are things that happen right under our noses, and yet they are utterly beyond our comprehension and control. If we cannot grasp these observable marvels, how can we possibly expect to understand the full scope of "the work of God who works all things?" This is the checkmate. You are not God. You are not on the divine board of directors. You are a creature, and your world is filled with mysteries that should produce humility and awe, not anxiety and inaction. The fact that God "works all things" is the central truth of the universe. Our inability to trace all His methods is the corresponding reality of our creaturehood. The proper response is to bow the head and then get to work, trusting the Master Designer.

v. 6 Sow your seed in the morning and do not put your hands down in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.

This is the grand conclusion of the argument. What do you do in a world of mystery governed by a sovereign God? You work. You work constantly. You sow in the morning, and you don't quit at noon. You keep your hand to the plow until evening. The reason is the same one that has run through the whole passage: your ignorance. "You do not know" which of your efforts will bear fruit. Will it be the seed you sowed in the morning, or the seed you sowed in the evening? You have no idea. Perhaps both will do well. Since you don't know, the only faithful course of action is to sow at every opportunity. This is a call to relentless, industrious, persevering faithfulness. Don't try to outsmart providence. Just do the next thing. Preach the word in season and out of season. Be generous on Tuesday and on Thursday. Work diligently on your business plan in your youth and in your middle age. Because you don't know which endeavor God has ordained to bless, you must be faithful in all of them. The outcome is God's department. The sowing is yours.

Application

The central temptation for serious Christians in a chaotic world is to retreat into a defensive crouch. We see the calamities, we watch the wind, we look at the clouds, and we decide that the safest thing to do is to do nothing. This passage is God's cattle prod to get us moving.

Our ignorance of the future is not a license for inaction, but the very reason for faithful, risk-taking action. You don't know if your business will succeed? Cast your bread anyway. You don't know which child will walk with the Lord? Divide your portion and teach them all the catechism. You don't know if the culture is too far gone? Sow your seed in the morning and don't be idle in the evening.

This is the essence of a life lived by faith. It is not about having all the answers, but about trusting the One who is the Answer. God has given us cans of peaches, glorious opportunities and blessings. But He has also given us the can opener, which is the gift of faith to enjoy this vaporous life, to work hard in it, and to be outrageously generous with what He has given us. The world thinks this is foolishness. But we know that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. So let us be fools for Christ. Let's cast our bread upon the waters.