#Poem dash between birth death dates plus

I read an advertisement the other day for a Personal Life Clock on which you can set a date and time in the future and it then ticks backwards. And because of that, the Psalmist made it clear that we should number our days – keep alert to the passing of time – in order to present to God a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12). He has already determined the length of your dash. But you are not exactly sure when you are going to die. You know the day when you were born, and if you have girls you celebrate that day for an entire month. These are the bookends of life.vi Your birth certificate and your death certificate. Notice verse 2:Ī time to be born, and a time to die (Ecclesiastes 3:2). This includes your first breath in life and your last that is Solomon’s first couplet. The good, the bad, the sad, and the ugly - the totality of the life you live is in His control. So the title of this poem could be, “God has Designed your Dash”. It is as if Solomon is letting us know right off the bat that everything that happens in this time-bound universe – including your life – is under the authority and plan of God who rules in and from Heaven.

Instead of writing under the sun, this phrase is more positive, in fact, Solomon will write (in chapter 5:2) that God is in heaven. You might also notice that Solomon writes in verse 1 that there is a time for every matter under heaven. He has made everything suitable for the time He fits everything together in His ultimately beautiful design.v It might not suit us at the time, but it is suited for and fitting into His purposes. You could render that word beautiful as fitting or suitable. He will write in verse 11, that God is in charge of every season – He has made everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This poetic device is called merism, where each phrase couples together polar opposites, such as birth and death, weeping and laughing, sewing and reaping.iv And the idea is to suggest the totality of life, birth and death, sewing and reaping, and everything in between.īut the ultimate goal of Solomon is not pessimistic here. The poem is composed of fourteen pairs of opposites.

#Poem dash between birth death dates plus

The word, time, will appear 28 times, plus once in his opening comment in verse 1. Solomon is obviously focused on the subject of time. In fact, Seeger would later send a portion of his royalties to Israel.iii Evidently he acknowledged that it was Israel’s former king who wrote the original lyrics. Their song copied all but six words right from Ecclesiastes chapter 3. When you hear these opening lines, if you are old enough, you are not thinking about Solomon, you are thinking about Pete Seeger and the Byrds singing, “Turn, Turn, Turn.” Their song popularized Solomon’s poem whether people knew about Solomon or not. In chapter 3:1, you are introduced to the world’s most famous poem on the subject of time which represents life.iiįor everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1). He describes in general terms all that can happen in the space of that little dash, which represents your life and mine. If you will turn to the Book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon has written a poem about life as well. He then spoke of the following date with tears He noted that, first came the date of birth He referred to the dates on the tombstone The poet was struck by the fact that inscribed on a tombstone is the person’s year of birth and then his year of death separated by a little dash, and that brief dash represents his entire life. Several months ago I was sent a copy of a poem that I tucked away in my files. But peace will be woven through it all only when we live each day with the perspective of the Divine security we have through Jesus Christ. Between our birth and death, there will be times to dance and mourn, to plant and reap, to gain and to lose.

By contrasting opposite experiences of life's journey, he asserts that every aspect and activity is God-designed and purposeful. Here, King Solomon interrupts his journal with a poem that may be familiar to some of us.