Verse 11 expands on the theme of the task that God has assigned. By calling everything “beautiful,” it is clear Qoheleth does not view the task we have as a heavy or painful one, despite the fact that there are still many things we cannot comprehend.
He has made everything beautiful in its time: the subject He can only be God, so it is good to make that clear. By drawing the object of the verb “made” to the front of the sentence, Qoheleth is able to place heavy emphasis on everything. It is possible to do the same and say “Everything God has done…” or “All things God made….” The main consideration is to see what our own language pattern requires to emphasize “everything.”
Beautiful in its time is an unusual combination in English and reflects a literal translation of the Hebrew idiom. The term beautiful is used in other settings to describe a woman’s physical beauty (Songs 4.10 or 7.7) and so does not seem a proper description of time. Many translations use the word “appropriate” (for example New American Bible, Living Bible, Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible). Good News Translation uses “right” to describe the relationship of time and events; Revised English Bible suggests “… to suit its time,” while New Revised Standard Version uses “suitable.” Just as in the poem at the beginning of the chapter, so here the theme of matching events and times is important. We can see again how the poem and the ideas of this section are related, indicating that the purpose of the poem was to set the stage for this discussion. So we can translate as “God makes everything happen at its proper time” or “Everything God does he does when the time is right.”
Also he has put eternity into man’s mind: this clause has been discussed by scholars at great length because of disagreement about the meaning of the word eternity. For some scholars it means “the sum total of all time,” while others give it a meaning in terms of space rather than of time. Some think it means “obscurity.” This is based on the comments in the rest of the verse, which say that people cannot discover what God does, as well as on a related Ugaritic word meaning “hidden.” Then there are those who want to propose a change in the text to make it say “toil” or “darkness.” In Hebrew spoken at the time when Ecclesiastes was written, the term could also mean “the world,” and so Gordis suggests a translation “love of the world.” It is very clear, then, that there is no consensus about what the word means in its present context.
The view taken in this Handbook is that the general theme of “times,” which is the focus of this chapter, must be recognized. Furthermore, by retaining the more traditional sense of eternity, the text is quite meaningful. Whenever Qoheleth uses the word translated here as eternity in other settings (such as 1.4, 10; 2.16; 3.14; 9.6), it is with “eternal time” in view. We cannot be far from Qoheleth’s meaning if we assume that this is how he uses it here also, given the “time” framework. For this reason we assume that Qoheleth is arguing that God has placed an “awareness of things eternal” into the human mind. Good News Translation says “he has given us a desire to know the future” but we feel there is a difficulty with this, for although it is a general statement, it can be thought of as confined to this life only. Our position is that Qoheleth is even daring to think beyond this life as well.
There may be problems with translating the concept eternity in many cultural groups with different approaches to the notion of “time.” For many peoples time is thought of as cyclical, not linear. Thus the notion of time stretching into the future is meaningless, for they think of it as moving through the seasons and back again to begin anew. Additionally the view that “eternal” means “without any end” may not be entirely appropriate in this context. As far as we can tell, the Old Testament used the word ʿolam in the sense of time extending for a long period rather than time that never ends.
In “Translating Ecclesiastes,” page 5, there is a discussion of the meaning of yithron, where it is suggested that Qoheleth is asking about what happens to people after death. He probably does not think in terms of life going on without end, for he is not concerned about how long life is. Rather he seems to wonder whether there can be something real after death, and it is that, whatever it is, he calls “eternity.” Also we recall that Qoheleth is speaking in general terms about humanity as a whole, and not about the individual.
If using the term “eternity” is going to cause translators problems, then some other possibilities are “God makes us wonder how far time goes” or “God gives us a new idea of time.” The point is to make it clear that this present life is not the only dimension of time. The term does not have the sense of a life that is unending; such an idea appears much later and is not to be found in the Old Testament.
This idea has been put into man’s mind. On the use of the noun mind in this book, see comments on 1.13. Translators will need to find a word which refers to that part of the human body associated with thinking.
Yet so that he cannot find out what God has done: the opening phrase translated yet so that can actually give the sense of cause or purpose. Revised Standard Version so that suggests that God intended that people should never find out what he does. The meaning seems to be that, although we have the awareness of eternity, we are unable to find out anything about it. New American Bible “without man’s ever discerning…” takes this view also. There is one reference in 7.14 to the fact that God prevents us from finding out what he does, but that does not seem to be the case in our present text. In fact we must be very cautious about arguing that God actually prevents us from knowing something, because so much of what Qoheleth presents depends on knowing at least something about what God does; he has just said here that God has given people this notion of “eternity.” If there are things people cannot know or discover, it is our human limitations that prevent us from seeing and understanding. Thus conjunctions such as “yet,” and “but,” are to be preferred over “so that.” Alternatively the previous clause “God has put eternity…” can be expressed as a concessive clause, which is to say, “although God has…” or “even though God has….” This results in the following example for translation: “Though God has put a new understanding of time into the human mind, we can never….” We suggest using the pronoun “we” or “one” in this latter case, because it refers to the whole of humanity and not just to male persons.
Find out is a verb that will play an important role in other parts of this book, for example 8.16–9.12. It is a key verb in conveying Qoheleth’s theme about the limits to human understanding. Verbs like “comprehend” or “understand fully” may express this idea. The whole clause may be translated “a person will never discover all God does,” or as Good News Translation “a person will never fully understand all that God has done.”
From the beginning to the end is an adverbial phrase describing the full extent of what God has done. It does not only refer to time. A phrase like Chinese “from head to tail” is close to the Hebrew idiom. We can give its meaning as “what God has done throughout” or “the full extent of what God does.” Another possibility is to say “… to find out what God does, how he begins it and how he finishes it.”
Though the creation of the world is certainly included in the full scope of this verse, it is not referred to in particular. Therefore translators should not use an expression that is limited to the idea of creation but one that can include all that God does.
Two models for translation of the verse are:
• Everything God does, he does at the right time. He has planted the idea of eternity in people’s minds; yet they cannot take in [or, grasp] the full scope of God’s work.
• God does everything at an appropriate time. He gives human beings an idea of eternity; yet despite this we can never fully understand the extent of what God does.
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .