But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him.
Ecclesiastes 9 opens with the Preacher sitting down to sift everything he has seen. He reaches two conclusions at once. God holds good and wise people, and all they do, in His hand. Yet nothing a person can watch here tells him whether God's love or God's hatred rests on him. So can we read God's dealings in this life like a scoreboard? And must a believer live in doubt?
Two Settled Points
The verse is not a shrug. One commentator finds two certainties here, set down after the Preacher had tested what present events can prove:
William KellyPresent events answer to God's government so little that no one can draw a right conclusion from them. Yet the Preacher lays down two truths beyond dispute: the righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; yet no man knows either love or hatred — the whole is before them. Outwardly the same end comes to all; one thing happens to bad and good.
The Book's Own Vantage Point
Ecclesiastes weighs life from one fixed standpoint. That is why love and hatred stay hidden here. The book looks at man's life from below:
Concise Bible DictionaryThe book describes actions as done "under the sun," with no thought of doing them towards God. It does not present man as being in direct relationship with God, though he is responsible to his Creator. The name of Jehovah does not occur even once.
Wisdom That Sees But Cannot Cure
Being in God's hand does not mean the wise man gets his reward now. One writer notes how soon people drop the wise man they turned to for help, and how little his wisdom can mend:
The Bible TreasuryHow often is justice now perverted! The righteous suffer, and the guilty go free... And the wise man, courted for his help in a time of pressing need, is forgotten once the hour of distress has passed. So wisdom may show its owner what is wrong, and make him feel the bitterness of it. All the while he knows he is powerless to correct it.
A Verse Pressed Into the Wrong Service
People have long quoted this sentence to prove that no one can be sure of God's favour. Commentators reject that use. One notes where the verse became a favourite text:
Samuel Ridout"No man knows either love or hatred by all that is before them" is a favourite verse in the church of Rome. According to Rome, the best of its people are going to purgatory. They are simply wandering in what does not belong to them, and their end is uncertainty.
Another writer answers that misuse directly. He points to the cross, where both love and hatred came into full view:
J. N. DarbyYour quotation from Ecclesiastes has no application to our Christian place. "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us." Do we not know evil in the world's rejection of Him, man's hatred against God? We know perfect love, and, sadly, perfect hatred, in the cross... Ecclesiastes takes up what is done under the sun — whether mortal man can find satisfying happiness here, and learns that all is vanity and frustration of spirit. It is not the revelation of grace in the Son of God.
What Changed Since the Preacher Wrote
The Preacher's uncertainty fitted where he stood. What ended it was not sharper observation of life here, but a revelation from above:
William KellySin has ruined and confused everything here below. The only wisdom and righteousness was to look to One above the ruin, Who stays the same for ever. Now that He has revealed Himself in His Son, this is far plainer. Death is the end of everything here below; but in Him is life, and those who believe have it in Christ.
Summary
- Hand — Start where the verse starts: God holds the righteous, the wise and all they do in His hand. That is the first of two points the Preacher lays down as beyond dispute.
- Hidden — The second point is that no one can read that hand from outside. Present events do not measure God's government. The same thing happens to the good and to the bad.
- Horizon — The reason lies in the book's viewpoint. It weighs everything "under the sun." Man is responsible to his Creator, but not in direct relationship with Him, and the name Jehovah never appears.
- Helpless — Within that horizon even wisdom is limited. It shows the wise man what is wrong and lets him feel the bitterness of it. He still cannot put it right, and people forget him once the crisis passes.
- Revealed — The cross ends the uncertainty. Love and hatred both came into full view there. So this verse maps man's search under the sun, not the grace God has now revealed in His Son.