Ecclesiastes 11

This week I am going to look at a few versus from Ecclesiastes 11.

Verse one is an often quoted verse regarding witnessing and the sowing of the seed of the Word of God, but if a closer look is taken at the proceeding verses it can be seen that much of the passage teaches us about this very important subject: so let's take a closer look. I will look at a verse per day.


Verse 1.

The word 'cast' (Strong's 7971) is an obvious allusion to the sowing of the seed of God's word in the hearts of mankind. The Hebrew for this word is 'SHALACH' and it is given in what is known as the 3^rd conjugation. This has significant interest for us in unlocking the meaning of this passage in terms of its urgency regarding the lost souls of our fellow men. The 3^rd conjugation gives a meaning of diligence or rigorousness; thus this passage is not speaking of an idle half-hearted spreading of the gospel, but rather a hearty diligent endeavour to win the lost.

What we are to cast is 'thy bread'. Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35). In the parable of the sower he is sowing seed to gain a harvest. It is interesting to note that the passage states 'thy bread'; that is the bread belongs to us – it is personal to us. In other words before we can give out the word of God, we must first be partakers of it – we must be believers. Where we are to cast our bread is 'upon the waters'. The Hebrew can also be translated as 'upon the face of the waters'. The same word is used in Genesis 1:2. Scripturally waters (amongst other things) typify nations and peoples (e.g. and he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues Rev 17:15) thus, although we cannot reach every person in this world with the gospel, the term 'face of the waters' represents our sphere of influence in the world -  the few people we will come into contact with as we live out our lives and try to reach as many as we can, even though this will only be scratching the surface of the waters and not plumbing the depths of the billions of people who live on Earth. As we live out our lives in this vein we have a promise from God that the bread shall be found after many days. This promise is given to encourage us so that we will not become discouraged when results from our labours are not seen, but rather that we should patiently wait for the seed of God's word to germinate in the hearts of those we have witnessed to. 

Tomorrow I will at verse 2.