What Does Ecclesiastes 3:7 Mean?
A time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to hush, and a time to speak.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;THE KEY
Rupture and repair, silence and speech are each real seasons; no one response defines the whole of life.
THE MEANING
Your life holds moments for tearing and moments for sewing, moments for silence and moments for speech. Each belongs to a season; none is permanent in itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wisdom always means silence, or that every rupture must be mended at once.
THE ROOT
לְדַבֵּר
ledabber
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; its related noun can mean a word or matter.
“speak” in this verse is ledabber. The same root gives Hebrew davar, “word” and “matter.” Speech carries substance, yet this verse gives it a season alongside silence.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter or thing.
דָּבָר
The shared root links speaking with what is spoken: speech has content, not merely sound.
dibbur: Speech or speaking.
דִּבּוּר
This noun keeps the act of speaking visible as a distinct season in the verse.
לִקְרֹעַ
liqroa
GROWS FROM
קרע
q-r-ʿ
To tear or rip.
The Hebrew names a concrete tearing. The verse allows rupture its own season, set beside sewing, without making the tear the final state.
ALSO GROWS
qera: A tear or rent.
קֶרַע
This noun carries the same concrete image of something torn.
qeri'ah: Rending or tearing.
קְרִיעָה
The verbal noun makes the act itself a named branch of the root.
THE PATTERN
Life contains appointed seasons for paired opposites, so neither response names the whole.
So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.A man has joy in the answer of his mouth, and a word in its season, how good it is!Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
A man has joy in the answer of his mouth, and a word in its season, how good it is!The Hebrew root דבר joins Ecclesiastes’ “speak” with Proverbs’ “word.” Proverbs opens the timing further: speech is not only a season, but a word that is good in its season.
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