He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom the work that God has done from beginning to end.
Parallel translations
- WEB He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end.
- KJV He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
- NKJV He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
- NASB He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.
- NLT Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God makes everything beautiful in its time and sets eternity in human hearts, yet we cannot fully grasp His work. We sense a longing for the eternal even as our understanding remains limited.
Overview
This profound verse affirms that God orders all things fittingly and has planted within us a yearning for eternity. Yet He withholds full comprehension of His plan, leaving room for faith. The 'eternity in their hearts' explains our restlessness with mere earthly satisfaction and points to the God who alone fills it, supremely revealed in Christ who brings life and immortality to light.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Rom 1:19–20For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
- Rom 11:33O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!
- Job 11:7Can you fathom the deep things of God or discover the limits of the Almighty?
- Eccl 8:17I saw every work of God, and that a man is unable to comprehend the work that is done under the sun. Despite his efforts to search it out, he cannot find its meaning; even if the wise man claims to know, he is unable to comprehend.
- Job 5:9the One who does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number.
- Mark 7:37The people were utterly astonished and said, “He has done all things well! He makes even the deaf hear and the mute speak!”
- Ps 104:24How many are Your works, O LORD! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.
- Gen 1:31And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
- Eccl 7:29Only this have I found: I have discovered that God made men upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”
- Deut 32:4He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.
- Matt 13:22The seed sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
- Rom 1:28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
- Matt 11:27All things have been entrusted to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.
- Job 37:23The Almighty is beyond our reach; He is exalted in power! In His justice and great righteousness He does not oppress.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.
How Ecclesiastes 3:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.