A Time to Kill, a Time to Heal

The verse belongs to a famous poem in the book of Ecclesiastes, where the sage lists the times of existence: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 There follow fourteen pairs of opposites that run through the whole of human life: to be born and to die, to plant and to uproot, to weep and to laugh, to keep silence and to speak. In their midst comes the harshest word: “a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.” Ecclesiastes 3:3

Set beside the commandment “You shall not kill,” this word stops the reader: does Scripture grant a time to kill?

The gaze of the sage

The poem casts a gaze on the unfolding of life. Each thing has its moment, and no season lasts for ever; man passes through them without setting their course, for they are given to him. The sage observes what happens under the sun, the life of man within the limits of this world, where the seasons turn and return. He describes what he sees. When he names a time to kill, he states what runs through the history of men, without granting anyone the right to take life. Mastery of these times belongs to God alone, who holds them and orders them.

The meaning of a difficult word

The commandment is often known in the form “You shall not kill.” In English, the word “kill” covers any taking of life. The commandment, for its part, has one precise thing in view: murder, the unjust taking of an innocent life. The text says it exactly: “You shall not murder.” Exodus 20:13 Its gravity is extreme, for the life of man bears within it the image of God: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.” Genesis 9:6 The blood of the innocent cries out to God, like that of Abel rising from the ground: “The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.” Genesis 4:10

The poem, for its part, uses a broader word. It embraces the times when life is taken without there being murder: in the war that defends a people, in the protection of the threatened innocent, in the exercise of justice. These times belong to the history of a world wounded by sin, where life must sometimes be defended at the price of blood. The word of the sage and the commandment thus accord fully: the one observes the seasons of a fallen world, the other keeps inviolable the life of the innocent.

Everything beautiful in its time

Once the word is understood, it takes its place among the times that God orders. At the close of the poem, the sage discovers their source: “He has made everything beautiful in its time; he has also put eternity into the heart of man.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 Even the harshest hours are held by a hand that makes them beautiful at the appointed moment, and in the heart of man there abides the desire for something that does not pass away.

The fullness of time

These times find their centre in Christ: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son.” Galatians 4:4 In him, the desire for eternity receives its answer, and the darkest time of the poem is passed through by God himself. At the hour when men put the Innocent to death, with no word to excuse it, God draws from that shed blood the healing of the world, through the death and resurrection of his Son.

The poem of Ecclesiastes thus leads to a peace: no season of life, even the harshest, escapes the hand of God. Everything has its time, and all times are held by the one who made them and who, in Christ, leads them toward eternity.