John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Ecclesiastes 3:3
A time to kill, and a time to heal ,.... A time to kill may be meant of a violent death, as a time to die is of a natural one; so the Targum, "a time to kill in war;' or else, by the hand of the civil magistrate, such who deserve death. Aben Ezra interprets it "to wound", because of the opposite "to heal"; and so there is a time when wounds and diseases are incurable, and baffle all the skill of the physician, being designed unto death; and there is a time when, by the blessing of God on... read more
Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Ecclesiastes 3:1-10
The scope of these verses is to show, 1. That we live in a world of changes, that the several events of time, and conditions of human life, are vastly different from one another, and yet occur promiscuously, and we are continually passing and repassing between them, as in the revolutions of every day and every year. In the wheel of nature (Jas. 3:6) sometimes one spoke is uppermost and by and by the contrary; there is a constant ebbing and flowing, waxing and waning; from one extreme to the... read more