Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

[providence]

Ecclesiastes 11:1: "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days." (ESV)

What does this verse mean to you? Can you provide examples (in the Bible or in your life)?

 

[evenifigoalone]

I was always taught that it meant that if you give something for others, it will come back to you eventually. Those people will help you when you are in need, just as you helped them in their need. Something like that.

 

[farouk]

I was always taught that it meant that if you give something for others, it will come back to you eventually. Those people will help you when you are in need, just as you helped them in their need. Something like that.

[MENTION=89910]questdriven[/MENTION]:

When the same principle is seen in the light of the way the Scriptures have influence and work, Isaiah 55.11 has a similar idea, really.

Blessings.

 

[Tony Hyman]

To me its a very wide question open to many interpretations in the context of the ostensibly negative spirit of what the Philosopher means in this book. Both the K.J.V and the N.I.V. speak of "casting bread upon the water "while T.E.V. Good News says "Invest your money in foreign trade, and one of these days you will profit."That is how T.E.V. view the concept .I would percieve it as merely throwing seeds or crumbs to the benifit of those less fortunate .Like throwing seeds to birds and the joy of simply caring and giving.

This element of "joy in giving" is mentioned in the N.I.V Study Bible in their commentary (there might be others) ,here N.I.V. hold the view regarding 11:1-8 means "Life involves some uncirtainties and risks .No one understands God's work in the world completely.Hardwork does not guarentee success .How do we respond to such a world?The beginning point is to do our assigned work with hope for some success and to share with others in humility, knowing someday we may need help.Whatever we do should be enjoyable " Unquote in other words from the heart ,as I see it.Many give in order to impress for self vestid interest see Christ's caution to the Pharisees in Matthew 6 1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness ' before men , to be seen by them.... 3.But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."N.I.V.

N.I.V . Refer to Deutoronomy 24.19 where this casting in a non-counting way is expected of God's children, although under the Levitcal Laws of that time."When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf , do not go back to get it.Leave it for the alien ,the fatherless and the widow."This was when foreigners were with the Jews after they entered the Promised Land.I would see this as not being stingy with what God has givern you anyway.
We find an example of these less fortunate in Ruth 2:21 in the story how she met Boaz ,when she was what is known a "gleaner" ,widows or needy who were encouraged to pick up scraps of wheat while the main harvesting was taking place .Ladies like Ruth would work long hours in the sun in order to bake a silmple loaf of bread when they back home (See eople Of the Bible Readers Digest.)I believe there is a lot to be learnt and appreciated in the verse Ecl 11:1. Thanks for presenting it.

 

[Maedchen]

Ecclesiastes 11:1: "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days." (ESV)

What does this verse mean to you? Can you provide examples (in the Bible or in your life)?

Dear providence,

casting bread upon the waters is perhaps intended to imply an act of grace, or of charity, given in a way, as our Lord has marked, so secret that the left hand does not know what the right hand does (Mat. 6:3).
Like seed sown in the field, it keeps hid for a while. It's product is in future, not now.

An example from my life came into my mind after reflecting the verse.
It is an example which hopefully most people can understand, regardless whether being a parent or simply the child of their parents.

I think of a mother or a father who raises his/ her child. There is much love, actual work, patience, understanding and effort of various kind to be given to a little one, in order to provide a happy childhood and a guidance that would help the child growing up to an adult who walks in the path that pleases God.

The effort your mom and your dad put into you as a child, for example, might illustrate my thought.
When you were a baby, your mom probably woke up in the night to feed you or soothe your tummy pain. Nobody except God saw every single good work that she did for you. It was done secretly out of love.
In the same manner your daddy might have listened to you when you had little problems that had to be solved by daddy.
Even when he would have more liked to do things of his own interest, he still gave his time to you, out of love.

Neither your mom, nor your dad saw the "product", the outcome of their labor at once. But every single caring deed of them formed you into the precious person that you are today.

And so everyone of us is showing in some way the "bread that was cast upon the waters", hopefully making our parents smile.

May God bless you, dear providence.
Love, Rose

 

[providence]

Perhaps like Mordecai who raised Esther (Esther 2:7) and saved the king (Esther 2:21-22) and who unlike Haman sought, and for a long time received, no recognition (Esther 6:3), but these events saved his own life (Esther 6:4) as well as those of all the Jews by the values he instilled in Esther (Esther 4:13-17).

Perhaps also like Hebrews 11:1, where Abraham's faith was in the things unseen and even died having not received all things promised (Hebrews 11:13), things to be seen rather by future generations, for the glory of God.

 

[farouk]

I always think that church work with kids in Sunday School is like this: if they learn about the love of the Lord Jesus while they are young, and memorize Scripture, it can become a blessing to them in later years when they remember.