Ecclesiastes 3:2

A time to be born, ¹  and a time to die; ²  a time to plant, and a time to uproot what was planted;

Ge 17:21; Ge 21:1,2; Ge 47:29; Nu 20:24-28; Nu 27:12-14; De 3:23-26; De 34:5; 1Sa 2:5; 1Ki 13:2; 2Ki 4:16; Job 7:1; Job 14:5,14; Ps 52:5; Ps 113:9; Isa 5:2-5; Isa 38:1,5; Isa 54:1; Jer 1:10; Jer 18:7-10; Jer 45:4; Mt 13:28,29,41; Mt 15:13; Lu 1:13,20,36; Joh 7:30; Joh 16:21; Ac 7:17,20; Ga 4:4; Heb 9:27

¹ tn The verb יָלָד (yalad, “to bear”) is used in the active sense of a mother giving birth to a child (HALOT 413 s.v. ילד; BDB 408 s.v. יָלָד). However, in light of its parallelism with “a time to die,” it should be taken as a metonymy of cause (i.e., to give birth to a child) for effect (i.e., to be born).

² sn In 3:2-8, Qoheleth uses fourteen sets of merisms (a figure using polar opposites to encompass everything in between, that is, totality), e.g., Deut 6:6-9; Ps 139:2-3 (see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 435).