Ecclesiastes 3:1, 2 speaks of “a time to die.” But, showing that this is not a predetermined fixed moment for the individual, Ecclesiastes 7:17 counsels: “Do not be wicked overmuch, nor become foolish. Why should you die when it is not your time?” Proverbs 10:27 says: “The years themselves of the wicked ones will be cut short.” And Psalm 55:23 adds: “As for bloodguilty and deceitful men, they will not live out half their days.” What, then, does Ecclesiastes 3:1, 2 mean? It is simply discussing the continuous cycle of life and death in this imperfect system of things. There is a time when people are born and a time when they die—usually at not more than 70 or 80 years of age, but sometimes sooner and sometimes later.—Ps. 90:10; see also Ecclesiastes 9:11.
When God created Adam, did he know that Adam would sin?
Here is what God set before Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” “And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’” (Gen. 1:28; 2:16, 17) Would you encourage your children to undertake a project with a marvelous future, knowing from the start that it was doomed to failure? Would you warn them of harm, while knowing that you had planned everything so that they were sure to come to grief? Is it reasonable, then, to attribute such to God?
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